Jackie’s oldest son, Raphael, in Monterey Park on Sept. 29, 2023. Raphael saw and experienced the domestic violence in his mother’s relationship when he was a young teenager. Raphael is now in college and plans to work towards being a dermatologist. His mother, Jackie, is a family advocate for Los Angeles Defense Lawyers, helping families navigate the system.
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Alisha Jucevic
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CalMatters
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Topline:
California’s "failure to protect" law allows child welfare agencies to take kids from households scarred by domestic violence. Advocates say the separation can worsen a family’s trauma.
The backstory: The longstanding practice is facing continued scrutiny as domestic violence advocates raise concerns about the potential to further traumatize families. Meanwhile, other states with similar laws have narrowed the criteria for when a welfare agency can remove a child. Many states have “failure to protect” laws, but California’s is comparably vague, giving social workers wide latitude in deciding when to remove kids.
Read more ... for the perspective of moms who've had to experience the process.
Worried that her abusive partner would kill her or her boys, Jackie had nowhere to go and no one to ask for help. She said her partner had angry outbursts, beat her, degraded her and destroyed things in the house. She knew she had to escape.
She called the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, hoping for a path to a safe place to stay. Instead, she received a warning that struck a different kind of fear in her.
If she didn’t leave her partner within 30 days, the child welfare agency would take her four boys.
“When I asked for help, they wanted to separate us,” said Jackie, 39, who asked not to use her full name to protect her children’s privacy.
The agency’s warning is rooted in a nearly 40-year-old California law that allows child welfare agencies to remove children when they believe an abused parent cannot ensure their kids’ safety. Called “failure to protect,” the law is intended to safeguard kids in dangerous situations.
But the longstanding practice is facing continued scrutiny as domestic violence advocates raise concerns about the potential to further traumatize families. Meanwhile, other states with similar laws have narrowed the criteria for when a welfare agency can remove a child. Many states have “failure to protect” laws, but California’s is comparably vague, giving social workers wide latitude in deciding when to remove kids.
“I just don’t understand how ‘failure to protect’ exists, either as a fair thing or a legal principle,” said Eve Sheedy, a lawyer and expert in domestic violence policy, including as former director of LA County Domestic Violence Council.
The law puts child welfare workers in the unenviable position of deciding what is more harmful for children — the trauma of being separated from their family or the risks of witnessing more violence or even becoming a target.
And it can leave domestic violence victims feeling as if they are being punished for their partners’ abuse.
“Right now the victims are seen just like a perpetrator,” said Marie, 36, a domestic violence survivor who said the Los Angeles child welfare agency took her children from her after she was abused by her partner. The kids continue to live with their grandparents. Marie also spoke on the condition that her full name would not be published to protect the privacy of her kids.
Changing the law is difficult in part because lawmakers and social workers share a commitment to protecting children, and they worry about a shift that could endanger kids.
CalMatters spoke with four mothers who lost children because of a failure to protect order, five current and former social workers, eight domestic violence policy experts and advocates and two state lawmakers for this story.
All of them stressed that protecting children was their highest priority. Several cited two notorious murders in Los Angeles County where the welfare agency failed to remove children to underscore the hazards of allowing kids to remain in violent households. One was Gabriel Fernandez, who suffered years of gruesome torture and abuse before he was fatally beaten at age 8 in 2013 by his mother and her boyfriend. The other was Anthony Avalos, who was also tortured and abused by his mother and her boyfriend before his death at age 10 in 2018.
“In my opinion, the system really did fail those kids,” said Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a Palmdale Republican who has been a teacher and a California Highway Patrol officer.
He said he has dealt more with children who should’ve been removed from unsafe situations than with unnecessary separations from abused parents for “failure to protect.” .
No one can say how many California children are separated from family members every year under the law because neither the state nor counties collect that information. The closest estimate comes from a recent report by the UCLA Pritzker Center that showed more than half of Los Angeles County’s 38,618 foster care cases in 2020 involved domestic violence.
