The Brief

Dennis Block, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer who once boasted about filing thousands of evictions every year, is facing new disciplinary charges from the California State Bar.

Some of the allegations stem from a case LAist covered in 2023, in which Block submitted a filing in eviction court that cited non-existent case law.

Block didn’t appear in court to explain how the brief was created. But legal experts told LAist at the time that the document appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence, which is known to produce faulty information.

The charges filed last Thursday build on previous charges filed against Block late last year. The new charges allege that by submitting the filing, Block “failed to perform with diligence” and “committed acts involving moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.”

If the charges against Block are proven, the State Bar proceedings could lead to him facing suspension or — in the most serious outcome — disbarment.

Block referred LAist to his attorney for comment on the charges, but they didn’t respond for this story.

The backstory on a ‘fabricated’ court filing

Over the course of nearly 50 years as an attorney, Block established his eponymous firm as a go-to resource for L.A. landlords seeking to evict their tenants. But recent actions by the State Bar have called into question his treatment of clients.

In December, the bar filed a series of disciplinary charges against Block, alleging he wrongly collected “non-refundable” fees, failed to account for client charges and didn’t return property in a timely manner after a client fired him.

Last week, the State Bar filed a new round of charges. Some are similar to the previous allegations. But two of the new counts relate to the 2023 filing, which led to $999 in court sanctions against Block’s firm.

A judge at the time said the filing contained “an entire body of law that was fabricated.”

Lydia Nicholson, the attorney who was defending the tenant involved in the underlying eviction case, said the charges against Block are appropriate.

“Tenants are already so vulnerable in these court cases,” said Nicholson, who works with the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action. “And to have that added step of basically just trying to lie to win is even worse.”

The dangers of using AI in court

Ari Waldman, a UC Irvine School of Law professor, said AI tools can be helpful for gathering background information about particular areas of law. But he said lawyers who use the technology to draft and file briefs without critically assessing the results should be disbarred.

Reacting to the new charges against Block, Waldman said, “No responsible lawyer should ever use AI to replace critical thinking, analysis and basic research.”

Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, a landlord advocacy group, defended Block. In an email to LAist, he said the disciplinary charges are still only allegations — not proven facts.

“Mr. Block has shown himself to be very knowledgeable of rental housing regulations and he is a wonderful educator and presenter on the complicated regulations our members are forced to comply with,” Yukelson said.

During the 2023 sanctions hearing, an attorney from Block’s firm blamed a recently hired lawyer for producing the fabricated filing. He said she no longer worked at the firm.

But by signing the filing himself, Block vouched for its accuracy to the court, according to the State Bar.

Since the 2023 case, Block has dabbled in other uses of AI. During his regular YouTube briefings for landlords, he has often included imagery that appeared to have been created with AI tools.

He opened one 2025 video with a dance pop song titled, “The Tenant From Hell.” He described it as an “original song by Dennis Block, with a lot of help from artificial intelligence.”

One candidate wants to suspend a host of state environmental policies that boost the price of gas. Another wants to suspend the 61 cent-a-gallon state gas tax.

Amid a spike in gas prices fueled by President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, at least two Democratic contenders for California governor are capitalizing on the moment to push for policies they say would give drivers a break.

Recent proposals from former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan reflect how Democrats are trying to use rising gas prices, a potent election-year issue, to distinguish themselves as prioritizing the cost of living.

Their Republican opponents have been saying the same for months.

Villaraigosa is calling for a moratorium on a variety of state greenhouse-gas reduction rules that he called “failed policies.” They include carbon emissions limits at refineries, standards to reduce carbon in fuels and other rules he blames for forcing refineries to close. Such policies collectively add about 50 cents to the price of each gallon of gas, state estimates show.

Villaraigosa has received several campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, including from Chevron, Marathon, the state’s largest oil and gas producer California Resources Corporation, and executives of two Kern County drilling companies.

Mahan supports temporarily suspending the state gas tax, but in an interview said he wouldn’t rule out also curbing some of the state’s refinery regulations.

Both candidates are lower-polling moderates, and their proposals are similar to ideas the two top-polling Republican candidates have been pushing.

