Channel Island CSU CFA Professor Acquitted of All Charges After ICE Frame-up

Channel Island CSU CFA Professor Acquitted of All Charges After ICE Frame-up
By Michael Powelson
Mpowelson3 [at] gmail.com

On April 9, 2026, CSU-Channel Islands professor Jonathan Caravello was acquitted of both felony and misdemeanor assault charges brought by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice. Dr. Caravello was charged with assaulting two Border Patrol agents with a deadly weapon—in fact a tear gas canister. While the government claimed that video footage showed Dr. Caravello throwing a tear gas cannister at Border Patrol Agents, the videos in fact showed Dr. Caravello throwing the cannister originally thrown by Border Patrol Agents—against department protocol—as far away as possible so that it would not harm either protesters or federal agents.

On July 10, 2025, Border Patrol Agents descended on Glass House Farms outside of Camarillo, CA, to arrest farm workers suspected of being in the country without proper papers. As news of the raid spread throughout the area, Dr. Caravello was one of hundreds of citizens that went to Glass House Farms to protest the raid and to protect the farmworkers. Border Patrol Agents placed yellow tape across Laguna Road near the Glass House Farm and ordered protesters to remain east of that tape. The protesters complied as ordered by the agents, and moved out of the way to allow two unmarked police vehicles to drive east on Laguna Road where the agents had instructed the protesters to stay. A single protester was slow to move and so was knocked to the ground with extreme force by a Border Patrol Agent, who also released a tear gas cannister, which was a violation of the Department of Homeland Security’s own protocol. Dr. Caravello first attempted to kick the cannister out of harm’s way, but having failed he picked up the cannister and threw it as far as possible. The cannister landed far from any protesters or federal agents, as recorded by the body cam of a federal agent. While Caravello was clearly trying to protect both protesters and federal agents from chemical exposure, he was nonetheless charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon against federal agents.

While there was ample video evidence in the courtroom of criminal actions shown over the three days of the trial, they were all committed by Border Patrol Agents, who will once again go unpunished. As Dr. Caravello noted during the rally to celebrate his acquittal, there was no justice in this ruling, because Dr. Caravello had done nothing to warrant these charges in the first place. Yet, once again, federal agents are allowed to act with disregard for the law and yet avoid all punishment.

While Dr. Caravello was the named defendant in this case, the two Border Patrol Agents were really the ones on trial. While the prosecution tried their best to present the agents as simply enforcing the law, Trump’s Department of Justice lawyers could not disguise the fact that the two agents involved in the events that day were horrible individuals who repeatedly conveyed that as law enforcement agents they could not violate the law. The two agents, one white, one Latino, were foul mouthed, violent, and contemptuous of any and all demonstrators. Video footage showed both agents assaulting protesters for no reason, laughing about their violent actions, and declaring during one respite that “I don’t fucking care,” and “we’ll gas them like we did before.”

Both agents lied under oath, with one defending the use of tear gas by claiming that a government car was surrounded by protesters, when in fact video footage showed that the agent deployed tear gas with no protesters surrounding government automobiles. Another agent lied in claiming that he hurled a tear gas cannister in compliance with department protocol while video footage showed that same agent hurling a tear gas cannister overhead like a baseball pitcher directly into a group of protesters—a direct violation of DHS protocol. Government lawyers were also caught lying by misrepresenting to the jury an audio recording of a police agent’s interrogation of Dr. Caravello. Between the video footage, the lies by Border Patrol Agents and the lies of the government lawyers, it was difficult for those in the courtroom to remain silent and keep from outright laughter at the obvious lies of the prosecuting lawyers and witnesses.

Although the Border Patrol Agents enjoyed the tremendous power and support of the federal government and the Department of Homeland Security, government lawyers and witnesses could not fool the jurors, who took only two hours to arrive at a verdict of not guilty of both felony and misdemeanor charges against Dr. Caravello. In fact, in case after case across the nation, federal charges against protesters have been overwhelmingly dismissed. While Trump, his Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security may feel that any protest constitutes a crime, juries throughout the nation disagree. Dr. Caravello’s acquittal was an affirmation that protesting government actions are not a crime.

Dr. Caravello’s union, the California Faculty Association, was prominent throughout the trial and helped fund Caravello’s defense team, including the fees for the defense’s excellent lawyer, Knut Johnson. Since Dr. Caravello’s acquittal, however, the CFA has been silent about the need to prosecute the Border Patrol Agents who committed any number of crimes captured on video. In addition, the CFA has been silent on efforts to build a genuine labor party to counter the Republican/Democrat monopoly the top one percent enjoys over the entire political system. US elites exert a monopoly over the two parties and control all the instruments of power, including the media, the courts, the military, the police, manufacturing and finance. The working class deserves its own party that will advocate for its own interests. In California an independent labor party should be the first order of business for the CFA and the entire AFL-CIO network of unions.

Too often lost in these Border Patrol raids is the fact that the government is waging war on working people, in this case migrant farmworkers. In targeting the most vulnerable of the working class—both documented and un-documented migrant workers—the Trump administration employs a tactic practiced by fascists throughout the world. When Hitler took power in 1933, for example, the German government first targeted migrant workers from Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. In the years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, the German Nazi government targeted immigrants, Romani, communists, socialists, gays and labor leaders in order to weaken and harass the German working class. Hitler was in power for five years before he instituted Kristallnacht, in which Germany’s Jewish population was attacked and forced to live in “ghettos” until they were transported to their death in camps throughout Europe. The actions of the Department of Homeland Security and Trump’s Border Patrol Agents are reprehensible on their own, but Trump’s actions point to a broader war on the US working class. Since Trump took office in January, 2025, over 40 people have died in Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) custody, and over 6,000 children have been detained. Many are from Latin America and Asia, but Russians, Germans, and even US citizens have also been swallowed up in ICE raids. To counter this, the working class cannot rely on liberals or Democrats to protect them. Only the working class has the means and the ability to protect the working class.

Despite Dr. Caravello’s acquittal, it must not be forgotten that a worker died as a result of the DHS raid in Ventura county that day. Jamie Garcia, a farmworker at Glass House Mills was one of hundreds terrorized by Border Patrol Agents and died fleeing the raid. Garcia has extended family in Ventura County and his wife and daughter live in Mexico. Before Garcia started working at Glass House Mills he was a flower seller for a decade in the Camarillo area. Mr. Garcia’s legacy must not be forgotten.

Michael Powelson
Mpowelson3 [at] gmail.com