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, […]
immigration
Posted inNews
More Than 200 Protest Immigrant Detention Centers
The Lights for Liberty Eureka: Vigil to End Concentration Camps attracted more than 200 attendees to a candlelight vigil at the Humboldt County Courthouse at sunset Friday evening. This local vigil, intentionally using the term “concentration camps,” was one of two held countywide as part of Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention […]
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Huffman to Immigrants in Advance of ICE Raids: ‘Know Your Rights’ (VIDEO)
With President Trump’s promised weekend immigration raids looming, North Coast Congressman and lawyer Jared Huffman has released a video for his constituents outlining their rights should immigration agents come knocking. The roughly four-minute video (embedded below) features Huffman’s brief remarks, followed by a Spanish translation by Congresswoman Lucille Royball-Allard. Huffman also urges constituents with questions […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
How We Let This Happen
There are children in concentration camps in the United States right now. On the news they call them “migrant children” (not children fleeing for their lives or seeking asylum or in desperate need of aid — just “migrant children”). Talking heads are debating the use of the term “concentration camp.” “Sure these kids are being […]
Posted inNews
Top 10
A new year should be seen as a time of hope, a chance to pause, reflect and to set our sights on becoming better people and a better community. When we look back on 2018, we recall times of intense division — we squabbled over land uses, political campaigns, recovery services and criminal justice. There […]
Posted inNews
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 […]
Posted inNews
Protesters Gather at Local Homeland Security Office
Several dozen people gathered this morning in front of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Old Town Eureka to protest the Trump Administration’s immigration policies. Several speakers addressed the crowd, which waved signs emblazoned with slogans like “Keep Families Together,” “Refugees Welcome” and “Chinga La Migra,” and occasional passing cars honked messages of […]
Posted inNews
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 […]
Posted inNews
Detained Arcata Mom Back With Family
Claudia Portillo is back with family. Seven months after the Arcata mother of four was detained during a routine immigration check-in in San Francisco, the 33 year old was released Tuesday after posting a $12,000 bond. Portillo had been held at federal detention center in Bakersfield where she was transferred in December, one month after […]
Posted inNews
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 […]
Posted inNews
Lao New Year
Just after 9 in the morning on April 21 in the Humboldt Grange parking lot, a handful of people are unloading covered foil trays from cars as a low droning of voices drifts from the sound system inside. While the food is spirited to the kitchen, one of a trio of Buddhist monks on stage, […]