Republican Steve Hilton has promised to lower the price of gas to $3 a gallon statewide by cutting the gas tax in half and eliminating policies that reduce emissions. Chad Bianco would do away with the gas tax altogether. Both Republicans would expand in-state oil drilling and keep refineries open, a goal Villaraigosa and Mahan also share.

Top-polling Democratic candidates Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Eric Swalwell have not weighed in on what they would do to mitigate gas prices. Steyer and Swalwell on Tuesday night both dismissed the proposals of Villaraigosa and Mahan as unserious. Steyer's spokesperson Danni Wang said he would rather focus on making "sure oil companies aren’t reaping excess profits" while Swalwell's spokesperson Micah Beasley said he would prioritize keeping refineries' fuel inventories stable as the state transitions to clean energy. Porter's campaign did not respond to inquiries.

Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta said the ideas from Villaraigosa and Mahan could help the moderate Democrats boost their campaigns’ affordability bona fides, but he questioned whether they will make a difference in a crowded race in which voters are not yet paying much attention.

The latest polling shows Mahan and Villaraigosa tied with just 3% of likely voters’ support, but a quarter of those surveyed remain undecided on a candidate. Both have been dwarfed in ad spending by self-funding billionaire candidate Steyer, and Acosta said the gas proposals won’t gain traction if the candidates don’t spend big to promote them on TV.

“It could be a ploy, or good politics. Will anyone hear it? I don’t know,” Acosta said of the gas proposals. “It’s a little harder to get anyone’s attention just on the race itself, let alone this issue.”

Why are California's gas prices so high?

As candidates blame taxes and climate rules for high gas prices, experts point to a more complicated, less politically convenient reality: The recent spike is largely driven by a global oil shock tied to the war with Iran, not state policy.

Nevertheless the war increases a deeper vulnerability for California, where gas prices climbed above $5.50 a gallon Tuesday compared to nearly $3.80 nationally: As refinery capacity declines and reliance on imports grows, global disruptions can trigger higher prices in California than anywhere else.

“The current increase is almost entirely due to global oil markets,” said Paasha Mahdavi, a UC Santa Barbara political science professor and energy policy expert. “The problem, though … is that our starting point is so much higher than nationally.”

State analyses show California’s higher gas prices come not only from taxes and climate programs but also a large remaining “mystery surcharge,” an unexplained markup oil companies add to gasoline prices.

That unexplained premium averaged about 41 cents per gallon between 2015 and 2024, costing drivers an estimated $59 billion, according to the state’s petroleum market watchdog.

“Gas prices are much higher in California for reasons that have to do with the market for refined gasoline,” said Michael Wara, a Stanford legal scholar who focuses on climate. “It's something that is in the control of the industry.”

The oil industry blames California policies.

Prices “are higher in California because of taxes and compliance costs, but also because state policies have driven refineries and crude production out, said Jim Stanley, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, in a written statement.

Stanley declined to comment on Villaraigosa’s proposal for a regulatory moratorium.

Villaraigosa’s call to “overhaul” the state’s air resources board and for “an immediate moratorium on costly regulations overburdening California refineries” is a familiar refrain.

The air board’s climate programs — including the low carbon fuel standard and the state’s cap-and-trade program, recently rebranded as cap-and-invest — have faced repeated political and industry pushback, especially as regulators consider updates that could affect refinery costs.

Those climate policies raise fuel costs but have also generated billions for clean energy and transportation programs.

California's air board has faced mounting criticism over both programs — the fuel standard drew opposition from Republicans, the oil industry, and even environmental justice advocates when it was revised in 2024, and this year oil companies, some Democratic lawmakers and Villaraigosa have warned that tightening cap-and-trade rules could accelerate refinery closures.

A touchy political issue 

An even easier target in campaign promises is the gas tax, which lawmakers voted to raise in 2017.

It has risen by 20 cents per gallon since then, to 61 cents, and generates nearly $8 billion a year — the vast majority of state funding for highway and road repairs.

It’s also been a touchy issue for Democrats, especially in swing districts.

