The Brief

For students in the transitional kindergarten classroom at Oakland’s International Community Elementary School, the day is split in half. They spend their mornings speaking and learning in Spanish from teacher Cintya Valdivia. After lunch, they learn everything in English from teacher Sophie Siebert.

When the school year first began, the 4- and 5-year-olds dreaded the switch to English, Seibert said. The school is in Fruitvale, home to the city’s largest Latin American immigrant community, and with many students speaking Spanish, or a Mayan language called Mam at home, they were not yet comfortable with English.

But by the end of the year, assessments showed that the students were picking up a lot of English, Seibert said.

One student she called her “favorite, rebellious Venezuelan kid,” often avoided talking to her by saying, “I can’t speak English, Miss.” He wound up passing his assessments with flying colors, she said.

“I just looked at him like, ‘OK, you can't understand me? You did pretty well, bilingual genius,’” Seibert said. “And so, it's really cool to see their confidence grow in another language.”

Meanwhile, Valdivia said the Spanish-speaking students’ vocabulary grew in their native language, and their sentence structures became more complex.

Valdivia and Siebert’s classroom is a model of California’s effort to boost bilingual education, while it also works to make transitional kindergarten available to all 4-year-olds by next fall. School districts are offering TK classes in Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and other languages that reflect the linguistic diversity of their community, and to seize upon the window when young learners are most open to language development.

They have a lot of catching up to do: California is behind other states when it comes to investing in bilingual education and enrolling English learners in dual-language immersion programs, experts said, and the state may not have enough teachers to reach its big goals.

“There are enormous numbers of dual-language learners in California, and taking advantage of those children’s languages and helping them develop them fully is going to be a really big lift,” said Conor Williams, a researcher at The Century Foundation who examined the state’s bilingual education policies. “Could the state do more? Absolutely.”

Why does bilingualism matter?

In California, nearly 60% of children under the age of 6 live in homes where a language other than English is spoken, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data.

A five-year study shows these dual-language learners, who are more likely to live in low-income households, benefit the most from a year of transitional kindergarten. When they get to kindergarten, they’re ahead of their peers in math and literacy skills.

“Sometimes, we hear, ‘Oh, if they want to learn English, we need to get them in English classrooms,’ but actually, the opposite is true,” said Carolyne Crolotte, who promotes dual-language learner programs for Early Edge California. “If children have a very strong foundation in their home language, they actually learn English more easily.” 

School districts across the state are promoting the value of bilingualism. In Oakland, parents can attend district-sponsored presentations on how to keep a child’s home language alive so they don’t lose it when they start going to school. In Los Angeles County, billboards and bus stop benches are plastered with the message “two languages, twice the opportunities.”

It’s a dramatic shift in public attitude and policy toward bilingual education.

In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 227, which limited bilingual education in public schools. Backers of the measure were worried bilingual instruction was delaying dual language learners’ ability to read, write and speak English because they were spending too much time learning in their home language.

Then in 2016, voters overturned that policy, paving the way for language immersion programs.

But by that time, the damage was done. Proposition 227 dismantled bilingual teacher training programs, Crolotte said, and now school districts are struggling to find qualified teachers as demand grows for language immersion programs.

“It’s been a challenge trying to get teachers back into the classroom and then also to get new bilingual teachers to fill these classrooms,” she said.

Why aren't there teachers?

The shortage is affecting all grades, but is particularly acute at the TK level because each classroom needs more teachers.

Currently, the state sets the average class size for transitional kindergarten at 24, with one adult for every 12 students to ensure they receive enough attention and supervision — two marks of a high-quality early childhood education program. By the 2025-26 school year, the demand for teachers will be greater as the state lowers the average class size to 20, or one adult for every 10 students.

Already, school districts and charter schools surveyed by the California Department of Education said they’re having a hard time finding fully credentialed teachers to teach TK by the 2025-26 school year.

These agencies also had challenges hiring assistant teachers to maintain adult-child ratios, resulting in a 12% vacancy rate for the position at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year. That number slightly improved to 8% by the middle of that year.

Teacher Sophie Seiberth speaks with transitional kindergarten students during recess at the International Community School in Oakland.

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“These positions are some of the most difficult to staff because pay is lower, and often those positions are part-day,” said Hanna Melnick, senior policy advisor at the Learning Policy Institute who analyzed the survey results.

A sample audit of school districts found at least 20 school districts and 50 charter schools failed to comply with the class size requirement and/or adult-to-child ratio in the 2022-23 year when the TK expansion began. These districts and charter schools faced fines ranging from $1,706 to nearly $7 million, according to a report by EdSource.

The districts blamed the problem on a nationwide teacher shortage and difficulty hiring assistant teachers.

To address the shortage, California invested $25 million to prepare teachers to work in dual-language classroom settings. As part of the TK expansion, the state also invested hundreds of millions of dollars to increase the number of early educators in TK and the California State Preschool Program, which serves income-eligible 3- to 4-year-olds.

Critics say the state is missing out on a valuable source of teachers: those who already have experience working with 4-year-olds in private and nonprofit child care settings, and already have met some of the requirements for a teaching credential.

They also point out that women of color and immigrant women form the backbone of the early child care workforce, and by easing their way into the TK classrooms, they could better reflect the diversity of the student body and improve their wages.

“When it comes to young children, you come to work with your entire heart and your full emotional self. That requires training and experience, and just having more education [from a credentialing program] isn’t going to create that,” said Krystell Guzman, co-director of La Plazita Preschool, a private preschool chain in Oakland and San Leandro.

She said most 4-year-old students are leaving her program to attend the Spanish immersion TK classes at OUSD, leaving her to scramble to preserve jobs for the immigrant women on her staff.

What could change?

Advocates for racial equity in public education are supporting a bill by Central Valley Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria that would offer incentives to educators already in the early learning and care field to train to become TK teachers. Offering stipends, child care, transportation and academic support to those educators — many of whom have bachelor’s degrees — would give them a boost as they pursue their credential, said Natalie Wheatfall-Lum, director of TK-12 policy at EdTrust-West.

“We know that being in a culturally and linguistically affirming environment and being taught by culturally and linguistically diverse educators is an effective equity strategy — that’s part of what ‘quality’ means,” she said. “So we want families to be able to choose TK without having to compromise on quality — including a space where they feel welcomed and can see themselves represented.”

The California Department of Education is responding to this concern by advising educators that even when they don’t speak a student's home language, they can learn a few words or provide books that recognize the child’s home language. This recommendation will be included in a new edition of the Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations, which the department will release this summer.

Meanwhile, school districts like Oakland Unified are partnering with a local college to recruit new teachers, and offering financial aid to current staff who want to work in TK classrooms.

Seibert received an emergency permit through the district to co-teach the dual immersion TK classroom at International Community Elementary School while she earns her credential.

The 29-year-old has experience working at a private preschool, but said she was drawn to the statewide effort to provide free early education for all children. She said working side-by-side with Valdivia, and getting additional support from a classroom aide, gave her a chance to hone her teaching skills and provide one-on-one support to the students who needed it.

Her goal was to help students get used to the routines of the school day, learn to solve problems and collaborate with their peers — skills that she said will help them succeed in kindergarten and beyond.

“Those are key goals we’re trying to reach. All the letter recognition, rhyming skills and counting are just like the icing on top,” she said.

She knows she’s fortunate.

Next year, the district won’t have enough funding to put two teachers and an aide in one classroom.

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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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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