Local politicians ignore the marijuana industry’s ugly underbelly

July 21, 2025

OPINION by ANDY CALDWELL

As the saying goes, our elected officials are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Pretty much every single south Santa Barbara County politico including supervisors Roy Lee, Joan Hartman and Laura Capps, Congressman Salud Carbajal, and District Attorney John Savrnoch, to name just a few, has expressed outlandish and irresponsible rhetorical outrage at the ICE investigation involving Glass House pot operations in Carpinteria and Camarillo.

What these politicians have collectively omitted while pontificating against the evils of ICE is the fact that our federal government has three inviolate priorities as it affects deporting illegal aliens until such a time that Congress and the current administration fix our broken system.

The first priority of ICE is to deport convicted criminals and others who have already received their final orders to deport. A second priority is rescuing the hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors who disappeared after having crossed the border as it is expected that the vast majority of these children are being trafficked.

A third priority of the federal government is shutting down cartel-related business enterprises in our country, those that appear legal, and those that are engaged in violence, illicit drug sales, and human trafficking, including prostitution of children.

Unfortunately, for all the people blasting the feds for the Glass House raid, some honest members of the media are reporting that Glass House may have checked all three boxes as it pertains to these priorities of ICE!

With respect to priority one, the removal of convicted criminals and others who have already received their final orders to deport, as reported by Homeland Security, several of the people arrested at Glass House had extensive criminal records involving convictions for rape, kidnapping, serial burglary, attempted rape, attempted child molestation, DUI, and hit and run.

It seems like local law enforcement and local politicians don’t have much to say about this.  However, local investigative reporter Karen Velie of Cal Coast News reminds us of the fact that people with a criminal record are not allowed to work in the marijuana industry per state law, and minors are not allowed on the property whatsoever, which brings us to the next priority of ICE.

Priority two is rescuing unaccompanied minors who have most likely been trafficked. ICE rescued eight unaccompanied minors plus two other juveniles at Glass House.

As I communicated with our District Attorney John Savrnoch, “ Whereas I too do not want the feds to round up otherwise law-abiding farmworkers and have stated so dozens of times publicly, I do want them to rescue people, especially minors, who have been trafficked.  As you well know, nobody comes across our border without paying the cartels either up-front or after the fact.

“The cartels have realized that human trafficking pays more than drug trafficking because they can only sell a drug once, but they can sell a human being over and over and over again,” I added. “Hence, I believe it is a disservice to ignore the fact that one of the priorities of ICE is to find the children who are being trafficked. I would not be surprised if that was the reason for the raid on Glasshouse in the first place.”

All that begs the question, if these minors are in debt to the cartels, how is it that they were found possibly working at Glass House?

That brings us to priority three of ICE having to do with shutting down cartel-related business ventures of which there are many throughout our country. Some are completely illegal in their origin and substance e.g. dealing in drugs, others are “legitimate businesses” e.g. some of our local roadside taco stands are suspected of using trafficked labor as staff.

The cartels have no problem making money; the challenge before them is the ability to launder cash. Hence, ICE is trying to ferret out these business operations.

Karen Velie at CalCoastNews has long followed the illustrious career of one Helios Dayspring who was the local marijuana kingpin of much of the Central Coast. As a result of his going to prison for having bribed the late, former San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill, Dayspring was forced to divest his broad holdings.

To whom did he do that? Surprise! A significant portion was sold to Glass House in the form of dispensaries and stock in a company held by Dayspring’s significant other.

Furthermore, as reported by Velie and Chris Roberts writing for MJBizDaily, an audacious lawsuit was filed, but ultimately dismissed, by one cannabis grower against another having to do with the unfair trade advantage of selling cannabis on the black market. The defendant in the lawsuit was Glass House.

The suit alleged that Glass House, among many others, sells marijuana in the legal market via so-called “burner distros”- licensed distributors set up to be briefly used as conduits for legally grown cannabis to enter the illicit market.  The person who accused Glass House of all this was Elliot Lewis of Catalyst Cannabis Company.  He was audacious enough to state, “The cartel is Glass House.  Allegedly.” Heavy emphasis apparently on the word allegedly.