Porter, running as a Democrat to flip a GOP-held Orange County congressional seat in 2018, backed a failed Republican-led ballot measure to repeal that gas tax increase and ran ads declaring that “I oppose higher gas taxes.”

The move cost her a labor endorsement — unions generally support the tax because the revenue pays for projects their members work on — but it helped her head off claims that she supported the hike as she ran as an economic progressive.

Two Democratic lawmakers have lost their seats to Republicans in recent years after criticism about the gas tax.

Now Mahan, a Democrat, is pitching a gas tax holiday. He suggested that it last for the “duration of the war,” with a ballpark goal of keeping average prices below $5 a gallon.

“I would leave it to the experts in Sacramento to set that limit, but I think something around $5 is reasonable,” he said.

Asked how he would pay for road and highway repairs in the meantime, Mahan said he would find other funding elsewhere in the state budget.

Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research, said he’s skeptical a suspension would save drivers because it’s possible gas companies would pocket some of the savings.

But he also warned against any governor removing the tax without providing alternative funding for road maintenance; reinstating a tax in the future would be seen as raising the price of gas by 60 cents a gallon at once.

If history is any guide, voters would likely balk at that: In 2003, facing a recall, then-Gov. Gray Davis tried to reinstate a vehicle license fee that the state had lowered for years. Opponent Arnold Schwarzenegger leapt to attack him for tripling the “car tax,” a move that observers agree helped him oust Davis.

“Taking the gas tax off is an easy thing to do,” Cummings said. “Putting it back on is extraordinarily difficult — and essential.”

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

As allegations of sexual abuse of minors by farmworker labor legend César Chávez become public, local officials are sharing their shock at the news.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement she was horrified to learn of sexual abuse detailed in a New York Times report published Wednesday.

“For those of us who grew up admiring the farmworker movement, today’s news is heartbreaking. But as in any other civil rights movement, men were only half the story,” she wrote. “The abuses of one man will never diminish the extraordinary sacrifices, accomplishments, and legacy of the women of the farmworker movement. It’s time we put them first.”

Hahn is calling for L.A. County to change its March 31 public holiday named in honor of Chávez to “Farmworker Day.”

The New York Times reported allegations that Chávez abused girls for years. In an interview included in the report, Dolores Huerta, Chávez's United Farm Workers co-founder, says he sexually assaulted her in 1966, and years earlier had pressured her to have sex on a work trip.

Meanwhile, Mayor Karen Bass said: “I am keeping Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguia, and Debra Rojas in my heart, and I honor their strength and that of every woman and girl horrifically harmed by those in power.

“The sickening reality is that what Dolores, Ana, and Debra endured is not isolated, nor is it of the past. Real progress requires more than moments of reckoning – it demands sustained action to dismantle social, cultural, economic, and political structures that have hurt women throughout our history."

Nonprofit California Rising is also advocating for Cesar Chavez Avenue to be officially named Dolores Huerta Avenue, saying "public spaces must reflect values that honor and protect communities."

"Deeply troubling and sickening"

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said in a statement that while the news is devastating, it’s important to be honest about history in the fight for justice.

“Today is a reminder that movements must extend beyond their leaders and be grounded in their missions, and it is our collective responsibility to foster environments that protect the vulnerable, challenge silence, and uphold the safety and humanity of all,” she said.

In Orange County, Anaheim City Council member Natalie Rubalcava said "We do not diminish the movement by telling the truth — we strengthen it. We honor it more fully when we recognize all those who contributed to it and ensure that our values today reflect both justice and compassion.

For too long, we have placed icons on pedestals without fully reckoning with their failings and any harm they may have caused."

Rep. Luz Rivas, who represents the Northeastern San Fernando Valley, said the allegations are "deeply troubling and sickening".

In a statement, she said, "I absolutely condemn these actions and commend the bravery of those who came forward to share their stories, including Dolores Huerta. They deserve to be heard and supported.

“Today’s reporting is painful for generations of us who grew up knowing Cesar Chavez as a household name and learning about his contributions to the labor movement. However, we must acknowledge that a person’s legacy does not excuse the harm they caused or overshadow the trauma victims have carried for decades."

