The Brief

California colleges and universities are still missing over $5 million worth of humanities grants, despite one federal district court order to return funds to University of California campuses. For at least 19 other campuses, the money remains out of reach as lawsuits continue to challenge the Trump administration's abrupt halt of promised funding in April, when the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled over $10.2 million to already-awarded projects in California.

Now campuses must scramble for limited, alternative funding if they want to keep their projects alive.

For students like Kathleen Boswell, a teaching credential student at Cal State San Bernardino, the loss affects their professional advancement. Boswell and fellow teaching credential students were ready to participate in the first cohort of the “Inland Empire Project,” originally to launch this fall. This project would have provided training and curriculum for current and prospective K-12 teachers to use local history to talk about national topics, such as world wars. Boswell especially looked forward to testing new approaches to connect students with American history.

“Kids get really excited when history is in their grasp,” she said. “If they can connect to local history, they can connect to the broader scope of history. It's a domino effect.”

Student Kathleen Boswell stands in front of the John M. Pfau Library at Cal State San Bernardino on Sept. 8, 2025.

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President Trump announced plans to gut the National Endowment for the Humanities in his most-recent budget, starting with cutting two-thirds of the agency’s staff. The agency is the largest public funder of the humanities nationwide, created alongside the National Endowment for the Arts after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act into law in 1965. The law asserts that the arts are vital to democracy. Ever since, NEH awards represent a coveted prize in the humanities field.

Earlier this year, the agency announced major ideological shifts for the types of projects it would support to comply with the president’s executive orders. Those orders aim to eliminate federal funding for programs that promote such ideals as diversity, gender equity, and environmental justice.

During the first three days of April, letters went out to most NEH grant recipients stating that their funding was terminated. A letter sent on April 2 to Cal State San Bernardino states that, “NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.” The termination was effective immediately.

CalMatters reached out to all 29 California campuses that had ongoing NEH-funded projects at that time, as listed on the federal grant tracker USA Spending. CalMatters found that every California campus but one had their funding cut by confirming with public information officers at each college and checking the American Historical Association’s database of terminated NEH grants.

The only campus spared, the California Institute of Technology, confirmed its funding for the Einstein Papers Project remained intact. The collection houses more than 90,000 of Albert Einstein’s written records.

Terminated projects covered a wide variety of topics, from digitizing the history of Catherine the Great at the University of Southern California to the creation of a minor in human rights and border studies at San Diego State University. Some colleges were in the midst of their project spending when they received the news, while others were slated to start in the upcoming months. Canceled grants ranged from about $23,000 to over $500,000. USC’s canceled projects totaled over $1.2 million.

UC researchers then sued federal agencies. In that case, Thakur v. Trump, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction in June ordering the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Endowment for the Humanities to reinstate grants to the UCs that were not given a grant-specific explanation as to why they were chosen for termination. That case is still ongoing.

Two other lawsuits over the grant cancellations have been filed by humanities groups on behalf of thousands of individual and institutional members. One lawsuit is led by The Author’s Guild and the other by the American Council of Learned Societies. Although the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York consolidated the two cases, the federal judge in both cases granted a preliminary injunction against the NEH in July only for The Author’s Guild case. However, the judge did not order the grants be returned, but instead be held until the case is tried.

As for the other lawsuit led by the American Council of Learned Societies, along with the American Historical Association and Modern Language Association of America, the same judge denied a preliminary injunction, stating they lack standing to sue the NEH for making such institutional cuts as firing employees and discontinuing programs. A hearing in the case is scheduled for today.

Over 40 universities and research institutions in California are members of the American Historical Association, including Cal State Bakersfield, which had to cancel its “California Dreamin’” project.

Jennifer Self, the university spokesperson, told CalMatters in an email that “at this point, the money is on pause and has not been reinstated and everyone is waiting for how this will play out.” Cal State Bakersfield had been awarded $183,000 for a partnership with Bakersfield College to bring high school teachers from around the country to visit historic sites and learn about the history of immigration and agriculture in the Central Valley. Teachers had already been sent their acceptance letters for the workshop when the funding was cut and the project had to be canceled.

