Farmworkers in hiding. Families in waiting. All of them surrounded.

Last Thursday, federal agents conducted one of the Trump administration’s largest mass-deportation raids so far in Camarillo, California. Over several hours at the marijuana farm known as the Glass House, agents detained more than 200 immigrants. As Border Patrol combed the farm, workers who picked its crops went into hiding in lockers and bushes. Jaime Alanis Garcia, of Mexico, fell from a rooftop and subsequently died of his injuries.

Meanwhile, family and friends of those trapped inside rushed to the perimeter, which was manned by California National Guard troops under federal control. The soldiers were armed with batons, tear gas, stinger bombs, and riot guns. A few in the front had assault rifles, their fingers near the triggers. Protestors waved Mexican and American flags as families pleaded to go inside, and they clashed with a pro-raid protester before chasing him away. One woman was in contact with her niece, who photographed agents walking toward the door where she and her co-workers were hiding. “I’m scared they are going to get me,” she told her aunt.

The scene grew tense as helicopters and ambulances kicked up dust clouds. A rumor ran through the crowd that agents were sneaking detainees out by using emergency vehicles as a disguise, but protesters moved one another out of the way so the vehicles could make it through. As the sun began to set, a line of pedestrian cars formed behind the agents headed out of the farm. There was a burst of applause when Border Patrol started to let people leave one by one. Each passing car was met with reporters rushing to their windows for an interview and protestors, who were handing off water and food to the drivers. One driver reached through a shattered window to grab a taco. “ICE did that,” he told me. “ICE smashed my window.”

A man screamed at the guards, “How can you do this to hardworking people?! To families! When your children look you in your eyes, they will know what you have done! You should be out looking for those missing kids in Texas, but instead you’re here!”

After the National Guard and Border Patrol left at 11:30 p.m., an hour and a half after their warrant expired, families ran to the gates of the Glass House, where a line began to form. I asked a teenager there, whose cousin worked inside, if he had heard from him. “No, I think they got him,” he replied. When I told him I was sorry, he let out a sigh and said matter-of-factly, “This is how it goes for us out here. It is what it is.”

Security began letting people out in waves: Three to five men or women would run out the gate, sometimes turning around to find family waiting to hold them. This went on for hours. Around 2 a.m., I saw two tiny beams in the field, bobbing up and down, followed by a car’s high beams. Two men appeared, running as fast as they could as the car illuminated their path. Turning a corner, they slowed down, each wrapping one arm around the other’s shoulder. They walked off and caught their breath for what looked like the first time in a long time.