The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 24, 2025.

By midday on a recent Monday, only a few customers had trickled into La Chispa de Oro, a once-busy Mexican eatery on Cesar Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights.

Behind the counter, owner Melchor Moreno monitored the money in his till, counting the few hundred dollars in sales — about half a typical weekday.

He glanced at his staff, counting with his fingers how much he’d owe in wages that day. The math didn’t add up.

“It doesn’t help that there’s no foot traffic, too…. The streets are empty. It’s kind of scary,” Moreno said.

Since immigration raids began sweeping through Los Angeles neighborhoods, Eastside restaurants have been scraping by, as even longtime customers are keeping themselves and their dollars at home out of fear of potential immigration enforcement. While the full economic toll is still uncertain, many business owners already feel the squeeze.

Moreno has cut staff hours. He’s stepped in to wash dishes. With fewer customers, his staff goes home with fewer tips.

“They’ve noticed it. The waitresses are taking less money home every day,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep doing this.”

Moreno, who is still paying off electricity bill debt accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, estimates his restaurant has lost more than $7,000 since the raids began on June 6. To stay afloat, he’s now closing Tuesdays through the summer until fear stemming from the ICE raids fades, he hopes.

La Chispa de Oro sits along the popular Cesar Chavez Avenue corridor.

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Andrew Lopez

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Survey shows deep losses at Boyle Heights restaurants

La Chispa’s slowdown isn’t isolated. This month, Boyle Heights Beat surveyed more than a dozen local restaurants to understand how immigration enforcement is affecting them. The results paint a grim picture: several restaurants reported losing 50% or more of their customers or revenue over the last several weeks. One business owner said he lost more than $10,000 in revenue. Another estimates losses of around $15,000.

Already struggling with inflation, some business owners are working for free and others are cutting back employee hours to save on labor costs.

At Casa Fina on 1st Street, the conversation has already started about potentially laying off staff or closing down entirely. Several owners said they hadn’t fully recovered from the economic strain of the COVID-19 pandemic when the raids dealt the latest blow.

One local taqueria owner said workers who are undocumented are having to choose between earning a paycheck and risking encountering ICE agents.

Though several restaurants have no plans in place in the event agents show up, others, like Milpa Kitchen, have posted signs barring ICE from entering private property. Neighbors of Casa Fina have offered to keep a watchful eye on the block in case federal agents arrive at the popular eatery.

Leaders take notice — but support lags behind

Local elected leaders are taking note and pledging to offer support. In June, Mayor Karen Bass and Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez walked the abnormally quiet business corridor along 1st Street to speak with restaurant owners about their concerns.

Bass described the fear and economic impact as a “body blow” to the neighborhood. In another video posted on social media Wednesday, she said her office is “doubling down on support” for small businesses, although it remains unclear what that entails. Boyle Heights Beat reached out to the Mayor’s office for clarification, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights in District 14, helped facilitate the opening of the City’s Small Business Administration’s Business Recovery Center at 1780 E. 1st Street. There, small businesses and nonprofit organizations affected by the raids can access information and resources about loan programs available to those experiencing financial hardship, a CD 14 spokesperson said.

At the county level, Supervisor Hilda Solis initiated an economic impact report to assess the effects of the ICE raids on small businesses and moved to develop a fundraising plan and cash-aid fund to impacted families.

Still, Miriam Rodriguez, president of the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, says small businesses need direct financial assistance like grants.

“Just like there was financial assistance during the pandemic or during the fires, there should be a similar financial assistance program for small businesses during these times that don’t have a lot of [red tape] like a long application process.”

While Rodriguez has seen fewer reports of ICE agents around the Eastside since a federal judge granted a temporary halt to roving immigration enforcement, she says fear still lingers. And so does financial strain.

“I know the city is feeling the burdens of the city budget, but I think financial support is crucial because if they don’t do it now, there’s a high probability that a lot of businesses will close,” Rodriguez said.