Humanities projects take a huge hit

When Michelle Lorimer, the historian and professor at Cal State San Bernardino leading the Inland Empire Project, received the termination notice, she was devastated. For Lorimer, this award represented several months of research, gathering educators and establishing specific programming and curriculum goals. She says the experience has changed the way she looks at federally funded grants.

“I'm not going to apply for federal funding right now for the work that we're doing. That would be a waste of time,” Lorimer stated. “ It's really time-consuming writing these applications, so honestly it would need to be something that I'd feel confident that we'd have a shot at — not something I'm trying to pigeonhole our work into.”

The NEH initially approved the Inland Empire Project for nearly $150,000 to roll out over a period of three years. The project was to create a framework of teaching that uses local history as a method to demonstrate broader U.S. historical topics, such as segregation, redlining and environmental injustice. Teachers in local schools, as well as aspiring history teachers from Cal State San Bernardino, would have received this curriculum and tools to use in classrooms.

Lecturer Michelle Lorimer stands in front of the John M. Pfau Library at Cal State San Bernardino on Sept. 8, 2025.

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Lorimer has looked for alternative funding, but grants of this size are rare and she anticipates that private grants will only get more competitive. Certain private grants are by invite only. Lorimer said that although her college is a member of the American Historical Association, she is not getting her hopes up that the funds might be returned.

Michael Kerp, an assistant professor at Cal State San Bernardino, had planned to create curriculum about the Salton Sea, focusing on environmental and civil rights. He said that the cuts don’t just hurt the university, but the surrounding community.

“There are thousands of high school students who would have benefited from learning about their communities, understanding how to make change in their communities and working closely with their teachers and local leaders in the region,” Kerp said. “Underserved school districts had this opportunity, and now it's gone.”

Kerp plans on helping Lorimer downsize the project, and has been able to secure some smaller philanthropic funding through the university. He agrees that applying for future federal funding under the current administration is likely a waste of time.

Other projects halted include $171,000 for an institute at San Jose State open to K-12 teachers, librarians, and administrators highlighting the immigrant experience through history and literature. Another project was awarded to Saint Mary’s for over $50,000 for an architectural and engineering assessment of the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art building with the goal of someday making it the first carbon-neutral building on campus while preserving their collections. Cal State Dominguez Hills was to receive $141,000 to conduct an ethnographic study of Chat GPT’s influence in California and Hawaiian classrooms.

Three California private universities receive new NEH grants

Despite Trump's calls to dismantle the NEH, the organization announced on Sept. 15 it is awarding $10.4 million, the largest single grant it has ever awarded, to the New York-based Jewish organization Tikvah to “examine Jewish history, culture and identity in the broader context of Western history,” according to a NEH press release. In August, the NEH also announced that it merged seven grantmaking offices into four divisions and appointed new heads to those divisions.

Since May, the agency has also allocated over $44 million in grants to universities and organizations for research and preservation projects, including for an initiative called “A More Perfect Union,” which celebrates the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Three California private universities have received these new grants.

Two awards were given to the University of Southern California — $60,000 for the development of a book on the history of Jerusalem from 1099–1187 and over $249,000 to process and digitize historical archives relating to Southern California’s first African American Baptist church. The university had four NEH projects spanning over $1 million cut in the spring for programs including a history project that would have created an augmented reality of a long-lost Chinatown area of Los Angeles. Another project would have funded 18 academic conversations between humanities experts and the public regarding the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and reframing the conversation in a way that is inclusive of underrepresented groups like Native Americans.

A single award was given to National University, a private nonprofit university located in San Diego, in the amount of $100,000 for a project titled, “Legacies of War: Memorials and Memories of the American Civil War & the Vietnam War.” Pepperdine University, a private Christian university located in Malibu, also received $30,000 for a project focused on the role of Christianity and the bible in the “American founding.”

Given the new executive orders limiting the scope of what is now acceptable for a federally funded grant, the NEH website gives the following advice to prospective applicants: “We encourage you to read the relevant Executive Orders and consider whether your project’s topic — jointly with its goals, methodology, activities, and intended audience — seems allowable.”

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle four lawsuits by people who were injured in collisions with Sheriff’s Department patrol cars.

The payouts come amid increased scrutiny of crashes by law enforcement officers. It has emerged as a major national issue, with cities across the country paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts because of vehicle collisions involving officers, deputies or agents.