Jackie, the mother who was alarmed when she received a “failure to protect” warning six years ago, believes the law discourages women from reporting domestic violence.
“A lot of women don’t say anything because of fear of being separated from their kids,” she said.
Separation after abuse, drug use
Marie is soft-spoken with sparkling eyes and a gentle manner. She said as a teenager she got hooked on prescription opioids and was addicted for years. She stopped using in 2015, and within a little more than a year she graduated from college, got married and had two babies.
“It was all too much, and I started using again,” Marie said.
Marie said her ex-husband was also addicted to drugs and when he was using, he physically abused her.
First: Marie at her home in Culver City on Sept. 29, 2023. Marie lived at Community’s Child after leaving a domestic violence relationship and battling past addictions. She now owns her home and has built a new life for herself and her children. Last: Marie holds a card from one of her kids at her home in Culver City. The card reads, “Thank you for being a very good mom. You been thru [sic] a lot but you are still the beast [sic] mom in the world.”
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Alisha Jucevic
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CalMatters
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The Department of Children and Family Services removed Marie’s kids for failure to protect due to domestic violence and substance abuse. At ages 1 and 2, the kids had about a one-week stay in a group home. The children were adopted by Marie’s parents within six months of opening her case. Adoption typically takes a year or more.
She pulled herself out of addiction after she became pregnant again and didn’t want to lose custody of a third child. She entered a substance abuse program in 2017. Next, she and her 2-month-old infant entered Community’s Child, a shelter and development program for homeless single mothers “motivated to achieve self-sufficiency.” Marie now owns her own home and works full-time in the medical field.
She and her ex-husband have made peace and co-parent all three children, though the two older kids still live with Marie’s parents. Marie said the kids were very young during the violence and don’t remember it, but she is still traumatized by the separation.
“I wasn’t able to heal in the six months that they gave me,” Marie said. “My family would’ve been a lot different if we had more time.”
Marie’s circumstances are not unusual. One-quarter to one-half of domestic violence cases occur with other problems, such as parental substance abuse or mental illness, intergenerational trauma or unemployment, among other stressors.
Her story illustrates the difficult choices social workers face every day.
Risk of staying and the risk of removal
The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services is the largest child welfare agency in the world, with a budget of nearly $2.8 billion and oversight of more than 25,000 children annually. In 2022, 90% of the kids were 18 and younger and more than two-thirds were Black or Hispanic.
If a social worker makes the wrong call children can pay the price with their health or their lives.
Two former child welfare social workers said they felt supported by their agency, but deciding when a child was at risk of harm felt like their responsibility, which was difficult and emotionally exhausting.
“Child welfare is a judgment-based system. It is human-driven and based upon sticky, personal family dynamic facts,” said Brandon Nichols, director of the Department of Children and Family Services, Los Angeles County’s child protection agency..
Dr. Kelly Callahan, director of the Kids In the Dependency System clinic at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said children who witness domestic violence often have psychological or emotional problems.
“Children who have witnessed violence between their caretakers can have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), nightmares, sleep problems, school difficulties and more. They react the same way as children who have been abused,” said Callahan.
Because of such harm, proponents of “failure to protect” laws say they’re needed for children’s safety.
The library and counseling room at Community’s Child in Lomita on Sept. 29, 2023. Community’s Child is a shelter and resource program that provides supplies, food and housing for women and infants who are struggling with homelessness, addiction and poverty.
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Alisha Jucevic
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But separation from a parent can be equally devastating for children. Adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse or witnessing violence, contribute to poor mental and physical health well into adulthood, including risk for early death. A safe, secure relationship with a caring adult, such as the non-offending parent, can build resiliency for a traumatized child.
“The courts will often say, ‘We know that being exposed to violence in the home alters a child’s brain chemistry and we’re going to remove this child and place them in foster care,” said Emily Berger, a lawyer for Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, a nonprofit consortium of court-appointed lawyers who defend parents involved in dependency court.
