Alberto, a pseudonym, remembers his journey to the United States in 1990 well: He sprinted across the border from Tijuana to San Ysidro, California.⁠
⁠
While Alberto worked an under-the-table job at a car wash, he learned how to get a legal work permit: volunteering as a confidential informant for immigration enforcement. ⁠
⁠
He soon started as an undercover informant for federal agents. This meant working short stints at farms across the Central Valley, collecting names of undocumented workers working on the ranches in exchange for fake green cards.⁠
⁠
Now, after 36 years building a life in Fresno, he, too, has been swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. ⁠
⁠
In October, Alberto was arrested at a green card interview. He was released but then re-arrested at another scheduled immigration appointment in Fresno a month later, court documents show. ⁠
⁠
Alberto, the onetime informant who’d helped federal agents arrest other undocumented immigrants, never imagined it would happen to him. ⁠
⁠
“I understood I would be protected,” he told Mission Local. But he wasn’t. ⁠
⁠
Read more from Clara-Sophia Daly at the link in bio. ⁠
⁠
🖼️: Neil G. Ballard