In the latest L.A. County payouts, tied to collisions that happened between 2018 and 2020, all plaintiffs said deputies were negligent when they crashed into their cars.

County supervisors settled the lawsuits during an open-session vote Tuesday. The county admitted no wrongdoing.

A collision in Paramount

Freddy Ontiveros and Antonio De La Cruz Zamora were hit from behind in 2018 in the city of Paramount, according to their lawsuit filed in Superior Court. They alleged in the suit that a sheriff’s deputy “rear ended the vehicle which was stopped behind plaintiff's vehicle, pushing the vehicle into plaintiff's vehicle causing plaintiff personal injuries and property damage.”

The deputy was responding to a call of a robbery in progress and had activated the lights and sirens on the vehicle.

A review of the Crash Data Retrieval system found the deputy was traveling south on Paramount Boulevard at 75 mph and slowed to 35 mph at the time of the collision, according to a corrective action plan presented to the board Tuesday.

“The collision investigation concluded that the deputy sheriff caused the collision as he was driving at an unsafe speed for traffic conditions,” the plan stated.

The case settled for $1.75 million.

Later, the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station — which covers Paramount — conducted a review of all traffic collisions for the calendar year 2020 through the end of 2024. The audit revealed there were 196 total collisions for this five-year period, 129 of which were classified as preventable and 67 classified as non-preventable.

“To improve employee safety and reduce the Department's liability and exposure, Lakewood supervisors continue to conduct bi-weekly briefings which focus on the importance of safe driving as well as abiding by all the rules of the road when operating county vehicles,” the plan stated.

Other collisions

In a separate incident, Shannon Story had a green light at Palmdale intersection on Oct. 27, 2019. According to her complaint, a deputy ran a red light and crashed into Story’s vehicle as she entered the intersection. The impact of the collision caused Story’s vehicle to crash into the corner wall of a 7-Eleven convenience store.

“Plaintiff sustained significant injuries as a result of the collision,” her complaint read. She settled the case for $1.2 million.

In another case filed by Jose Gaitan, he says a sheriff’s deputy in a department vehicle rear-ended his car. LAist was not immediately able to get further details on the crash. He settled for $450,000.

The summary corrective action plan for a fourth collision describes how a deputy was backing up to make contact with a suspect when he ran into a car driven by Alejandra Gonzalez. The deputy “reversed approximately two to three feet and collided into the Plaintiff’s vehicle at approximately 5-10 mph.”

Gonzalez settled for $1.5 million.

With only 100 days to go before the FIFA World Cup, what should have been a period of celebration is turning instead into one of turmoil.

The U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran have raised major questions about whether the Persian country will withdraw from the 48-squad tournament — a step no other country has taken after qualifying since 1950 when Scotland, as well as others such as India and Turkey, decided not to participate in part tied to travel costs to the games in Brazil.

But Iran's participation is not the only uncertainty. Violence in Mexico following the killing of a cartel boss sparked questions about the country's ability to attract fans, while concerns about funding for U.S. host cities have also flared up in recent weeks.

And then there is the outrage over the ticket prices, and controversy surrounding President Donald Trump and his administration's policies, including military actions and immigration enforcement.

Angst in the runup to World Cup tournaments is nothing new. Concerns about violence preceded the 2010 and 2014 World Cup tournaments in South Africa and Brazil, while the selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts for the last previous two tournaments also sparked controversies of their own.

But no World Cup men's tournament has been this big before, with 48 teams set to play 104 matches across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. And no recent World Cup has been staged amidst so much global geopolitical uncertainty.

Here are the top areas of concern ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Will Iran withdraw?

It was the top question surrounding the FIFA World Cup as the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran this weekend. So far there's no indication that Iran plans to withdraw, whether to boycott it or for other reasons.

Iran is one of the stronger squads in Asia and is set to play its seventh World Cup this year.

Iran Football Federation President Mehdi Taj acknowledged the uncertainty on Iranian TV, according to Reuters and other media.

"What we can say now is that due to this attack and its viciousness, it is far from our expectations that we can look at the World Cup with hope," Taj said according to the wire agency.

Iran is set to play two games against New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles, home to a large Iranian diaspora community. The country will also play Egypt in Seattle.