“But what we’ve found, and science backs up, is that being removed from your community, your family of origin and your primary caregiver has such a tremendous impact upon a child’s healthy brain development and ability to form attachments,” she said.
Evolution of ‘failure to protect’
The original “failure-to-protect” laws emerged in the 1960s in response to reports of child physical abuse. Under the laws, if a caregiver knew a child was being abused and didn’t report it, that caregiver could be prosecuted the same as the abuser.
California’s failure to protect law falls under a welfare code that states children can become dependents of the court if “the child has suffered or there is a substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm inflicted non-accidentally upon the child by the child’s parent or guardian.”
Listed among the criteria for substantial risk is “the failure or inability of the child’s parent or guardian to adequately supervise or protect the child.”
Neglect is the leading cause for children to be placed under the courts’ jurisdiction. Failure to protect is often considered as neglect or emotional abuse in the child welfare and justice systems, including when it’s related to domestic violence.
As of 2015, 48 states and four U.S. territories had “failure to protect” laws: Maryland, Wyoming and Puerto Rico did not. The statutes designate the crimes as misdemeanors, or felonies. In California, neglect is usually charged as a misdemeanor.
Failure to protect charges can lead to life sentences for parents in six states — Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina and West Virginia. In Texas, the maximum penalty is 99 years. For some non-offending parents, the penalties have been more severe than for the abuser.
Some states, such as New York and Washington, have moved in the opposite direction to protect the rights of abuse victims. The New York Court of Appeals in 2004 ruled that witnessing domestic violence did not constitute neglect and couldn’t be the sole basis for removing children from the non-offending parent.
State Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, two years ago carried a bill that would have compelled California to study domestic violence in the child welfare system. She told her colleagues at the time the law “fails to recognize” the trauma of a parent “who is a domestic violence survivor.” The bill did not reach Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Would changing domestic violence law matter?
Despite Rubio’s setback, some advocates for domestic violence victims outside of the Capitol are building a case to change California’s law.
The Pritzker Center report calls for California to consider legislative reforms similar to the ruling from the New York Court of Appeals. The report also calls for better training in the complexities of family violence for all child welfare workers, court officers and such mandated reporters as teachers and coaches.
“I think we could have legislation that said being victimized by domestic violence is not sufficient basis for charging neglect,” said Sheedy, the former director of LA County Domestic Violence Council.
This would be similar to California laws prohibiting the use of poverty or homelessness as the sole basis for removal of a child.
But others are urging more modest changes even as they express misgivings with the current policy. They worry about rescinding a policy intended to protect a child.
“There are definite concerns with ‘failure to protect’ and how it’s being used — it’s being used as a stick,” said Julie McCormick, a lawyer with the Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit legal organization that represents children in the dependency system.
But, she said, “I wouldn’t say CLC (Children’s Law Center) has the stance that it should be gone. It’s too nuanced to do something blanket. I think that’s why it’s so hard to come up with legislation.”
The California Partnership to End Domestic Violence also has looked at the failure to protect law. It isn’t calling for significant changes.
“It’s an issue we’ve tried to look at a couple of ways, but what makes sense statewide is tricky,” said Krista Colon, the partnership’s director.
Ending generations of domestic violence
Jackie, the mother of four boys who was frightened by the warning that she could lose her kids, became an advocate for domestic violence victims after her experience. She is now a parent-partner with the Los Angeles Defense Lawyers and helps other parents navigate the system.
Her sons are now 18, 13, 12 and 7. She is stylish and engaging with a ready smile, but she harbors deep trauma. She lived with an abusive partner, the father of her three younger boys, for 10 years.
Jackie at her office in Monterey Park on Sept. 29, 2023. Jackie is a domestic violence survivor and is now a family advocate for Los Angeles Defense Lawyers.
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Alisha Jucevic
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“At first he was the perfect guy,” said Jackie, “Then I moved in with him and little things started happening, like yelling and pushing me.”
