The Brief

They speak Farsi, Cantonese, Spanish and at least two dozen other languages. Some earned master's degrees in their home countries, while others never finished middle school. At California's community colleges, more than 290,000 students take free, non-credit English as a Second Language classes.

As immigrants, many of these students enroll in the classes to integrate into American life, advance in their jobs, support their children or build community. The classes have grown in popularity in recent years — an enrollment bright spot for the state’s community college system, which has struggled to fully rebound to pre-pandemic student counts.

But as news of international student visa revocations and reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids during President Donald Trump’s second term spread across the state, many community colleges have seen some of these students switch to online learning, or stop showing up to class altogether.

So far there’s no statewide data on 2025 enrollment in non-credit ESL courses at California’s community colleges. But several anecdotes from professors and enrollment numbers from individual community colleges paint a similar picture: A heightened fear of ICE is driving students away. In the San Fernando Valley, one professor has lost about 15% of her enrollment this semester. In San Marcos, several classrooms abruptly transitioned from mostly in-person instruction to walls of Zoom squares.

As the semester goes on, ESL professors are offering “Know Your Rights” cards to students and informing their classes of the community college system’s pledge to not participate in federal immigration enforcement efforts. They’re also continuing to connect their students with campus resources such as food pantries and tutoring centers.

ESL classes have expanded post-pandemic

Los Angeles Pierce College began offering non-credit ESL in 2021, and last year the college hired a full-time professor to boost the program. Enrollment in the classes skyrocketed from about 50 in 2021 to more than 350 in 2024. Dennis Solares, the adult education coordinator at Los Angeles Pierce College, said that students seeking to improve their job opportunities drove the recent ESL enrollment growth.

“We offer an opportunity that can help them communicate more, get acclimated with the community and get better jobs,” Solares said.

The classes attract a diverse swath of students. Azucena Hernandez, 42, enrolled in ESL at Palomar College in San Marcos so that she could better support her three kids with day-to-day tasks. She started as a monolingual Spanish speaker, but after several semesters she can comfortably have conversations in English.

Hernandez now volunteers in the beginner levels of ESL as a peer instructor. She said her most important takeaway from these courses is “the family made at school.”

“Every day we are learning something new, and there is companionship,” Hernandez said. “We are united to learn.”

Students in one of Professor Rachel Cerdenio’s non-credit English as a Second Language classes at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills on May 8, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Hernandez’s professor, Sheri Cully, has taught ESL for more than 40 years. She prioritizes civic engagement and real-world learning in her classes. One long-term project that her students work on is maintaining a community garden and advocating for its affordability and accessibility at local government meetings. Cully said she admires her students’ work ethic and resilience.

There were 30,000 more students enrolled in non-credit ESL courses across California’s community colleges during the 2023-24 academic year compared to the 2018-19 academic year, according to state data. The growth has been driven by several factors, including heightened demand for workforce training as the state’s economy expands and the college system's push to expand ESL after the pandemic, according to a written statement to CalMatters from the California community college system’s chancellor’s office.

ESL courses bring state funding to community colleges based partially on enrollment, so several colleges have been working to continue this expansion after enrollment dropped during the pandemic. But student fears about immigration enforcement may thwart those efforts.

Fears of ICE entering schools

An estimated 100,000 college students live in California without permanent legal status, and 3.3 million Californians live in mixed-status households, according to data from Equity Research Institute, a USC research group. Some of these students question whether coming to class is worth the risk of entering a public campus where ICE has access, and they have opted to take courses virtually. But not all students have access to a computer or Wi-Fi at home, and some older students may not be comfortable with the technology required for college courses.

Jessica Buchsbaum, the ESL department chair at City College of San Francisco, oversees a program serving about 6,000 students, ranging from teenagers to octogenarians. She said the non-credit ESL enrollment was “growing intensely in the fall semester, but it has now softened.”

“We’ve definitely heard that students may be afraid to come to school,” Buchsbaum said. “In an environment when there’s so much hate directed at immigrants, we are here to serve this population. These are people who bring incredible energy and hope to our communities.”

On campus at Pierce College. (Photo courtesy of Pierce College/Facebook)

In January, the Trump administration threw out policies implemented in 2011 that limited the ability of ICE agents to arrest people at churches, schools and other areas designated as “sensitive locations.” A statement from the Department of Homeland Security said the change was necessary so “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

California’s community colleges are public campuses, meaning they are limited by federal laws from attempting to prevent ICE agents from coming onto or near spaces that are generally considered open.

Over the years, the California community college system has supported immigrant students, such as offering Dream Resource Centers and connecting students with nonprofit legal services. The system has pointed college administrators to a 2017 state law that prohibits campus police departments from “generally providing personal information… about an individual for immigration enforcement purposes, including, but not limited to, the individual’s home address or work address, unless that information is available to the public.”

The chancellor’s office refused an interview request from CalMatters for this story. In a written statement, the office said, “The mission of the California Community Colleges is to educate and provide social and economic mobility to all Californians seeking to improve their workforce and workplace skills as well as improve their English language literacy.”

