The Church of the Joyful Healer was packed on a recent Thursday evening, with those gathered watching in silence as a video started playing with soft piano music. On screen, a series of women, sheltered in darkness with only a faint glow of light behind them to protect their identities, shared testimonies of how they and their families live in constant fear of being forcefully arrested and deported by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
“In the winter of my junior year of college, my stepbrother’s uncle was kidnapped from his mandated court hearing. We then found out that he had ended up in Trump’s new Alcatraz detention center. That’s when reality set in,” one woman says.
“Just as we are taught how to prepare for earthquakes, tsunamis and other emergencies, we must also be prepared for the possibility of being separated from our children — and our children from us,” another says.
When the video ended, a moment of silence was held in honor of their stories and the many others left untold. Some audience members wiped away tears while others hung their heads.
Played as part of the Community Voices in Action event co-hosted by the nonprofit True North Organizing Network and the church, the evening also gave participants an opportunity to hear directly from community leaders, including local law enforcement and school district officials, about their roles and support available amid the Trump administration’s surge in immigration enforcement actions.
The unprecedented mass ICE deportation efforts have struck fear in immigrant communities across the nation, ensnaring even those legally working their way through the asylum and residency process, as well as citizens, while tearing apart families and separating children from their parents.
Leticia Padilla, a family support navigator for First Five Humboldt, explained how the Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit and California Assembly Bill 495 allow families to prepare for potential emergencies that may put their child’s continuity of care and education at risk. The affidavit allows an adult to start the transfer of guardianship to another person without court notarization, which gives the selected caregiver the ability to enroll the child in school and consent to the child’s medical care.
AB 495 focuses on giving families resources and support for crisis preparation, while also making sure schools have the ability to help families in crisis. Padilla said the goal of the affidavit and AB 495 is to make sure an emergency for parents doesn’t also become an emergency for their child.
“This project is not only about preparing immigrant families, but also those who care for their children every day,” Padilla said. “When families, schools and communities stand together… they create hope.”
Sheriff William Honsal, along with Arcata Police Chief Chris Ortega, Eureka Police Department MIST Officer Wayne Rabang and EPD Cmdr. Leonard La France, were asked by a True North volunteer to give their reactions to the testimonies and how their respective departments can help protect the rights of immigrant families. They each took turns explaining their obligations to follow local sanctuary laws enacted by county voters and the cities of Arcata and Eureka, and how their information exchanges with federal officials are limited.
Honsal explained that the county does not track an individual’s immigration status, but anyone processed in a county facility following an arrest will have their fingerprints sent to a federal database. The county received 33 immigration hold requests last year but is not obligated to abide by them and doesn’t, he said. The sheriff noted the one person released to ICE officials last year had a violent felony on their record. He also acknowledged that the county can only do so much to alleviate widespread concerns about ICE abductions among local residents.
“I can’t take the fear away, no law enforcement can take the fear away,” Honsal said.
Rabang, representing Eureka Police Chief Brian Stephens, explained how the EPD does not participate in immigration enforcement, but will respond to public safety calls regardless of ICE presence in the area. Rabang said informing people of their rights during public safety calls is a priority.
“Our goal is to … keep people safe,” Rabang said.
Speaking in Spanish, Ortega said his mission as police chief is to strengthen community relations. While APD does have to abide by applicable federal laws, he said it is not the department’s job to enforce immigration laws. He noted that APD heavily prioritizes public education to build trust and has worked with Equity Arcata, Cal Poly Humboldt’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion office and Centro del Pueblo to that end.
“My goal has always been to be able to communicate what we’re doing, so there’s legitimacy to what we’re doing,” Ortega said after the presentation. “And so even if we have to take somebody into custody, there’s an explanation for what’s going on, and to ensure that our officers are treating people with dignity and respect, and I think that goes a long ways toward securing that trust.”
Northern Humboldt Union High School District Superintendent Roger Macdonald, McKinleyville Union School District Superintendent Julie Giannini-Previde and Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools Michael Davies-Hughes each spoke about putting additional support systems in place for immigrant families and their children, along with keeping residents informed of available resources.