Calling for community support

A sign in support of immigrants is displayed at La Chispa de Oro in Boyle Heights.

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Rodriguez believes the solution doesn’t just lie in government action. To her, leaders working in tandem with residents supporting neighborhood restaurants may be key to persevering through this economic crisis.

At a recent Boyle Heights “Know Your Rights” workshop hosted by the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, Council District 14, and the Independent Hospitality Coalition, business owners, managers and employees gathered to receive guidance on how to navigate potential encounters with ICE agents at work.

After the workshop’s presentation, one business owner said he had eliminated uniform requirements at his tortilleria and was even offering Lyft and Uber rides to his employees to protect them on their commutes to and from work.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about federal immigration policies, instilling fear in immigrant communities, whether or not they have legal status, and, in some cases, it is having a chilling effect on restaurants’ team members and guest traffic,” said Jot Condie, the president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association.

Condie called immigrants the lifeblood of the industry and emphasized the powerful role they play in the economy. “We would not be the 4th largest economy in the world without them.”

Rodriguez echoes the sentiment, noting that community resilience has defined Boyle Heights.

“We are a community that will always stand up for each other… I think Boyle Heights is unique in the sense that people step where it’s mostly needed.” Rodriguez said.

“Where possible, we should be reclaiming our streets, reclaiming our space, and supporting these family-owned businesses. Many have been here for such a long time, and it would be very unfortunate to see their doors close,” Rodriguez said.

Adapting to survive, but not everyone can

While some restaurants have cut hours, others fear that doing so could be worse.

At The Big Burrito on Wabash Avenue, an employee said they can’t further reduce their slow business for fear of potentially turning away hungry customers.

Un Solo Sol is a vegan restaurant located on 1st Street in Boyle Heights.

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Around Mariachi Plaza, where parking is notoriously limited, Carlos Ortez, owner of Un Solo Sol, called the financial situation devastating.

Ortez estimates losing half of his business since the raids began. While his restaurant has been a 15-year fixture in the neighborhood, he said it hasn’t turned a profit since before the pandemic. Now the raids have forced him to cut back operations to just a few days a week – and if things don’t improve soon, he fears he may have to close.

“The possibility of me closing is high. Of course, I’m not going to give up that easily,” Ortez said. “The community has been my secure source of revenue for my business. But the community has experienced this exact same thing; it hasn’t gotten better. It’s been decreasing and decreasing in income and sustainability. It’s become something we can’t hide.”

Boyle Heights Beat interns Angelo Lopez and Luis Cano contributed to this story. 

Doctors and health insurers filed a lawsuit Friday alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature violated the law when they approved a healthcare tax that could substantially increase insurance premiums for Californians.

The lawsuit claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents a 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.

“California voters passed Proposition 35 and made it law. The state does not get to ignore that law simply because following the law is inconvenient,” medical association CEO Dustin Corcoran said in a statement.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a previous statement to CalMatters that the state wanted to balance the affordability concerns of privately insured patients against large-scale federal Medi-Cal cuts.

Newsom stopped short of opposing the 2024 initiative when it was on the ballot, but he warned at the time it would “hamstring” the state budget.

For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans.

Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.

“California is breaking the law by blowing through a tax limit voters put in place to protect Californians and businesses from higher health care costs,” said Charles Bacchi, CEO of the health plans association.

Doctors, hospitals, clinics and Medi-Cal insurers have argued for many years that the revenue from the tax should go toward improving Medi-Cal. They said that the state was inappropriately using the money to replace general fund spending, and that many providers were being paid far less than their services cost. In 2024, they asked voters to approve a limited tax that would be reserved for Medi-Cal improvements.

But Congress last year changed the rules on taxes used to generate revenue for healthcare, including the ones imposed on health plans. Rather than lose the money generated by the tax, Newsom proposed and the Legislature agreed to submit two taxes to the federal government for approval: one that complied with the 2024 initiative but would be rejected by the feds, and one that complied with federal regulations and largely disregarded the initiative.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration. Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.