FIFA has not directly weighed in. Its general secretary, Mattias Grafstrom, said on Sunday the organization would continue to "monitor the developments around all issues around the world."

"We had the final draw in Washington, where all teams participated. Our focus is to have a safe Word Cup with everyone participating," Grafstrom said.

Whether Iran participates at the World Cup may be in doubt, but at least one thing is certain: its fans will find it difficult to travel to the U.S. given that Iran is one of a handful of countries that faces a travel ban, though it doesn't affect the team and its coaches.

Iran's players pose for a team picture ahead of a FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifying game against North Korea at the Azadi Sports Complex in Tehran on June 10, 2025.

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Will Mexico be safe for visitors?

The flare-up of violence by armed groups across the country after Mexico killed cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes last month has sparked concerns about safety and security at one of the co-hosts of the tournament.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has asserted there will be no risks when the country stages the World Cup, while FIFA President Gianni Infantino has expressed his "total confidence" in Mexico.

Mexico is set to host 13 games for the World Cup, including four in Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco where Oseguera Cervante's group is primarily based and where much of the violence took place.

Concerns about violence are not new. Questions about safety also were raised ahead of the South Africa 2010 World Cup as well as Brazil in 2014 — and both countries ended up successfully hosting their respective tournaments.

Will American host cities get funding?

Concerns about finances are a perennial concern ahead of major sports events — and the U.S. is proving no different.

The 11 American host cities still have not received $625 million in federal funding for security costs that are critical to staging the tournament, including in Foxborough, Mass. The funding was supposed to be provided by the Department of Homeland Security through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

A FEMA spokesperson directed NPR to a recent posting on X from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noting that "FEMA was in the final stages of reviewing applications to ensure proper oversight" but that the partial shutdown affecting the agency — for which she blamed Democrats — had put "significant portions of the FEMA staff on administrative leave."

For some host cities, the matter is becoming urgent. The White House FIFA World Cup Task Force has not yet responded to NPR's queries.

"Without receiving this money, it could be catastrophic for our planning and coordination," Ray Martinez, the chief operating officer for the Miami Host Committee, told a congressional hearing according to Politico.

Will fans be priced out of the tournament?

Perhaps no issue more directly affects fans than the staggering high costs they are facing to attend the World Cup.

FIFA has set the highest ticket prices ever for a World Cup, making tickets to the tournament unaffordable for many fans. Its use of dynamic pricing has also sparked controversy; the most expensive tickets to the final in New Jersey initially sold at over $6,300 only to jump to nearly $8,700 in later sales.

The MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., is set to host eight games in the 2026 World Cup, including the final set for July 19, 2026.

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Not only are ticket prices high — the cost of travel and lodging has surged. Yet despite all the challenges, FIFA claimed it had received over 500 million ticket requests in its last sales window.

That said, FIFA has provided little additional information to back up its claims, making it difficult to determine whether the demand is concentrated just in high profile games such as Colombia against Portugal in Miami or mainly focused in high-profile teams such as Argentina.

Will President Trump and his policies deter fans?

Perhaps the biggest unknown is the effect that Trump and his administration's policies will have on attending the World Cup.

The administration's travel restrictions not only affects Iranian fans, they also hit fans of three other countries that have already qualified for the tournament: Senegal, Ivory Coast and Haiti.

President Trump and his policies remain controversial both at home and abroad. Earlier this year, when Trump threatened to invade Greenland, some European officials raised the prospect of a boycott though the moves never prospered. Even former FIFA President Sepp Blatter encouraged fans to "stay away" from the U.S.

And the latest U.S. and Israel attacks against Iran — which follow the U.S. capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro — have brought renewed attention to FIFA's controversial awarding of its peace prize at the tournament's draw ceremony in Washington, D.C., in December.

The U.S. has already seen a sharp decrease in visitors for a number of reasons, including increased scrutiny at the border (such as a requirement to potentially share social media posts), as well as unease about violence because of high-profile killings involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Oxford Economics projects a rise in visitors tied to the World Cup, so the number of visitors could at least partially recover this year, though other research points to a reduced number of visitors from Europe to the U.S. this year.