ESL professors provide support and students keep learning

Rachel Cerdenio is an ESL professor at Los Angeles Pierce College and the daughter of immigrants from the Philippines. She said the years she spent watching her parents struggle to navigate life in the United States without strong English skills spurred her to teach ESL.

Professor Rachel Cerdenio teaches a non-credit English as a Second Language class at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills on May 8, 2025.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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For Cerdenio’s intermediate courses, she created a curriculum focused on connection to the college and student success. She recently assigned students to visit a campus resource like the student health center or the library, ask questions about it and share the information with their classmates.

“I wish my parents had the experiences that I am giving my students now,” Cerdenio said. “I want them to succeed, and I want them to be part of the campus and know about the resources that are here.”

Solares has given presentations in adult education courses, including Cerdenio’s classes, about immigrant students’ rights and the resources available to students, regardless of their immigration status.

“We had a huge influx of students, but with the change in politics students are naturally scared, and so there's students who choose not to come to classes anymore,” Solares said. “The vibe is more tense. It’s more scary. But we support the students, and we equip the professors to support their students.”

Delilah Brumer is a fellow 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.

Lines stretched around the block Sunday at the Original Saugus Cafe in Santa Clarita. It was supposed to be the restaurant's last day before closing after 139 years — making it the oldest continually operated restaurant in Los Angeles County.

But earlier this week, a sign was posted on the door saying, "Reopening under new ownership soon," although there were few details about who would be running it.

The sign was a surprise to the Mercado family, who have operated the restaurant for nearly 30 years. The family now is in a legal dispute with the Arklin family, who owns the property, about the potential re-opening and who owns the historic name.

The background

Alfredo Mercado worked his way up from bartender to restaurateur, purchasing the business in 1998. Since then Mercado and his daughters have operated the restaurant, leasing from the Arklin family. For most of that time, according to the Mercado side, the two families maintained good terms. Property owner Hank Arklin Sr., a former state assemblyman who owned other properties in the area, kept a verbal month-to-month agreement with the Mercados — no written lease required.

That changed when Arklin died in August at age 97.

New terms, failed negotiations

Larry Goodman, who manages multiple properties for the Arklin family's company, North Valley Construction, took over the landlord relationship. In September, the Mercado family say they were presented with a new written month-to-month lease.

Yecenia Ponce, Alfredo's daughter, said the new terms included various changes to the existing agreement, including a rent increase and charges for equipment.

Months of back and forth negotiations about different options, including selling the business, ultimately fell apart. Their attorney, Steffanie Stelnick, says they are being forced out, without proper legal notice, and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Goodman saying the family has plans to continue running the business.

LAist reached out to Goodman for comment repeatedly Wednesday and Thursday by phone but did not hear back.

Goodman told The Signal, a Santa Clarita valley news outlet, that Alfredo Mercado had changed his mind several times in recent weeks about keeping the business.

“I said, ‘Fine,’ then I got out and got someone to take it over,” Goodman said.

He said he'd been in contact with Eduardo Reyna, the CEO of Dario's, a local Santa Clarita restaurant, and that the cafe could re-open as soon as Jan. 16.

Who owns what?

The dispute also focuses on who owns the rights to the Original Saugus Cafe name.

Ponce said when her father purchased the restaurant in 1998, it was called The Olde Saugus Cafe, but the name was then changed to The Original Saugus Cafe. State records show that name registered as an LLC under Alfredo Mercado.

After Arklin’s death, however, the Arklin family filed a pending trademark application to lay its own claim to the name.

The Mercado family is resisting.

"As long as they don't buy the name from us, we're not handing it over," Ponce said.

Ponce said the family had no idea the landlord planned to continue operations.

"We truly did think we were closing," she said. "We were not aware that they had plans to continue."

She apologized to customers for the confusion.

Whether the decades-old restaurant name survives — and under whose control — may ultimately be decided in court.

Community leaders and politicians in Los Angeles are responding in outrage after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota on Wednesday.

The fatal ICE shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good has sparked anger and fear in Los Angeles, which has been an epicenter of federal immigration enforcement since the summer.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, says the killing was upsetting but not surprising.

" Los Angeles has been witness of the escalating aggressiveness of these federal agents against the community," he told LAist.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the shooting, saying Good was trying to run agents over with her car. That account has been disputed by eyewitnesses, the mayor of Minneapolis and other officials. Bystander video also challenges the federal narrative, according to MPR News.

L.A. politicians have joined a chorus demanding justice for Good. Mayor Karen Bass posted on X, saying that ICE agents are waging "a purposeful campaign of fear and intimidation" on American cities.

"The senseless killing of an innocent and unarmed wife and mother by ICE agents today in Minneapolis is shocking and tragic and should never have occurred," she said in the post.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called on Noem to withdraw ICE from U.S. cities.

“These ICE agents are undertrained and trigger happy and everyone who has seen this video knows ICE murdered this woman,” she said in a statement.

Some protesters also gathered outside the federal building in downtown L.A. Thursday morning to condemn the killing.