Approved by state lawmakers at a time when federal science funding has become increasingly unpredictable, the bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.

“Scientific advancements are curing and preventing diseases, improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions, protecting our communities from wildfires, lowering the cost of food, and powering our economy,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the federal government to throw away that hope for a better future.”

Newsom joined Wiener to sign the bill Wednesday atop the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark built with voter-approved bond money in the 1930s that his press office described as a symbol of California ingenuity. He said the proposed science agency “does the opposite of what Donald Trump is doing (and) will allow us to double down on what makes this state great.”

It was a dramatic comeback for a measure that almost died in the Legislature earlier this year, when a more ambitious $23 billion version of the plan failed to make it onto the November ballot despite bipartisan support.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere had joined with UC leadership to lobby for the bond, hosting rallies and inviting lawmakers to a science fair highlighting projects that had seen their funding stalled or canceled by the federal government.

There were plenty to choose from: The Trump administration canceled nearly $2 billion in research grants to the University of California beginning in early 2025, later acknowledging in court that officials searched for keywords such as “health equity” and “sexual orientation” in order to decide what to cut. While a court order restored much of the money, the National Science Foundation has since slowed grantmaking nationwide, and President Trump has proposed giving political appointees more power to veto National Institutes of Health grants that don’t align with his agenda.

This spring, the National Science Foundation canceled an additional $21 million in grants to UC Berkeley, accusing the projects’ lead researchers of accepting foreign funding without disclosing it, a charge some of those scientists denied. UC President James Milliken has called the disruption of federal research funding “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.”

Lawmakers nevertheless declined to move the science bond forward this spring amid worries about competing demands on state funds – including a housing bond on the November ballot and the possible need to backfill other federal cuts. But negotiations among bill supporters, legislative leaders and the governor over the summer led to the scaled-down version that Newsom signed Wednesday.

Along with the University of California, California State University, private universities, and independent labs would all be potentially eligible for grants from the new state fund. A $7.5 billion state fund would not by itself make up for the instability in federal grants – the UC alone received nearly $5 billion in federal research funding in fiscal year 2024-25. But supporters say it could be especially helpful to researchers in fields such as climate science that are critical to the state’s future but have run afoul of Trump administration priorities.

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Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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This story was originally published by Berkeleyside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say, likely damaging aging structures and forcing school closures.

The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.

While district superintendents in especially vulnerable areas are already planning ahead, some schools may be ill-equipped to handle punishing weather. At least 59 California school districts are seeking voter approval for bonds in the November election, and have identified the need to repair or replace “leaky,” “dilapidated” and “decaying” roofs, an EdSource examination of local ballot language shows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sept. 21, ordering pumps and sandbags to be stockpiled near vulnerable areas, among other precautions. Federal flood data show roughly 20% of the state’s schools are located within flood plains. In 2023, heavy storms flooded schools in Alameda and Merced counties as well as one near Watsonville, where a levee ruptured.

“Climate-driven El Niño conditions could mean months of dangerous weather, heavy rain, strong winds, deep mountain snow and flooding,” Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference, adding that the public shouldn’t underestimate “the power of water.”

Preparing for a severe El Niño

As predictions of severe weather spread, there isn’t a school superintendent in an area that the El Niño is predicted to impact “that hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks already,” said Scott Borba, executive director of the California Small School Districts Association. Many small districts have aging buildings — some as many as 75 years old, Borba said.

“You’ve got leaks and dry rot and all the things that a super wet winter is going to just exacerbate,” he said.

While district leaders work with other local agencies during weather emergencies, they are largely on their own when making major decisions, such as whether to cancel school, Borba said.

“Sometimes you have some county office of emergency services’ support. But when it comes to making that decision, that decision lies with the superintendent alone,” he said.