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In a step backward for transparency, the Los Angeles Police Department has delayed its release of previously-available crime data for more than a year.

Multiple organizations have requested the data after the LAPD stopped regularly releasing the detailed location of most L.A. crimes and the department’s online crime map quietly went dark in early 2025.

Court records and email correspondence shared with LAist show that SpotCrime, a crime mapping and alert provider, filed one of the first public records requests for the unpublished data in February 2025. LAist and nonprofit research organization RAND also submitted separate requests in the following months.

None of the organizations have received that data, despite public records requests and a lawsuit filed by SpotCrime asking a court to order its release.

According to court documents, SpotCrime alleges the LAPD has wrongfully withheld the crime data and engaged in an “unlawful pattern of delaying tactics” to prevent the release of public records.

LAPD still does not have a date for when the data would be made public, according to department spokesperson Norma Eisenman, who declined to comment on pending litigation. Court documents show the department has denied all claims of wrongdoing.

Why the records matter

The LAPD changed how it reports crime data on the city’s open data portal in early 2025 to no longer include location information down to the city block where crimes were reported.

Roland Neil from RAND said this kind of block-level data is very important for criminal justice researchers.

“ One thing, which is a major focus of the discipline of criminology over the past two decades, especially, is the fact that most crime tends to concentrate in a very small part of the city," Neil said.

He said that just 5% of what researchers call “micro places” — like city blocks or intersections — can account for half a city’s crime. Neil said that makes the block-level data critical when it comes to understanding exactly where crime is happening and determining what could be done to intervene.

The LAPD stopped providing this block-level data when it transitioned to the federally-mandated National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS.

Neil said local law enforcement agencies across California saw disruptions over the past few years as they each moved over to the new system, but some police departments were able to keep providing regular, detailed location data as they did before the switch.

San Francisco transitioned to the new system at about the same time as L.A., Neil said, and he can now search that city’s public website for information on crimes that happened just the day before with location data down to the nearest street intersection.

Meanwhile, RAND is still waiting for the LAPD to release its block-level data from months prior.

Jason Ward, director of the RAND Housing Center, told LAist he filed a records request for those records last October.

“They’re not saying no,” Ward said, “they’re just taking a very long time.”

Ward said he understands that the LAPD has limited resources to work on records requests, but he questions why the department would risk being seen as less transparent by allowing a delay in the release of information that used to be readily available.

He said he just wants the LAPD to continue providing what they had already been releasing for years: “accurate, geolocated crime data.”

This data isn’t just important for researchers.

Paul Nicholas Boylan is an attorney representing SpotCrime in the company’s lawsuit against the LAPD. He told LAist there are few things he believes to be as important to the public interest as crime data.

“It allows the public to decide whether they live in a safe space,” he said. “It allows them to determine whether or not law enforcement is doing a good or bad job.”

Why LAPD says the data hasn’t been released

Boylan said he has practiced First Amendment law for decades, but has never seen another case where an agency has taken so long to release public data without providing substantial justification for the delay.

The LAPD told SpotCrime in August that the records were unavailable, according to court documents and email correspondence reviewed by LAist — but not because the department didn’t have them.

“The data is not user-ready simply because that the raw data needs additional processing,” the department wrote to SpotCrime. The LAPD message also said the data would be published on the open data portal “as soon as practical.”

Seven months later, the data has not been released and Boylan is skeptical of the department’s argument.

Other agencies like the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department made the same transition to NIBRS, he said, but no other agency has taken as long to solve this problem.

He said there could be legitimate reasons any additional data processing has taken more than a year, but that it could also be due to incompetence or an attempt to hide information that could reflect poorly on the department.

SpotCrime has also argued that they never requested “user-ready” data, according to court records and emails reviewed by LAist. The company told the LAPD their request was for raw data, and additional processing they did not ask for was “not a valid reason for denying access.”

LAist was given a different explanation for why the records could not immediately be released.

The department initially denied LAist’s May 2025 request for detailed crime data in October, claiming the data in its raw form is exempt from disclosure because it “has the potential to lead to misguided public policy discussions or unjustified public panic.”

