The Brief

Since Feb. 14, Transportation Security Administration staff have worked without pay due to the ongoing partial government shutdown — and with many calling out of work, passengers across the United States have experienced hourslong security screening lines.

This weekend, President Donald Trump announced that as of Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be deployed to airports to support TSA operations.

The Trump administration said that ICE officers would be on duty to assist with airport security staffing. But the presence of ICE officers has sparked fear and uncertainty among travelers.

San Francisco International Airport, the Bay Area’s biggest airport, has been spared long wait lines by the fact that its security screening is contracted by a private company rather than TSA.

But on Sunday night, in an incident captured on video, plainclothes immigration officers were seen at SFO forcefully handling a woman in front of her young child. SFO was not on the list of 14 airports obtained by CNN where ICE would be appearing.

While standing in line, open up the airline app and rebook yourself, says travel reporter Chris Dong.

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So what should you know about ICE in U.S. airports right now? Keep reading for what we know about immigration officers, air travel and your rights around ICE officers.

Bear in mind that the following information doesn’t constitute legal advice, and you should direct any specific questions about your individual situation to a lawyer.

Which U.S. airports have ICE been deployed to?

According to reporting by The New York Times, 14 airports around the country will host ICE agents.

CNN reported that these locations include Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports in New York and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

No California airports appear on CNN’s current list.

On Tuesday, a TSA spokesperson confirmed to KQED that ICE would be deployed to “airports being adversely impacted” by TSA callouts and resignations — and that none of these were in the Bay Area.

Why was ICE at SFO on Sunday?

In footage from around 10 p.m. Sunday that was posted to social media, men wearing dark clothing were filmed at SFO pulling a crying woman from an airport terminal bench and then pushing her into a wheelchair — as a girl of around 10 is heard crying nearby. San Francisco police officers were seen standing by as the arrest occurred.

The men are not wearing visible badges or agency markings, but the Department of Homeland Security said on the social media platform X Monday that they were, in fact, ICE officers.

According to a DHS spokesperson, the woman and her daughter were arrested at the airport and were being “escorted to the international terminal for processing” when the woman tried to flee. Read more about Sunday night’s incident at SFO. As reported by The New York Times on Tuesday evening, ICE had originally been alerted to the pair’s presence at SFO by TSA.

According to a statement released by SFO, the airport was “not involved in or notified in advance of this incident.”

“We understand federal officers were transporting two individuals on an outbound flight when this incident occurred,” the statement reads. “We believe this is an isolated incident and have no reason to suspect broader enforcement action at SFO.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie echoed the airport’s statement on Monday in a social media post. Lurie said in his statement that local law enforcement “does not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement,” although some immigration attorneys have nonetheless questioned SFPD’s presence during the arrest.

As of Monday afternoon, local immigration advocates said they were still assessing the situation and working to “confirm all the facts related to this incident.”

“After killing people in our streets and detaining U.S. citizens, ICE has lost all credibility and trust with the public,” Bay Area Rep. Kevin Mullin and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in a joint statement. “We demand immediate answers as to the mother’s and her child’s condition and the grounds for their detainment.”

Can ICE arrest people at the airport?

Yes, there have been documented instances of ICE arresting people at airports.

Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies and senior advisor at the American Civil Liberties Union, said that there is “nothing that categorically prohibits ICE from going into an airport as an immigration enforcement agent.”

For example, Blazer said, ICE agents have used commercial flights in the past to transport individuals on deportation flights — or to transfer arrested people to immigration detention centers.

Travelers and their luggage in a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport.

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Additionally, as first reported by The New York Times in December 2025, TSA has shared information about air travelers who are believed to be under deportation orders with ICE, enabling immigration agents to make arrests at the airport.

But Blazer said that this week’s deployment of ICE to airports — the “mere presence for this purpose, in an untargeted fashion, in large numbers” — was “unprecedented.”

According to CNN on Tuesday morning, Trump said that agents will continue arresting undocumented people, but said of ICE agents in airports: “That’s not why they’re there; they’re really there to help.” (Most TSA officers are not commissioned law enforcement officers.)

“Part of what’s so challenging here is that the Trump administration hasn’t really made clear what authorities they are vesting with ICE as part of this mission,” Blazer said.

In its roundup of risks of air travel, the National Immigration Law Center said that for people who are undocumented, have temporary immigration status or who are under a deportation order, there is “a significant risk of arrest at a U.S. airport.”

However, NILC also said that “all non-citizens face some risk” while traveling through U.S. airports, including those with green cards, if they have certain criminal convictions or who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status.

Advocates encourage passengers who aren’t U.S. citizens to talk to a lawyer about their specific situation before traveling.

Customs and Border Protection already regularly works in airports. What’s the difference between their powers and ICE’s?

ICE and CBP are both immigration enforcement agencies within DHS.

While ICE conducts enforcement within the U.S. and manages detention and deportation operations, CBP conducts inspections at all U.S. “ports of entry” — at land borders, seaports and airports.