One small school district leader who may soon be making such decisions is Raven Coit, the superintendent and principal of the 61-student TK-8 Peninsula Union School District on the south end of the Northern Humboldt Peninsula in Humboldt County. It’s perhaps the most isolated coastal school in California, roughly 600 yards from the ocean. Dunes often serve as a play area for students.

Coit took steps this year to try to limit storm damage. She had trees cut back and used money saved by deferring other projects to complete much-needed roof repairs. “There was a big storm that caused leaking. I’m proud to say that it won’t rain inside this year,” she said.

But the likelihood of impacts from El Niño remains. The school’s “in a vulnerable spot,” she said. Flooding could cut off access to the only road leading to the school. There’s a backup generator that she’s “trying to figure out if I can make it work.”

While nearly all the school’s students live nearby, many teachers do not, and may not be able to get to work. Local high school students are bussed to Arcata on the mainland — if buses can get through.

She said the school could also turn to remote learning in a crisis.

How El Niño may impact schools in coastal areas

One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas like Coit’s is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves.

They are slow moving, and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation.

“That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”

A worst-case scenario “would be an El Niño Kelvin, plus a peak king tide, plus a significant storm,” he said.

A Southern California school leader of one of those districts said it’s bracing for storms.

Don Austin, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, said that living on the coast, “I have seen our beaches get washed away with recent storms and homes destroyed.”

His schools have “roof leaks and other issues that will be heavily impacted by an El Niño,” he said.

The most impactful weather-driven damage to a California school in recent years was in March 2023 when a broken river levee caused the Pajaro Middle school near Watsonville to flood, along with the heavily Mexican immigrant and farmworker community it serves.

The school reopened in 2024. A complete replacement of the entire levee by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take a decade, officials said.

Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, said the agency is spending roughly $1 million to strengthen the levee, and that the breach that led to the school flooding has been permanently repaired. El Niño, he said, is the obvious concern, and the work is aimed at protecting the town of Pajaro and the middle school.

Leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District remain concerned about El Niño, but haven’t identified a temporary site to move students to if the school floods again, according to Peggy Pughe, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.

Asked what the district officials are doing based on their experience with the 2023 floods and the threat of El Niño, Pughe said they are “canvassing local neighborhoods, encouraging families and residents to sign up for emergency alert services.”

Data journalist Daniel J. Willis and staff writer Emma Gallegos contributed to this story.

In August, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul of the Head Start program, leaving early childhood providers in Los Angeles concerned about their ability to serve low-income children.

The proposed rules strip Head Start of many of its regulations and impose new requirements, like teaching in English only.

The public comment period ends Oct. 6 — after which the administration could finalize the new rule. It’s unclear when that will happen, and experts say it could be caught up in litigation.

Why does the administration want to change the rules?

Federal officials said the deregulation would provide for more local flexibility.

An administration statement said the moves reduce both regulatory burden and administrative costs, allowing for more available slots — as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide — and save $2.2 billion.

“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. “That’s how we renew the promise of Head Start for the next generation.”

Earlier in the administration, the White House proposed to cut Head Start entirely from the budget but reversed course.

The case against the proposed rules

Head Start providers worry the new rules, if implemented, could be the start of whittling down a program that provides early education and other wraparound services for about 70,000 children across the state.

“It's a holistic program really designed to lift kids out of poverty and to set them up for future success, so what's at risk when the standards are changed are a lot of those elements and guidelines that support the program quality,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California.

For example, Head Start provides support services beyond education, like developmental screenings and dental care, which would no longer be required under the Trump administration’s plan. The new rules would also require documentation beyond self-attestation for families experiencing homelessness.

“Putting a lot of documentation requirements in place would be very onerous for people who are in really difficult circumstances,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which serves about 2,000 kids in its Head Start programs in northern L.A. County. The program opened up a Head Start center at a family homeless shelter last year.

The administration’s proposal also sets a 5% cap on administrative costs, down from the current 15%, which Sneeringer said will be hard for nonprofits to implement.

“I think many Head Start operators are really going to struggle to even keep their programs open,” she said.