The Brief

A year ago, California State University, Dominguez Hills started the state's first master’s degree program for incarcerated students, with the goal of creating a pathway for a growing number of college graduates to continue their education behind bars. Already, its future is uncertain.

The state agency that paid tuition for 31 students in the inaugural class of the humanities graduate program says it may have made a mistake.

Not all of the students funded by the Department of Rehabilitation, which provides vocational services for people with disabilities seeking employment, should have been deemed eligible for its services, officials said. And that means that both students already enrolled and new ones seeking to start the grad program may have no way to pay for classes.

Now, students are anxious and college officials are scrambling to find alternative ways to cover tuition costs.

More than a month after classes officially started, around a third of the 41 students who had been accepted into the program’s second cohort had not yet received funding. The rest of the students are in limbo: some have explicitly been denied funding, others are waiting to see if the funding will be approved, and a few haven’t even had interviews about their eligibility for support yet. And some students in the first cohort are wondering if they’ll be able to finish their degrees.

Access to graduate programs inside is becoming increasingly important as the number of bachelor’s programs in prison grows with the return last year of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students. Since the first incarcerated bachelor’s graduates got their degrees from California State University Los Angeles at the state prison in Lancaster in 2021, California prisons now offer 11 bachelor’s programs, with two more starting next year.

Several of those Cal State LA grads continued on to the master’s program, which is open to students across California’s 34 prisons. It’s part of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation commitment to offering education “from grade school to grad school.” Research shows that the higher the level of education someone achieves in prison, the less likely they are to return to prison once they are released and the more likely they are to find a job.

Graduate programs in prison are rare. The few master’s programs that are available are usually print-based programs where students submit their assignments and communicate with professors via mail. The Cal State Dominguez Hills program is different. Most of its students have laptops that allow them to communicate with their professors and also interact with their classmates on moderated discussion boards.

But the current challenges facing the master’s program highlight the vulnerability of prison education programs that rely on a single funding source. Programs must often cobble together funding from various sources, sometimes resulting in tenuous partnerships between agencies with different primary missions. The situation underscores the need for diversified and sustainable funding models for prison education programs.

The federal rules are clear

The Department of Rehabilitations funds people, not programs, said Kim Rutledge, deputy director of legislation and communications. The agency is primarily focused on preparing individuals with disabilities to find jobs. "Sometimes we pay for education as a part of getting someone to competitive, integrated employment, but we're not strictly an education program,” she said.

Although the agency serves people with disabilities in California, its funding primarily comes from federal workforce dollars. That money has clear eligibility rules, said Mark Erlichman, deputy director of vocational rehabilitation.

The guidelines mean the agency cannot fund individuals who don’t have job opportunities in the near future without putting the entire agency and the population it serves at risk. As a result, the agency can’t in most cases provide money or services to incarcerated students who are not expecting to be released soon.

“We have a program that served 154,000 Californians with disabilities last year,” Erlichman said. “There's no flexibility that wouldn't jeopardize our entire program.”

Counselors evaluate individuals on a case-by-case basis to see if they can receive services from the Department of Rehabilitation. Eligibiity to receive financial support includes having a disability that significantly hinders someone’s ability to work and being able to benefit from services to achieve employment in a competitive, integrated setting.

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Courtesy California State University, Dominguez Hills

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In practice that means a job in the community that pays at least minimum wage. Individuals who are serving life without the possibility of parole or other long sentences are generally precluded from finding such employment.

“Therefore they would not be eligible for our services, which in this case is asking for education to be paid for," Rutledge said.

Most prison jobs would not meet the competitive employment criteria either. Incarcerated individuals in California usually earn less than $.74 an hour.

Much of the Department of Rehabilitation’s work with the incarcerated population is with reentry planning before people are released. Formerly incarcerated students with disabilities have been also able to use its support to pay for college. But it’s unusual for the agency to be working with individuals who might still have a long time to serve.

Last year, counselors may have determined that some incarcerated individuals in the first cohort were eligible for services based on limited information, Rutledge said.

“There are some instances last year where the counselor who made the determination wasn't aware that there was no possibility of parole,” Erlichman added.

Erlichman stressed that there hasn’t been a change in criteria and there is no Department of Rehabilitation policy against funding people who have life sentences. He said they will work with individuals in the first cohort who had been determined eligible for support in error.

“We're not going to pull [funding] right away, but we really have to look at those again on a case-by-case basis,” Erlichman said.

The case for postgraduate opportunities in prison

Just because someone doesn’t have a release date or has a life without parole sentence doesn’t mean that they won’t ever get out of prison. “Parole dates are moving targets,” said Matt Luckett, director of the Cal State Dominguez Hills master’s program.