She grew up with domestic violence in a large, multi-generational Latino household. When her ex-partner became abusive, she thought it was normal. Her grandmother told Jackie she had “to stay. Hispanic men are just like that.”
Raphael, Jackie’s oldest son, said he remembers being afraid during the fighting, but as the big brother he had to be strong to protect his siblings.
Jackie called 12 shelters before she found one that would take her and her sons. Most shelters don’t accept boys older than 8. Raphael was 11, so he went to live with his biological father.
“My dad told me my mom and my brothers were in the shelter. I didn’t know what that meant, and it really scared me,” Raphael said, “It was really tough because I missed my brothers.”
Although the boys weren’t taken, child welfare’s threat to do so was devastating.
“It was drastic and traumatizing,” said Jackie.
Yet, she said, calling child welfare saved her life.
“When I was living through it, I thought I was doing what I needed to do to protect my kids,” said Jackie.
Most abused mothers do.
This article was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for HealthJournalism’s 2023 Domestic Violence Impact Fund
Crews prep a replacement pipe following a water main break that flooded streets in West Hollywood, and shut down a portion of Sunset Boulevard.
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Myung J. Chun
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
A portion of Sunset Boulevard reopened overnight after LADWP crews finished repairs on a water main break in West Hollywood that shut down the area for more than a week.
The backstory: The 110-year-old water main ruptured on Thursday, flooding streets and damaging businesses.
What's next: LADWP says crews will need to be back to finish up work in the coming weeks.
A portion of Sunset Boulevard reopened overnight after LADWP crews finished repairing a water main break in West Hollywood that shut down the area for more than a week.
The water trunk line broke more than a week ago on Thursday, July 16, flooding streets and opening a sinkhole on Sunset Boulevard. LADWP says crews will need to return in the coming weeks to complete permanent paving and other work.
LADWP also said it's accelerating the installation of a new trunk line to replace the 110-year-old pipe. The infrastructure project, which was originally scheduled to begin installation in 2031, is currently “60% designed” and will take approximately four years to complete.
The historic Westlake Theatre across the street from MacArthur Park opened in 1926 and closed in 1991. A group seeks to revive the space with input from community members.
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Semantha Raquel Norris
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The LA Local
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Topline:
An L.A. nonprofit theater company wants to buy the century-old Westlake Theatre near MacArthur Park and transform the shuttered movie palace into a community arts and nonprofit hub.
The org: Strindberg Laboratory led about 50 people — including representatives from the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Homies Unidos, LA Commons and other groups — on a flashlight tour of the vacant theater recently, pitching a shared civic center that could host performances, film screenings, neighborhood council meetings, workshops and office space for nonprofits.
Why it matters: The Westlake neighborhood has few public gathering places, and the proposal would revive a 1926 landmark that has sat largely unused since it closed as a movie theater in 1991 and became an indoor swap meet. Preservation advocates see a chance to restore a historic building while creating badly needed community space.
Armed with flashlights, dozens of community members stepped into the darkened Westlake Theatre on Thursday, sidestepping puddles and broken glass as they imagined what the century-old movie palace could become.
Inside, much of the theater looks frozen in time. Dust coats the staircases leading to the balcony, while rows of worn seats still face the stage beneath peeling painted ceilings and decorative plasterwork. Above the auditorium, a faded Anthony Heinsbergen mural offers a glimpse of the theater’s past.
Los Angeles nonprofit theater company Strindberg Laboratory hopes to change that.
The organization wants to purchase the historic Westlake Theatre and transform it into a community arts and nonprofit hub. Their proposal calls for preserving the space while adapting it into a shared civic center that could host live performances, film screenings, neighborhood council meetings, lectures, arts workshops and office space for community organizations.
The effort is in its early stages.
The building has not been purchased, no major funding has been secured and organizers say community input will help determine what the project ultimately becomes before fundraising begins. The group’s proposal estimates acquiring and restoring the theater would cost between $6 – $8 million.
