Drop the Charges Against Dr. John Caravello!
On July 10th, 2025, ICE carried out a militarized raid on Glass House Farms in Camarillo, CA. John Caravello, a philosophy professor at CSU Channel Islands, a campus that sits under two miles from the raid, answered the call for community support. After John attempted to assist a disabled person, he was tackled to the ground by federal agents, zip-tied, and disappeared. For two days, no one knew his location. John was thrown in the Los Angeles Federal Prison, unregistered, unable to contact his loved ones, and without a change of clothes until fellow inmates offered him help.
ICE’s actions that day were chaotic and violent. During the raid, George Retes, a security guard, veteran, father of two, and US Citizen, had his windows smashed and pepper spray dispersed within his car, before being thrown in federal prison for three days. Jaime Alanis Garcia, a farmworker who perched on a roof to escape the violence, fell to his death. Both Retes and the family of Garcia have filed federal lawsuits. These suits reflect ICE’s subversion of the law throughout the raids. Federal agents came to sow fear and made indiscriminate arrests to silence peaceful dissent.
John is a beloved educator, community organizer, and union representative. He is committed to peaceful protest, and has never done harm while exercising his first amendment rights, including on July 10th. Despite this, he has been charged with a federal felony. The attack on John is an attack on all who value the right to free speech and assembly, without which we cannot claim to live in a democratic nation. The charges against John have been manufactured to repress not just him, but all those who will stand up and speak out against ICE’s violent, extra-judicial assaults. It is time to take the target off of John’s back, so that he can get out from under the weight of unjust prosecution to focus on teaching and community work.
Free John. Drop the Charges.
Sign this petition to show your support, and contact local lawmakers to insist they fight for John, but more broadly for the survival of our constitutional right to free speech.
Ventura County & California Representatives:
Julia Brownley, State Senator
Monique Limón, State Senator
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