People are often released early through clemency or state legislative reforms that allow them to be resentenced, and precluding them from services that support education means that they are less likely to be able to support themselves if they are released. Twenty-one students who were in the first three cohorts of the Cal State LA bachelor’s program at Lancaster — many of whom thought they’d never be going home — have gotten out.

“We want to give them every chance to be as prepared as they can be to get a job if they do get out,” Luckett said.

Even if they never get out of prison, lifers often become mentors and tutors to younger individuals inside. Sometimes they even start education programs.

Master’s student Dortell Williams, who is a Cal State LA grad serving life without parole, said that people serving extreme sentences are often excluded from rehabilitative programs despite the ways they can benefit their communities.

“We are expected to die in prison. And while that outcome is a real possibility, the irony is that our permanence in prison is used by the guards as a stabilizing influence on rowdy youth and people sojourning through the system,” he said. “We mentor, peer instruct, quell violence and lead people in the right direction. Education helps us shape a safer environment inside for our peers and staff, and helps us keep the youth in our families and communities from coming to prison at all.”

Kunlyna Tauch, another Cal State LA graduate at Lancaster who was accepted to the master’s program, said that seeing peers earn a degree – particularly a master’s – can change a prison’s entire culture.

“Consider the wider implication of what graduate-level education can mean to a community of people that don't think they are worth it,” said Tauch, who will be released in October. “When one person achieves something, the entire population experiences that accomplishment.”

The need for broader investment

As graduate students, individuals enrolled in the Cal State Dominguez Hills program are not allowed to take out federal student loans and are not eligible for federal financial aid such as the newly reinstated Pell Grants. Most students are unable to cover costs themselves.

All costs for the Cal State Dominguez Hills master’s program — estimated to be between $12,000-15,000 for the two years — have to be covered by tuition and fees. The program doesn’t receive any direct funding from the university or the corrections department.

Luckett said it was never the intention for the master’s program to rely solely on funding from the Department of Rehabilitation. In the short term, individual students are applying to scholarships and Luckett is looking at alternative sources of funding such as a GoFundMe campaign. But, he says, with hundreds more graduates expected from prison bachelor’s programs over the next several years, there needs to be broader investment in postgraduate opportunities in California from both public agencies and philanthropic organizations. “The whole point of building this ecosystem is making sure it’s sustainable,” Luckett said.

A representative for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said that over the past few years the department has worked with Cal State Dominguez Hills to explore options for tuition and will continue to support graduate opportunities. “Just as for students in the community, it is a challenge to find financial support for the master's degree,” the spokesperson said. “Although DOR's policy clarification is a hurdle, it is not the end of the program or of CDCR's commitment to the program.”

Charlotte West is a reporter covering the future of postsecondary education in prisons for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for her newsletter, College Inside.

With fewer than six weeks to go before the June election, candidates running for City of L.A. and Los Angeles Unified School District offices have raised a combined $19 million, according to records from the L.A. City Ethics Commission.

Campaigns for mayor, District 11 City Council member and city attorney have emerged as the most funded races.

Here’s how they stack up:

L.A. mayor

Mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Adam Miller are leading all L.A. city candidates in fundraising, with $3.7 million and $2.7 million raised so far, respectively.

The candidates have tapped into very different sources to fund their campaigns.

Miller, a tech entrepreneur and leader of multiple nonprofits, has loaned $2.5 million to his own campaign and raised just $223,000 from donors since entering the race in February.

Bass, on the other hand, had already gathered more than $2.3 million in contributions by January. She’d received some of those donations as far back as July 2024.

The city’s matching funds program has also given Bass a nearly $874,000 boost over Miller, who did not qualify to receive a 6-to-1 match from the city on donations that meet certain criteria.

Nithya Raman, City Council member for L.A.’s District 4, has had the quickest growth in donor support out of all candidates for mayor after entering the race in February.

She’s received a combined $1.1 million from direct contributions and matching funds from the city.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has received about $538,000 in contributions, and Presbyterian minister and community organizer Rae Huang has taken in about $273,000.

District 11

Traci Park, who is the current City Council member for the 11th district, has brought in about $1.4 million so far through contributions and matching funds.

Faizah Malik is an attorney at the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel and is challenging Park for her council seat. She has raised about $632,000.

This race also has the largest amount of outside spending across the city and LAUSD.

About $972,000 has been spent in support of Park, including about $634,000 from the Los Angeles Police Protective League and $297,000 from a committee sponsored by United Firefighters of L.A. City.