“This is just the first gathering,” Michael Bierman, founder of Strindberg Laboratory, told The LA Local. “It’s not an exclusive club. We welcome everybody and anybody. Everybody has something to input in their community.”
Bierman wants to create a coalition to see the project come to life. Several organizations have already expressed interest, he said, and about 50 people attended Thursday’s tour, including representatives from the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Homies Unidos, LA Commons, the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation, Central City Neighborhood Partners and other community groups.
The Westlake Theatre opened in 1926 as a 1,949-seat vaudeville and movie palace overlooking MacArthur Park, according to the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. It operated as a movie theater until 1991, when it closed and was converted into an indoor swap meet. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency bought the property in 2008 with plans to restore it as a live entertainment venue, but those plans stalled after the agency was dissolved in 2012.
In 2018, the property was sold to 634 Alvarado LLP, an entity controlled by Jamison Properties and today, the ground floor houses a swap meet with small businesses, including clothing vendors, tailors and a barbershop, while the historic auditorium remains unused.
Bierman said the next step is forming a steering committee before seeking philanthropic, local, state and federal funding. If organizers can secure enough partners and financing, he hopes the coalition can purchase the theater by winter. Restoring the building, he said, would likely take several years.
An interior view of the historic Westlake Theatre, which has been closed for at least three decades. The space is vacant on July 23, 2026.
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Semantha Raquel Norris
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The LA Local
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What neighbors want to see
For many who attended Thursday’s tour, the proposal was also personal.
Aurora Corona, a former Pico Union Neighborhood Council member, remembers visiting the theater as a child.
“It just brings back memories of the glory of the way it was,” Corona said. “The history is here. So for me, revitalizing and bringing back to what it was is like a dream.”
She said she hopes the restored theater could host performances, international films, festivals and local artists while reflecting the surrounding community.
Sara Zapata Mijares arrived in the Westlake neighborhood from Yucatán in 1969, when she was 17 years old. She remembers when MacArthur Park served as a gathering place for families in the neighborhood.
How to participate
The coalition’s steering committee is expected to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the project’s next steps.
Residents and organizations interested in joining the effort can email Strindberg Laboratory to participate in the discussion.
“This used to be a park where my dad and I used to come and have picnics and he would play ballgaming here with a lot of families,” she said. “I remember coming to the park and coming to watch movies here.”
Zapata Mijares said reviving the theater could also help nearby businesses. Visitors to the nearby Mexican Consulate, she said, could help boost the local economy if they stayed in the neighborhood to shop or eat after their appointments.
The idea to transform the theater into a community hub grew out of Strindberg Laboratory’s own search for a permanent home after rising rental costs made it increasingly difficult to continue working out of the Frida Kahlo Theater. But after touring the three-story building, Bierman realized the space was too large for a single organization.
“We dreamed of a community public space that also is a hub for culture and arts and theater and films and education and newspaper and all those things that every single community needs,” Bierman said.
What happens to the swap meet?
The effort faces practical questions beyond raising millions of dollars. The proposal would have to address the future of the businesses already operating inside the building.
Sofía García, who has sold clothing inside the swap meet for about a year, said she hopes a restoration would bring customers back to the space.
“That would be good because it would improve the atmosphere here,” García said in Spanish. “By improving the theater, there would be more people and therefore more sales.”
García estimated her sales fell sharply after parking was removed outside the building and nearby street construction made it difficult for customers to visit her business.
Bierman acknowledged that vendors will have to be part of the conversation if the project moves forward.
“They are part of the community,” he said. “We’re not going to just come in and take over and boot them out. We need to talk to them and see what they want.”
Jesús Sosa Guerra, who recently opened a tailoring business inside the swap meet, said he supports the proposal but worries existing tenants could be displaced.
“It wouldn’t be good to sideline small businesses, because we all need to hustle to make ends meet,” he said in Spanish.
Preservation advocates see the project as an opportunity to restore a historic landmark while creating badly needed public space in a neighborhood with few gathering places.