David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, told LAist at the time that he had never heard of such an argument. He said if taken seriously, it would “destroy” the entire California Public Records Act.

The LAPD has not directly responded to LAist’s request for clarification on the claim that the data is exempt for such a reason, but appears to have abandoned the argument. The department told LAist on March 11 that “the Department continues to repair, sanitize, and review” crime and arrest data that may be released.

Boylan said he expects more answers to come out in court.

Whatever the LAPD claims is the reason for the delay, he said, “they're going to have to prove it.”

Since last summer, the Trump administration has been arresting undocumented immigrants as they try to claim their children from federal custody, stranding the kids in government shelters and foster care. The practice violates the government’s own regulations, according to an informal network of immigration attorneys across the country, who suspected for months that the arrests were the result of a formal policy.

Now, a document unearthed in a federal district court case in Texas appears to confirm that suspicion. “Operation Guardian Trace,” as it’s called in the document, requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct in-person interviews with the relatives of undocumented children in federal custody, and detain and deport those adults who are “illegally present in the United States.”

Immigration attorneys say the policy represents a dramatic reversal in how the government handles the release of unaccompanied minors and treats their undocumented relatives, who were previously allowed to get their children back regardless of their immigration status.

“This confirms what we’ve known for months,” said Mishan Wroe, directing attorney for immigration at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland. “The government is explicitly and deliberately using children as bait to achieve their political goals.”

A copy of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Form I-213, found in a federal district court case file. In the document, a federal agent references Operation Guardian Trace, which requires ICE to conduct in-person interviews with the relatives of undocumented children in federal custody, and detain and deport those adults who are in the country illegally.

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Image courtesy of the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project.

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The children, who entered the U.S. alone and without authorization and have usually come to join family, are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They’ve often fled violence or persecution in their home countries, Wroe said, and most apply for asylum or other legal status. They’re detained until the government can vet their relatives, or sponsors, to make sure the adults can “provide for the physical and mental well-being of children.”

When a sponsor is detained, their application to claim the child is invalidated. If no other potential sponsors come forward, the child remains in ORR custody until they can be placed in foster care or they turn 18. Largely due to stricter sponsor vetting requirements put in place by the current Trump administration, the average number of days that children remained in ORR custody increased to 117 in 2025 from 30 the year before, according to the agency’s website. The data does not make clear how sponsor arrests have impacted that increase.

Nationwide, more than 100 sponsors have been arrested while trying to get their kids out of detention since July, 2025, according to internal government data obtained by The California Newsroom. That means roughly one in four sponsors who came in for interviews or I.D. checks were arrested. It’s unclear how many have been deported, or were later released and allowed to sponsor their kids.

Marion “Mickey” Donovan-Kaloust, legal services director at Immigration Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, said her organization alone represents 12 children detained in Southern California whose parents were arrested shortly after coming forward to begin the process of getting their kids back. She said dozens more of her clients have relatives who are afraid to try to claim them because they fear deportation.

“It's part and parcel of the chaos and cruelty that's marking this administration's approach to immigration policy,” said Donovan-Kaloust. “We've actually had children ask their parents to stop the reunification process because they're worried that they'll get detained.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not confirm the existence of Operation Guardian Trace or respond to questions about how it’s being carried out.

Here’s what else we know:

How does Operation Guardian Trace work?

Attorneys and advocates who spoke with The California Newsroom say it’s a classic bait and switch.

Laura Diamond, an attorney with the Immigrant Center for Women and Children in Los Angeles, said that in September, an ICE agent asked one of her clients to come to the agency’s downtown L.A. field office with her passport and her teenage son’s birth certificate as part of the sponsor vetting process. The woman had already submitted to a DNA test to prove she was his mother, and had been fingerprinted for a background check, which showed no criminal history. She was fearful because she knew ICE was arresting immigrants, but she went to the office anyway.

“Wanting to do what she was told she needed to do to get her child,” Diamond said, “she showed up, and they arrested her.” The woman, who Diamond declined to name because her deportation case is ongoing, is still in an ICE detention facility. Her sponsorship application was canceled, and her son is now in foster care.

A DHS form documenting her arrest, reviewed by The California Newsroom, says the woman was detained “pursuant to a targeted enforcement operation.”

