It’s 7 a.m. on a Friday morning and Carolina Avelar is behind the wheel of her Chevy Volt, squinting through the glare of early light. Avelar, 27, is on lookout in Richmond’s busiest commercial streets for signs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. She’s done the weekday morning shift for months. Driving down 23rd Street, Avelar sees a handful of street vendors selling food. There are day laborers huddling on a corner, their breath visible in the chilly autumn air….
Richmond has awarded three local nonprofits grants totaling around $900,000 to expand legal aid for immigrants, do community outreach and continue the “Know Your Rights” campaign. The organizations receiving the funds are: Catholic Charities of the East Bay, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and the Multicultural Institute. In addition to funding the legal defense for people facing deportation, the grants help undocumented immigrants to apply for visas, green cards or citizenship, the city said earlier this month. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant…
Richmond City Council unanimously approved $1 million in March to nonprofits that provide immigrants with legal aid and other resources. But more than six months later, city officials acknowledge that not a dollar has reached its intended destination. “The need is higher than ever right now,” Marisol Cantú, a community organizer at Reimagine Richmond said with a sigh. “There’s always been a sense of urgency. And yet I don’t think the sense of urgency from the community has met the city….