“This city is filled with talented people who are lacking one very fundamental thing, which is a place to show what they’re capable of and to make connections,” said Kim Cooper, co-founder of Esotouric, a walking tour that explores various neighborhoods around the city.
Cooper said the space could be opened up to people who have bands and want to perform, to book events, to readings, to poetry slams, to any kind of number of things.
“You could have spelling bees, like anything. You could just have a neighborhood potluck. You could have fruit exchanges. I don’t know. I mean, the neighborhood will tell you what they want to do,” she said.
Cooper’s partner, Richard Schave called Bierman’s proposal “an opportunity for a neighborhood that has had perhaps the worst succession of public policy decisions made about it to finally have one decent public policy decision made about it.”
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A Supreme Court ruling stripped Haitian migrants of their temporary legal status. Those with U.S.-born children face an agonizing choice: should they take them back to a still-dangerous Haiti?
Why it matters: By one Princeton researcher's estimate, there are 50,000 children who've been born in the U.S. to Haitian parents with TPS. The loss of those protections means a large new population of mixed-status families are vulnerable to being split apart by the Trump administration's mass deportation drive.
The backstory: The Supreme Court last month allowed the Trump administration to kick 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians out of the Temporary Protected Status program that has allowed them to live and work in the U.S. because of unsafe conditions in their countries.
SAN DIEGO — Josiane Valsaint has lived and worked legally in the U.S. since 2010. But she and hundreds of thousands of other Haitian nationals are set to lose their legal status as soon as Monday, opening the door for federal immigration agents to round them up for deportation.
The question that sends tears streaming down Valsaint's face is: If that happens, what will happen to her 10- and 12-year-old children, born in San Diego, who attend public school here?
"Who's going to take care of my kiddos?" she asked. "They're not adults yet. They were born here." Taking them to Haiti, much of which is now controlled by heavily armed gangs, is not an option, she said.
The Supreme Court last month allowed the Trump administration to kick 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians out of the Temporary Protected Status program that has allowed them to live and work in the U.S. because of unsafe conditions in their countries. There are many uncertainties now agonizing these communities, including how aggressively immigration agents — who have their addresses — will seek to detain them, and what will happen to their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens.
Guerline Jozef is executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a San Diego-based nonprofit that supports Haitian immigrants. She said if the government begins rounding up Haitians whose Temporary Protected Status has been revoked, family separations are likely because most parents can't fathom taking their children back to a country largely controlled by armed gangs.
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Adrian Florido
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By one Princeton researcher's estimate, there are 50,000 children who've been born in the U.S. to Haitian parents with TPS. The loss of those protections means a large new population of mixed-status families are vulnerable to being split apart by the Trump administration's mass deportation drive.
In deciding to strip Haitians of their temporary legal status, the Trump administration has said it's no longer justified because "conditions in Haiti have improved sufficiently to support the return of Haitian nationals' safely. It's also said allowing Haitian migrants to remain is "contrary to the U.S. national interest."
Haitian migrants and advocacy groups have disputed those conclusions. In fact, they say, Haiti is more dangerous now than when the Obama administration first granted TPS to Haitians after the 2010 earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Haiti's president was assassinated in 2021. Today, armed gangs control vast swaths of the island nation's territory, infrastructure and economy, and restrict the movement of citizens.
Almost invariably, Haitian TPS holders say taking their children there is unfathomable.
"They cannot take those children back to Haiti," said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance, which advocates for Haitian immigrants. "Not because Haiti is not beautiful. Not because there's no hope. But because right now, in July 2026, it is impossible for them to be safe there."
In late June, Haitians in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status attended an information session at the Haitian Bridge Alliance, in San Diego, about what the loss of their legal status could mean for them and their families — and how to prepare.
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Many Haitian TPS holders, Jozef said, are just beginning to consider the impossible decisions they'll soon face. Leave their children in someone else's care? Take them back to Haiti? Try fleeing to another country?
"I think family separation is more likely," Jozef said. "To take them back with them is not even a choice."