It's yet another sign of uncertainty in what is set to be the biggest-ever tournament with only 100 days to go.
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Below 40-degree temperatures didn’t stop a running crew of women from gathering before sunrise in Lincoln Heights on one of L.A.’s coldest mornings this year. 

Bundled up in beanies and gloves, they warmed up by stretching their arms and legs before setting off into residential streets. They logged three miles in just over 30 minutes.

But this isn’t your regular run club.

As they run through El Sereno, Cypress Park, Highland Park and Lincoln Heights, they scan intersections for suspicious or unmarked vehicles. They slow down near bus stops with early risers on their way to work. They greet street vendors selling tamales.

They’re the N.E.L.A Patrol Runners, and they’re looking for immigration agents.

The group formed in February, amid heightened anxiety in Northeast L.A., where federal agents have taken day laborers at the Cypress Park Home Depot and detained a food vendor in Highland Park as recently as last month. In neighborhoods with high immigrant populations, founder Claudia Yanez said she saw a need for neighbors to look out for each other in real time. 

The idea came to 30-year-old Yanez while on a recent run in her El Sereno neighborhood, when she found herself “unconsciously patrolling.”

“If you live in areas targeted [by ICE], you’re already looking out,” Yanez said.

While groups across Los Angeles, including Unión del Barrio, the Harbor Area Peace Patrols in Terminal Island, and the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, conduct rapid response efforts, Yanez said their patrol runs are rooted specifically in Northeast L.A.. 

Their mission, she said, is “to defend from ICE terrorism.”

The N.E.L.A Patrol Runners stretch on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, before beginning their run toward the Home Depot in Cypress Park.

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They start at 6 a.m. and typically run two to three miles at an 11- to 12-minute mile pace, allowing them to stop, investigate and document any vehicles that could be linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If they spot anything suspicious, they would quickly call Unión del Barrio.

The goal is not to physically interfere, but to document and alert neighbors of ICE activity nearby. 

“As a runner, you kind of already have eyes out,” said Yanez, who recently attended a patrol training with the Community Self-Defense Coalition.

“You’re not in a car, so you’re able to see things a little more clearly, closely and slower.”

As Yanez recruits for more runners, a pinned post on the group’s Instagram reads: “Do you like running and hate ICE? Join N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners.”

So far, the group is made up of a small but consistent set of runners — all women.

“I need men to show up,” Yanez said. 

With a handful of runners, “we’re also vulnerable,” she said. “When it’s a big group of people, especially if we’re actively patrolling, we need numbers so it could feel safer.”

To Yanez, this work is a shared responsibility. “I feel like we all have a part to play right now,” she said.

The NELA Patrol Runners jog on Daly Street in Lincoln Heights.

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Ultimately, Yanez hopes their efforts do more than monitor immigration agents. She hopes to also build community and reassurance. “The more we do it, the more we get to know our neighbors,” she said. She wants vendors and others to find comfort knowing: “They’re looking out for us.”

The N.E.L.A Patrol Runners drew inspiration from the Huntington Park Run Club, a group that began tracking and verifying ICE activity after agents in early June raided the Home Depot on Slauson Avenue and State Street. 

“We’ve always responded to the needs of the community,” said Iris Delgado, 34, founder of the Huntington Park Run Club. “That’s what people have known about us.”

Since its founding in 2024, the run club has advocated for pedestrian safety after a relative of a run club member was hit by a vehicle; they’ve also discussed the role of men in keeping each other safe after one of their runners was sexually harassed at a local park. 

“When the raids happened in June, it was like, ‘OK, this is another safety component,” Delgado said.

The run club morphed into providing community self-defense tactics. 

Members of the run club trained with the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network to learn how to monitor ICE activity as people began sending footage of reported immigration raids to their Instagram account. They raised and distributed money for local day laborers and street vendors, and helped establish a community defense center at the nearby Home Depot.

Their efforts inspired the creation of the Southeast Los Angeles Rapid Response Network.

For Delgado, running in your neighborhood is a source of pride and joy. “No matter what’s happening, we’re still outside,” she said.

“The role of a person who runs, who’s able-bodied, is to be aware of why other people in your community don’t feel safe running … and try to make it a little bit safer for them,” Delgado said. 