As an example, Macdonald said his district has allowed greater flexibility for parents in what paperwork they fill out and how much information they need to give. Giannini-Previde described how the McKinleyville district is mapping out public spaces to delineate where ICE officials would and wouldn’t have access to its campuses. And, she said, the immigration status of students or their families is also not tracked. Paperwork is thoroughly checked to make sure it isn’t, she said, down to every sticky note.
“Our goal, ultimately, is to support our families, our kids and their caregivers,” Giannini-Previde said.
Davies-Hughes, an immigrant himself, described how not everyone gets to experience the American dream, and how his role is to make sure immigrant families are well-informed of their rights and that all students feel welcome. The county office, he said, already has posters up with information about AB 495.
“We want to remove barriers and make sure our community has the resources they need,” Davies-Hughes said.
Also presented were findings from listening and research sessions that True North conducted with immigrant and mixed-status families in the eight months leading up to the Sept. 10 event (where the main concerns voiced were fear of uncertainty and the risk of separation from family) as well as meeting with school officials and local law enforcement.
The ultimate goal, according to organizers, is to build connections during a time when many members of the community are feeling vulnerable.
After law enforcement representatives and school officials agreed to a series of commitments on upholding sanctuary laws, keeping the community informed and continuing to work with local organizations on community engagement, True North Executive Director Terry Supahan, a member of the Karuk Tribe, gave a statement.
Beginning with a rendition of Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush,” he related how his own family was impacted by federal actions, from his great grandmother being forcibly removed from her family and shipped to a boarding school to his great aunt being hidden by her mother as a child any time there was federal presence in the Klamath area.
“I want to stand on the back of history in a way it hasn’t stood for me,” Supahan said.
Jennifer Black, a McKinleyville resident who is friends with a member of True North and attends services at Joyful Healer, said she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in fear of the government separating you from your children. But, she said, the community presence and hope evident at the event reassured her that those at risk of deportation would have help if they needed it. She said she was particularly touched by the comparison of deportation to a natural disaster during the earlier testimonies.
“As community members, we have a lot of power, and [it’s helpful] being able to see all the people here and know that,” Black said. “We’ll stick by each other. There’s helpers in my community, just like me.”
Tony Giraud, who has attended Joyful Healer for the last 15 years and became a lay minister four years ago, co-facilitated the event alongside True North member Carmen Elena L’Annunziata Mong. He said he feels called to the mission of True North specifically because he feels Jesus would have wanted him to love all his neighbors. To him, any church can hold service on Sunday, but the service congregants do on the other six days of the week is what really matters.
“Obviously, as a privileged white male, I can’t relate to it,” Giraud said. “That doesn’t give me a pass to sit on the sidelines and say, ‘Oh, not my problem.’ Because I believe that everybody is my neighbor. Loving them looks different to everybody, and, to me, it’s just being present and letting them know that people care, and I’m willing to do whatever they’re willing to let me help with.”
Hortencia Lopez, a Cal Poly Humboldt student from Los Angeles, said she joined True North last November with the goal of finding a community in Humboldt and quickly felt inspired by the organization’s work. She said she could deeply relate to the testimonies because of her own family’s journey with citizenship, and that helped her further connect with her work at True North. That has included attending several meetings where the nonprofit gave community members the chance to share their stories and come up with a support plan.
“I was just there as a person who was born here and does have citizenship, I wanted to do something,” Lopez said. “There’s so many people who can’t, and I know I have the privilege to do that, so that was my big thing here. Knowing that I have the privilege to speak up, to do something and to fight for what we can.”
The event ended with Cecilia Padilla playing “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers on the piano, while other Joyful Healer and True North members sang and clapped along. As the song progressed, the rest of the room filled with the hum of audience members joining the chorus.
“I think we all forget that in a difficult moment, we’re going to be judged later for how we responded to the moment,” Supahan says. “We just need to remind everyone we can do better, we can be better, because obviously, it wasn’t that long ago when things were really ugly.”
Griffin Mancuso is a California Local News Fellow placed with North Coast Journal, Inc. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, or griffin@northcoastjournal.com. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
This article appears in Burger Week 2026.