Valsaint, whose 10 and 12-year-olds speak perfect English and sing in a church choir in San Diego, said about her plans only that, "families stick together." And then, her voice catching, she added: "We can't go back to Haiti." She said she's hoping for a miracle.
Sandra, a Haitian woman with TPS who asked NPR to use only her first name because she fears deportation, said her teen son came to her after the Supreme Court ruling and expressedsuicidal thoughts over the prospect of being sent to Haiti, a country he's never been to but whose troubles he's kept up with online.
"I cried," said Sandra, who works as an in-home caretaker in San Diego. "I'm supposed to protect them, and I feel like I'm failing."
It's not clear how aggressively Immigration and Customs Enforcement will move to detain and deport Haitians newly stripped of TPS protections, or how much capacity Haiti has to receive deportation flights. Haiti's top migration official told local reporters that based on a conversation with the U.S. embassy in Haiti, he expects about a thousand deportees to arrive on flights from the U.S. each month.
NPR asked the Department of Homeland Security how it plans to handle the U.S.-born children of Haitians it seeks to detain. In an emailed statement, an unnamed spokesperson wrote, "ICE does not separate families. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administration's (sic) immigration enforcement."
Haitian flags at the offices of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a San Diego nonprofit.
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Adrian Florido
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The statement stressed the administration's longstanding position that Temporary Protected Status was always meant to be temporary.
"For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program," the statement said. "The Trump administration is restoring integrity to the immigration system by ensuring that individuals who no longer qualify for TPS either pursue another lawful immigration status, voluntarily depart using the Department's available return assistance, or face removal in accordance with federal law."
In some states with large Haitian communities, such as Massachusetts, officials have published guides to help parents who want to designate temporary guardians for their U.S. citizen children. Jozef, of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said advocates are scaling up other support systems to help Haitians make plans to protect themselves and their children in the weeks and months ahead.
On Monday, a lower federal court in D.C. is expected to implement the Supreme Court's ruling allowing TPS for Haitians to end. That would allow immigration agents to begin arrests. Advocates are exploring other legal options and urging Congress to pass a bill that would extend TPS protections for Haitians. It passed the House with support from some Republicans in April, but was blocked by Senate Republicans this week.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 9 8 8 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
J.C. Reifenberg and Jen Smith, co-owners of Scum & Villainy Cantina, who are hoping to expand to Burbank.
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Harry Levin
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LAist
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Topline:
If you’re the kind of person who nerds out on Star Wars, Marvel, Game of Thrones, for the past eight years you’ll likely have found your community at Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood. Now the owners are raising money to open a bar and creative culture hub in another location: Burbank.
Why it matters: For those who crave the community of other fans — or feel the desire to cosplay every weekend — Scum and Villainy hits the spot.
Why now: Owners J.C. Reifenberg and Jen Smith want to open the new location, Scum and Villainy: Rendezvous, before Avengers: Doomsday comes out on Dec. 18.
For the past nine years, if you’re the kind of person who nerds out on Star Wars, Marvel, Game of Thrones, or any nerd franchise that exists in the galaxy, you’ll have found your community at Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood.
While the exterior looks like just another unassuming business on the often bustling street, walking in reveals a highly curated space honoring every facet of nerd culture down to the last detail. The design honors the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Custom cocktails allude to different fandoms with names like “Sauron Sour” and “Harley Quinn.”
Scum & Villainy Cantina's bar may look familiar.
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Jim Donnelly
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Courtesy Scum & Villainy
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Most importantly, the people enjoying the space are openly expressing their love for these stories and universes, whether that be through intricate costumes or lively debate. It’s a scene one might find after (or before) a sci-fi convention, which is exactly what J.C. Reifenberg, co-owner of Scum and Villainy, intended.
“We wanted to create the post-convention bar experience every night of the week,” Reifenberg said.
As a veteran of such conventions, he’s seen Mark Hamill (who played Luke Skywalker) speak numerous times, but he doesn’t remember any of the speeches. He does remember the people he met at the bar when the long day was over.