Three months later and eight hundred miles away in Texas, a similar form buried in a similar case also mentioned an operation, this time by name: “Operation Guardian Trace.”

In that case, a Venezuelan man with no criminal history was arrested while applying to sponsor his two teenage children, who were in ORR custody, according to his attorney, Chiqui Sanchez Kennedy of the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project. “He got a call on a Friday, ‘Come to the ICE office on Monday,’” she said. “He was specifically told, ‘This could help you get your kids out.’” Instead, the man was arrested and detained for three months in an ICE facility in El Paso. He was released under a judicial order this week, but his kids are still in federal custody.

Through her petition to get her client released, Sanchez Kennedy obtained a record of the arrest. The document is not public, but she provided The California Newsroom with a copy, which she redacted to protect the family’s’ privacy.

An immigrant child is overcome with emotion after she crossed the Rio Grande with her family from Mexico into the United States on Sept. 28, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Many migrant children cross the border alone to join family in the U.S., and end up in federal custody. Under Operation Guardian Trace, some parents trying to get their kids back are summoned to ICE offices, only to be arrested or deported, according to a federal document.

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John Moore

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Getty Images

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“As part of Operation Guardian Trace,” the form reads, “Special Agents are required to interview and investigate sponsors and or guardians/parents. During the process, if the sponsor/guardian/parent is determined to be illegally present in the United States, [authorities] will arrest and initiate administrative removal proceedings for possible reunification.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the meaning of the terms “possible reunification” and "administrative removal proceedings.” The latter can refer to a process ICE uses to bypass immigration courts and quickly deport migrants who have been convicted of aggravated felonies.

While the document offers limited details about Operation Guardian Trace, Sanchez Kennedy said it’s clear that DHS is systematically using the sponsor vetting process to facilitate immigration arrests. “I thought it was pretty incredible how explicit it is,” she said.

Is the policy legal?

The Department of Homeland Security can, generally speaking, arrest someone who is in the country without authorization. But Wroe, of the National Center for Youth Law, said Operation Guardian Trace likely interferes with the government’s obligations to reunify kids with qualified sponsors. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, she said, “has a legal obligation to try and effectuate releases in a timely manner. Collaborating with DHS in this way arguably interferes with their ability to meet those statutory requirements.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR, did not respond to questions about that allegation or about Operation Guardian Trace.

ORR regulations also state that the agency “shall not disqualify potential sponsors based solely on their immigration status and shall not collect information on immigration status of potential sponsors for law enforcement or immigration enforcement related purposes.”

The federal unaccompanied children program was intentionally separated from the government’s immigration enforcement agencies through the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which placed the program under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services. The goal was to focus on child welfare rather than detention.

Donovan-Kaloust said that by cooperating with DHS, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is turning itself into “a quasi immigration enforcement agency, which is contrary to its mandate.”

What’s happening to the kids who are affected?

Many of the detained children Donovan-Kaloust’s team represents in Southern California broke down in tears when they learned their parents had been arrested, she said.

“They feel like it's their fault that their parent is in this situation, because their parent was trying to reunify with them,” she said. “Those are the things that the children are expressing to us. Sadness, hopelessness, tearfulness and guilt.”

According to Ryan Matlow, a child clinical psychologist who contributed to a report last year by the National Center for Youth Law about changes in ORR policy, prolonged detention breaks down children’s natural resilience. “As children come to see that they have no opportunity for release or family reunification,” he wrote, “they are likely to become increasingly despondent, desperate, hopeless, and depressed or agitated.”

Donovan-Kaloust said that in some cases, after her clients’ parents have been deported, the children decide to return to their home country. One boy didn’t want to go, she said, “but it was his only way to be with his dad.”

Like all of the immigration attorneys and immigrant rights advocates we spoke with, Donovan-Kaloust believes self-deportations are part of the point of Operation Guardian Trace.

“The administration wants the immigrant community to give up and go home,” she said. “And this is one way to do it.”

Mark Betancourt is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C.

This story was produced with The California Newsroom, a collaborative of public media outlets around the state that includes LAist.