Unite Here, a labor union representing hospitality workers, has spent more than $220,000 in support of Malik.

City attorney

Hydee Feldstein Soto, the incumbent city attorney, has raised nearly $1.2 million in contributions and matching funds.

Marissa Roy, deputy attorney general, has raised nearly $1 million in her race to unseat Feldstein Soto.

Deputy District Attorney John McKinney and human rights attorney Aida Ashouri have raised about $73,000 and $14,000, respectively, in the race.

WASHINGTON — An appeals court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the U.S., a key pillar of the Republican president's plan to crack down on migration.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border, and the president can't circumvent that.

The court opinion stems from action taken by Trump on Inauguration Day 2025, when he declared that the situation at the southern border constituted an invasion of America and that he was "suspending the physical entry" of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decides it is over.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under "procedures of his own making," allow him to suspend plaintiffs' right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

"The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA's mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals," wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We conclude that the INA's text, structure, and history make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts," the opinion said.

White House says asylum ban was within Trump's powers

The administration can ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling or go to the Supreme Court.

The order doesn't formally take effect until after the court considers any request to reconsider.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News, said she had not seen the ruling but called it "unsurprising," blaming politically-motivated judges.

"They are not acting as true litigators of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political lens," she said.

Leavitt said Trump was taking actions that are "completely within his powers as commander in chief."

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Department of Justice would seek further review of the decision. "We are sure we will be vindicated," she wrote in an emailed statement.

The Department of Homeland Security said it strongly disagreed with the ruling.

"President Trump's top priority remains the screening and vetting of all aliens seeking to come, live, or work in the United States," DHS said in a statement.

Advocates welcome the ruling

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that previous legal action had already paused the asylum ban, and the ruling won't change much on the ground.

The ruling, however, represents another legal defeat for a centerpiece policy of the president.

"This confirms that President Trump cannot on his own bar people from seeking asylum, that it is Congress that has mandated that asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum and the President cannot simply invoke his authority to sustain," said Reichlin-Melnick.

Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country's immigration law and say denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.

Lee Gelernt, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said in a statement that the appellate ruling is "essential for those fleeing danger who have been denied even a hearing to present asylum claims under the Trump administration's unlawful and inhumane executive order."

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, welcomed the court decision as a victory for their clients.

"Today's DC Circuit ruling affirms that capricious actions by the President cannot supplant the rule of law in the United States," said Nicolas Palazzo, director of advocacy and legal Services at Las Americas.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a partial dissent. He said the law gives immigrants protections against removal to countries where they would be persecuted, but the administration can issue broad denials of asylum applications.

Walker, however, agreed with the majority that the president cannot deport migrants to countries where they will be persecuted or strip them of mandatory procedures that protect against their removal.

Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was nominated by Democratic President Obama, also heard the case.

In the executive order, Trump argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents the authority to suspend entry of any group that they find "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

The executive order also suspended the ability of migrants to ask for asylum.

Trump's order was another blow to asylum access in the U.S., which was severely curtailed under the Biden administration, although under Biden some pathways for protections for a limited number of asylum seekers at the southern border continued.

Migrant advocate in Mexico expresses cautious hope

For Josue Martinez, a psychologist who works at a small migrant shelter in southern Mexico, the ruling marked a potential "light at the end of the tunnel" for many migrants who once hoped to seek asylum in the U.S. but ended up stuck in vulnerable conditions in Mexico.

"I hope there's something more concrete, because we've heard this kind of news before: A district judge files an appeal, there's a temporary hold, but it's only temporary and then it's over," he said.

Meanwhile, migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have struggled to make ends meet as they try to seek refuge in Mexico's asylum system that's all but collapsed under the weight of new strains and slashed international funds.

This week hundreds of migrants, mostly stranded migrants from Haiti, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on foot to seek better living conditions elsewhere in Mexico.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California’s trial courts will have to collect and report data on civil arrests at their facilities, including those by federal immigration agents, under a rule approved Friday by the state’s judicial policymaking body.

The new requirement by the Judicial Council of California comes in response to an unprecedented rise in detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at superior courts across California’s judicial system, the nation’s largest. Attorneys, judges and public safety advocates have criticized the practice.

“Our court users have expressed concern and hesitation about coming to court. That concern has been amplified by additional visits to the Oroville courthouse by federal officers,” Sharif Elmallah, the court executive officer of the Superior Court of Butte County, told the council of mostly judges and attorneys Friday. “We know that when individuals fear potential arrest and enforcement actions, many will choose not to appear, even when required to by court order.”

