On a sunny morning last July, hundreds of heavily armed immigration agents in camouflage stormed a greenhouse complex in Camarillo, an hour north of Los Angeles. They came with face masks, guns, chemical munitions and armored tactical vehicles, blocking access along a road lined by produce fields.

What unfolded next would irreversibly transform the lives of many there that day.

It was after 10am when Santiago*, an undocumented farmworker from Mexico who had been working at the greenhouse for just three weeks, saw the agents flood in. As they pointed firearms at panicked, scattering workers, he thought they were army soldiers and felt raw fear.

“Fear of what could happen to me, and fear of leaving my daughters behind,” recalled the father of three US citizen girls.