These allegations are above my pay grade, however, let’s trust the feds to sort it out since our local elected officials appear to have no interest in any of this!

Of course, if our state and local elected officials don’t like workplace raids, then they should drop their support of our state’s sanctuary policies.

That is, the feds would rather pick up the convicted criminals they are looking for from our local jails and prisons rather than conduct raids in our neighborhoods and places of work. But our policies to shield people they know who are subject to deportation is serving to exacerbate this situation.

COLAB is of the opinion that our immigration system is badly broken and that it is not working well for either immigrants or employers. Moreover, we believe the two political and economic extremes of “amnesty for all”, or “deport them all”, is unreasonable, untenable, and downright foolish.

Fat chance for reform, however, when one party is set on starting a race riot as their contribution to the immigration debate.

For example, Noozhawk did a story quoting Salud Carbajal as stating, “brown people are targets now, but next it could be you.” This from the one and same congressman who doxed an ICE employee in Carpinteria thereby setting him up for an attack by the “peaceful protestors” that sent him to the hospital.

Another politician from So Cal tried to recruit Latino gang members to fight ICE!

We were once a nation of laws, including laws having to do with legal vs illegal immigration. Obviously, too many of our local leaders were glad to see those laws ignored like never before during the Biden administration.

Now, they are shocked beyond credulity to grapple with the consequences of an administration intent on enforcing the law without regard to the continued consequences of non-enforcement. That is, as far as these local elected officials are concerned, unaccompanied minors and the victims of felonious illegal immigrants be damned.

ICE and Customs Enforcement report:

On July 10, we executed federal search warrants at two marijuana operations located in Camarillo and Carpinteria, California. These immigration enforcement operations resulted in the arrests of 300 plus illegal aliens, including:

• Juan Duarte-Velasquez — a Mexican criminal alien convicted of rape in Washington and arrested for impaired driving in California
• Roman Avalos-Izquierdo — a previously deported Mexican criminal alien convicted of kidnapping and attempted first-degree rape
• Santos Alberto Rodriguez-Jacinto — a Salvadoran illegal alien arrested twice in his home country for terrorism
• Jorge Luis Anaya-Garcia — a Mexican criminal alien convicted in California for a narcotics trafficking offense
• Jose Vasquez-Lopez — a Mexican criminal alien with five previous deportations and a Florida conviction for first-degree battery
• Fabian Fernando Antonio-Martinez — a Mexican criminal alien who was granted voluntary return twice before and was arrested in Ventura for felony firearm possession
• Josefina Lopez-Martinez — a previously deported Mexican criminal alien convicted of willful child cruelty in Ventura
• Jose Alcides Orellano-Rodriguez — A Salvadoran criminal alien with several impaired driving arrests, multiple impaired driving convictions, an arrest for hit-and-run causing property damage and an arrest for possessing a controlled substance
• Jesus Hernandez-Ramirez — a Mexican criminal alien granted voluntary departure three times and arrested for indecent exposure
• Miguel Mejia-Echevearia — a Salvadoran criminal alien arrested in California for hit-and-run with property damage
• Christina Martinez-Modesto — a Mexican criminal alien arrested in California for assault and battery of her spouse
• Cinthia Paola Cardona-Mendoza — a Mexican criminal alien arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in California
• Adriana Gonzalez-Gonzalez — a Mexican criminal alien arrested multiple times in California for burglary and impaired driving

Federal agents also rescued several unaccompanied children. One of the kids was previously identified by the Center for Countering Human Trafficking.

They accomplished this despite over 500 rioters and protestors trying to foil their multiagency targeted immigration enforcement operation. Four U.S. citizens were arrested for assaulting or resisting federal agents.

Special agents are interviewing all illegal aliens arrested and each unaccompanied child. All aliens in ICE custody are screened for human trafficking.

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on  FM 98.5, FM 99.5, AM 1240, AM 1290 and FM 96.9.