Elmallah said immigration enforcement officers apprehended several people who had cases before the court in Oroville on a single day in July. The agents have kept operating at the court, he added, including as recently as Wednesday of this week.

Victims of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and wage theft, advocates say, are declining to seek relief in court out of fear of encountering immigration enforcement there, hurting people’s access to justice.

“Making courthouses a focus of immigration enforcement hinders, rather than helps, the administration of justice by deterring witnesses and victims from coming forward and discouraging individuals from asserting their rights,” California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said in earlier statements.

The Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, seen on April 2, 2019.

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Stephanie Lister

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California already prohibits arrests related to immigration offenses and other civil law violations at court buildings, except when the enforcement agency has a written order signed by a judge, known as a judicial warrant. But immigrant advocates, public defenders and others say the state law lacks teeth, arguing that ICE has flouted it without any repercussions so far.

Meanwhile, a bill working its way through the state Legislature aims to strengthen the ban on courthouse civil arrests and expand protections for people going to and from courts.

Under the Judicial Council’s separate new rule, the state’s 58 trial courts starting in June will be required to track and report whether officers identified themselves, presented a warrant or took an individual into custody, as well as the date and location of each incident.

While the move will help state officials understand the scope of the issue, it won’t protect people’s fundamental right to access the courts, said Tina Rosales-Torres, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law and Poverty who estimates that ICE has conducted hundreds of arrests at California courts since January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office.

“That’s a good first step. It is good to have data. I do not think it is sufficient to meet the crisis that we are in,” she said.

“So it is going to be helpful to kind of see at least a snippet of what is happening,” Rosales-Torres added. “But then what? The Judicial Council hasn’t proposed a solution, and data is only as effective as we use it.”

Immigration arrests at California courthouses used to be rare, reserved for cases involving national security or other significant threats. As recently as 2021, during the first year of the Biden administration, top ICE officials recognized that routinely apprehending people in or near courts would spread fear and hurt the fair administration of justice.

Since last year, as authorities moved to fulfill Trump’s mass deportation promises, federal officers have approached and handcuffed at least dozens of people at court hallways, exits and parking lots in Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and other counties. In San Bernardino, TV cameras filmed agents in black vests restraining several men at the Rancho Cucamonga court parking lot in a single day this month.

Some attorneys now warn clients they could see immigration enforcement in court.

Witnesses are failing to show up, and others are opting out of fighting legitimate cases, said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association. She and Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods wrote an opinion piece condemning ICE’s presence in state courts after the agency arrested a man leaving a court hearing in Oakland in September.

“It’s a foundational element of democracy to have a functioning court system,” Chatfield said. “And when people are afraid to go to court for whatever reason, you’ve really denied justice to an entire segment of our residents.”

SB 873, the bill that would strengthen California’s ban on civil arrests at courthouses, would also authorize the attorney general and those who are arrested to sue over violations. People would be entitled to damages of $10,000. The bill, by state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, D–San Bernardino, is supported by the California Public Defenders Association, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and other groups.

It is part of a larger pushback in California against a surge in immigration enforcement netting more people without criminal convictions in cities’ public areas, parking lots of stores like Home Depot and at routine immigration check-ins. SB 1103, for instance, would require big-box home improvement retailers to report ICE enforcement activity at their facilities.

Other states, such as New York, also prohibit the civil arrests of people at courthouses or those traveling to and from such facilities unless an officer has a judicial warrant. The Trump administration challenged New York’s law last year, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

The restaurant:

If you’re driving along York Boulevard toward Eagle Rock, you’ll see a variety of Mediterranean, Mexican and pizza spots.

Queen’s Raw Bar & Grill stands out as a seafood spot with a menu that offers oysters, fish-centric entrees and desserts like their derby pie. The restaurant has been around since 2023, brought to life by business partners Ari Kolender, who's executive chef, and Joe Laraja, who serves as managing director.

The food: 

Queen’s Raw Bar & Grill takes inspiration from South Carolina’s seafood scene, where Kolender grew up. Unlike the New England feel of their other restaurant, Found Oyster, Queen’s focuses on southern classics and refreshing raw bar food.

The interior of Queen's Raw Bar and Grill, including the signature oyster bar.

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What we tried: tuna tostada, mackerel tartare and pimento cheese sliders.

The verdict:

“The flavor is so incredible [and] intense,” said AirTalk Friday host Austin Cross about the tuna tostada. “Everything comes together perfectly.”

“It’s got the acids down pat,” Austin said of the mackerel tartare. “The capers are doing their part, and then the dill does give it that finish you get traditionally in some Jewish foods.”

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