“When the N.E.L.A. Patrol runners first started, I was like, ‘Hell, yeah,’” Delgado said. “When people take it as their responsibility to look out for each other, that’s what makes the community safer.”

A N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners sign can be seen on the window of a coffee shop in Highland Park.

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In Cypress Park, the N.E.L.A. Patrol runners last Friday jogged toward the Home Depot on Figueroa, where last fall a toddler was among six people taken in an immigration raid.

“Buenos dias, chicas,” a tamalera said, greeting them.

“Bien despiertas,” a passerby said. 

The runners reached the Home Depot parking lot, slowed down and walked closely toward parked trucks to ensure the vehicles were not the kind typically used by ICE. 

They determined the scene was clear and ran back to complete their patrol. Another quiet morning – for now.

ICE has released Cambodian Genocide survivor Sithy Yi from immigration detention following an order by a federal judge.

Yi, who fled the genocide and came to the U.S. with her family in 1981, was detained by ICE at a routine immigration check-in in Santa Ana on Jan. 8 and held at the Adelanto Detention Facility for almost two months.

In response to a lawsuit arguing that she was being held unconstitutionally, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela issued an order Friday requiring ICE to “immediately release” Yi. The order also prevents the agency from deporting Yi without providing an opportunity to be heard by a neutral arbiter and bans ICE from transferring her outside the court’s jurisdiction.

The ruling says the government did not oppose Yi’s request for the court to order her released. Her attorney had alleged ICE failed to follow procedural requirements such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Reunited with her family

Yi was released Monday and has returned to her family, according to her attorney. Yi’s family includes her mother and two sisters she helped to survive starvation and mass killings at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia before they came to the U.S. as refugees.

Retaliation allegations against detention center staff

Yi’s attorney says that in addition to the court’s findings, she believes her client’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment was violated while detained at Adelanto.

“ She was retaliated against by security and medical personnel because she had been communicating with her family, and through her family with me. And we've been reporting about these conditions to Sen. [Adam] Schiff, as well as other members of Congress. And somehow word got back and she was retaliated against,” her attorney Kim Luu-Ng told LAist’s AirTalk on Tuesday.

“She was verbally abused, but she was also punished. She was not allowed to use the bathroom. She was not allowed to shower,” Luu-Ng continued.

“It is absolutely freezing in the detention center, but they don't care. She said to me that she has to wrap herself in blankets, but they're still freezing.”

Yi and other detainees were regularly getting sick from spoiled food served at the facility.

“These are civil detainees. These are not criminal detainees. And there are laws in this country that are supposed to protect against this type of punitive and cruel treatment of detainees,” Luu-Ng added.

She said that in many ways, she feels “criminal detainees have even more rights than civil detainees. And so this is a real crisis.”

Why Yi was released

Luu-Ng has represented Yi since her immigration case began in 2013. Yi was first brought to immigration court after a drug conviction her family says stemmed from untreated mental health issues from being tortured as a child and prolonged exposure to abuse into adulthood.

Her immigration case ended in 2016, with a judge ruling to withhold an order of removal due to concerns she would be tortured if she were deported to Cambodia.

Yi also applied for a U visa — a type of visa providing temporary immigration status to crime victims who have cooperated with law enforcement — in 2022. That visa application is still pending.

Judge Valenzuela explained her reasoning for the order, writing in the document that ICE did not oppose a motion by Yi’s lawyer requesting she be released. Luu-Ng claimed in the motion that ICE detained her client without following required steps, such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Valenzuela also pointed to another case against ICE where she granted an order for Ramy Hakim to be released based on similar circumstances Jan. 22. Hakim was detained at a regular immigration check-in Dec. 19 despite receiving protections in 2004 against being deported to Egypt where he would likely be tortured. He was held at the same Adelanto facility as Yi.

“The facts are a Biden-appointed activist judge ordered this criminal illegal alien released into American communities," a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an emailed statement. The spokesperson said Yi was ordered to be removed from the country in 2016 had “received full due process.”

Yi’s attorney says ICE kept her detained through the weekend despite the judge ordering her to be released immediately.

 ”ICE doesn't work on the weekends,” Luu-Ng said. “Any minute that my client was detained beyond the time that the order was issued was an unconstitutional detention.”

ICE spokespeople have not responded to a request for comment about this allegation.