Revel in nerd culture (costumes encouraged) at Scum & Villainy.
"The best part about fandom is the community. That’s what people crave,” Reifenberg said. “This geek world has grown up with the kids that fell in love with it and continues to offer comfort, companionship, friendship and opportunity.”
Scum & Villainy Cantina in Hollywood.
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Harry Levin
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LAist
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Reifenberg is now taking that concept and doubling down, hoping to create not just another gathering place, but a community hub for makers and creators to learn the craft.
Expanding to Burbank
For the past eight months, he and his wife, Jen Smith, who designed the interior of both establishments, have been crowdsourcing to raise $1 million for Scum and Villainy: Rendezvous, which they hope to open in Burbank, steps below the AMC 16. It’s certainly attracting interest; so far the pair have raised more than $600,000 toward the goal.
Scum & Villainy, open to people of all galaxies.
(
Jim Donnelly
/
Courtesy Scum & Villainy
)
Reifenberg said he can’t confirm an official launch date because they’re waiting on their permits from the Department of Planning in Burbank. But they are shooting to open by the time Avengers: Doomsday comes out on Dec. 18.
“My goal is for people to watch Avengers and walk down the steps to Rendezvous with everybody in the movie theater,” Reifenberg said. “We’ll have ‘No spoilers’ signs up until the last showing of the night is over.”
The new space is 5,200 square feet over two floors. The bottom floor is for the post-convention hangs, similar to the current Scum and Villainy. Upstairs, there will be private dining and a professional podcast and livestreaming studio. Reel Rejects, the movie and television commentary channel on YouTube, is partnering with Rendezvous for live events and recording.
There’s also a multi-purpose room hosting classes taught by entertainment professionals, for which they’ll be tapping some industry heavy hitters. After running Scum and Villainy and working in film and television, including many projects with fellow super nerd Kevin Smith, Reifenberg and Smith have come to know Marc Bernardin (who wrote episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader and Eyes of Wakanda), Fon Davis (who worked at George Lucas’s visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic), and many more professionals behind geek franchises.
“I’m connected to all these wonderful makers, and these people love to share what they learned,” Reifenberg said, noting that when he grew up in Chicago, not only was there not nearly as much of an industry for this kind of work, but any time he would share his big ideas, his peers would shoot them down as impossible. Not here in Los Angeles.
“Los Angeles is a city of dreamers,” Reifenberg said. “I remember how magical and untouchable these things were. What can I do to help inspire the next kid to do an impossible thing?”
Fundraising for it
The first five investors of $5,000 in the WeFunder campaign for Rendezvous will get to shoot their short films there, and there are plenty of bigger perks as well. Individual tiers go as high as $100,000, offering everything from lifetime discounts to being in a commercial for the space directed by Kevin Smith. (Smith invested $10,000, and has hosted numerous episodes of his podcast Fatman Beyond at the original Scum and Villainy). Then, if the total goes over $750,000 or reaches the total goal of $1 million, everyone who contributed gets extra benefits, such as 20% off merch.
The $1 million amount may seem ambitious, but in 2017, the original Scum and Villainy was just a weekend pop-up instead of a year-round establishment. After announcing it, they sold more than $1 million in tickets from April to July 2017, and they realized they needed to keep it open for the community.
The pair told me so many stories about how Scum and Villainy has changed people’s lives. Some are about couples meeting there on May 4 (yes, May the Fourth, the internationally recognized Star Wars holiday) who then proposed on a later May 4. Others are about people who came to every weekend of the pop-up in costume because it was the first place in their entire lives they felt truly safe to express who they are.
“I have worked in bars and restaurants for 20 years, and I have seen restaurateurs who don’t believe in their concept. They’re not willing to put the time and effort into massaging it to appease the community,” Smith said. “This whole place exists because the community is like ‘Please don’t close.’”
Reifenberg added: “If we build it, they will come.”
