Immigration
Running through the heart of Richmond and San Pablo, 23rd Street was once a bustling hub of immigrant-owned businesses. When a protest was held against the Trump administration’s immigration policies in January, it was on 23rd Street where hundreds of people gathered and marched in the pouring rain, waving flags from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. As 2025 comes to a close, immigrant-owned businesses along 23rd are reporting historically low sales. Restaurant owners, servers and organizers attribute this drop…
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….
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed several bills this fall to curb the Trump administration’s aggressive immigrant enforcement. From mandates that require schools to notify parents about immigration enforcement activities on their campuses to face mask bans and identification display requirements for law enforcement, the bills aim to protect immigrant students and communities across the state. Whether the laws have any teeth depends on the federal government’s willingness to follow them and the state’s determination to enforce them. Ashton Desmangles, a…
Richmond Flea Market vendors recover from the pandemic, but now a new fear is keeping customers away
It’s an empty parking lot on weekdays but on weekends, this deserted piece of industrial land to the city’s north turns into the Richmond Flea Market. Traditionally, it’s where families come to have a meal, kids ride the miniature train, and everyone walks through the five rows of stalls shopping for everything from second-hand gadgets to power tools and trinkets from all over Latin America. But on Oct. 26, the Sunday after the Trump administration called threatened immigration raids in…
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…
The Richmond City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to expand emergency assistance for immigrants, including funds for rent, utilities and food. More than $140,000 will be diverted for these needs from a $1 million fund approved for immigration legal aid in March. Council members said adding flexibility to the aid program will help meet urgent needs in the community. “ICE is coming and breaking families apart,” said Councilmember Claudia Jimenez, who first suggested the expansion. “We want to protect these families,…
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….
“The Stakes” is a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Jessie Papalia has felt the panic and confusion among her students and their families at Bridges Academy Elementary in Oakland, a dual-language school with many students who have recently arrived in the United States. “The first week was rough. I had kids asking me if they could sleep at school because they were too…
Having found his pathway in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics field, UC Berkeley Ph.D. student Robin D. Lopez is now teaching STEM courses to elementary school students during the weekend to bridge the educational gap between the opportunities given to Richmond youth and higher education.