A beautiful 2-year-old Honduran girl flashed a huge, radiant smile when we walked up to her July 27. Her name is Natalia and she just wanted to play. We were instantly friends and she demanded that I draw a gato for her on papel. When I playfully drew a whale instead, and then a shark, […]
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Taken Away: How an Arcata mom is working to rebuild what was lost during an immigration detention
Claudia Portillo is back in her Arcata home but it doesn’t feel like the same one she left behind. And what seems like it should be a happy ending is instead just the beginning for the young mother and her four daughters, who are working their way back to a semblance of how things used […]
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Dozens Turn Out to Protest Child Detention Immigration Policies
Several dozen people gathered this evening on the southwest corner of the Arcata Plaza to protest U.S. immigration policies that have left some 2,000 children separated from their families. While President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week stopping the separations — after previously insisting only Congress could take the action — the thousands […]
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Arcata Mom Granted Bail After 7-Month Immigration Detention
An Arcata woman has been granted the opportunity to post bail by a federal immigration judge after a seven-month detention in Bakersfield. Claudia Portillo, a 33 year old who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador when she was 7, was taken into custody and transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in […]