ACLU’s Blazer said that while CBP has a lot of “power when they’re screening people coming in on an international flight,” that doesn’t apply to domestic flights. For example, CBP — and ICE — should not be able to check your electronic devices without a warrant for a domestic flight.

Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago, told the Washington Post that ICE cannot search a passenger’s personal belongings without a warrant — and can only do this if they are working on behalf of an agency that can, like CBP.

“If they’re acting as a TSA agent, they have to follow TSA rules. If they’re acting as a CBP agent and doing Border Patrol work, then they have the authority that Border Patrol has,” Hallett said.

“And if they are just merely standing in the airport as ICE officers, then they have the same legal authority that any ICE officer standing in a public location has,” she said. (Regardless, she said that ICE can approach passengers anywhere in the airport, including after security.)

What should I do if ICE approaches me in the airport?

At border checkpoints — including airports — officers can ask questions, carry out personal searches and detain people with wide latitude, Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA School of Law’s Center for Immigration Law & Policy, told NPR.

But Blazer said that in order for ICE to arrest someone for an immigration violation without a warrant, they would need to establish probable cause that the person is in the U.S. in violation of U.S. immigration laws — and that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for the arrest. There has been recent litigation across the country challenging some of ICE’s warrantless arrests, he said.

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ICE officers “have no additional authority in an airport,” Blazer said. But in reality, he said, the constitutional protections and rights people have can be “a lot trickier to make the choice to exercise them” in an airport setting for most people — who are dealing not only with the added pressures of catching expensive flights but also the impatience of other passengers in the security line.

For example, people — whether citizens or immigrants — have the right to ask an immigration officer, “Am I free to go?” If they don’t have a specific, individualized, reasonable suspicion that you’ve committed a crime, they can’t question you further and you can go, Blazer said.

“But let’s think about how that works in the airport context,” he said. “‘Am I free to go?’ and leaving means that I’m probably leaving the airport to get myself out of a situation, and I may miss my flight at that point.”

Do I have to answer ICE’s questions at the airport?

If an ICE agent asks you questions in the airport, you “have the same right to remain silent as you do on the street,” Blazer said. “Nothing changes just because you’re in an airport.”

But this is another example of how the pressures of the airport setting can affect your situation, Blazer said. If you choose to exercise your right to remain silent, the officer may pull you out of the security line and try to ask more questions.

“We have the same rights, but in that environment, there are additional costs associated with exercising those rights,” Blazer said. “Many people in that situation, out of their own self-interest … ‘go along to get along’ as much as possible.”

What if ICE asks me for ID?

According to reporting from USA Today, travelers do need to provide identification and comply with TSA screening to board a flight. But generally, citizens and immigrants have the right to remain silent when talking to law enforcement, including ICE.

The Asian Law Caucus said that if you believe you are being taken into ICE custody, you should practice your right to remain silent and should not answer any questions. You should also not sign any documents without a lawyer reviewing them, the organization said.

Blazer said that federal law said people with lawful permanent residency or other visas that grant them lawful status must carry proof of their status with them — like their green card. “And it may be in their interest, in terms of avoiding further improper questioning or improper unlawful arrests, to answer those questions and to show that proof of status,” Blazer said.

“So even though you have a right not to, I want to make clear that people are going to need to make an individualized decision as to whether it’s in their interest to exercise that right,” he said. “Especially if they are an adult green cardholder or somebody else who is subject to a federal law requiring them to carry proof of their status at all times.”

Is it legal to film ICE?

“Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes police and other government officials carrying out their duties,” the ACLU’s guidance reads.

And while there’s no Supreme Court ruling on an unambiguous First Amendment right to film law enforcement officers, “all of the seven U.S. Federal Circuit Courts that have considered the issue have pretty much said there is a First Amendment right to record the police and observe the police,” criminal justice reporter C.J. Ciaramella at Reason told KQED’s Close All Tabs podcast earlier this year.

Atlanta Police Department officers look on as travelers stand in long lines at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on March 23, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia.

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But airports could be a potentially harder environment to film, Blazer said.

“It’s not as though the First Amendment doesn’t exist at airports, but airports are not traditional public domain in a way that parks [are],” Blazer said. For example, some TSA security lines have a sign nearby that says “no photos.”

“They rarely enforce that, but it just shows you that it’s already a more regulated environment in which they can impose certain restrictions,” Blazer said.

It is lawful to film law enforcement in “any open, visible place when they’re performing their duties,” Blazer said, echoing the guidance laid out in this thorough guide by the ACLU.

“But at the same time, it can be permissible for airport operators to impose certain reasonable rules, and those rules might include restricting photographing in particular areas of the airport,” Blazer said.

Practically, it could be hard to argue against an airport official who is telling you not to take photos in an area, Blazer said. And there may be a legal fight after the fact, “if a person doesn’t comply with that order and is arrested or is taken out of the line,” he said.

“But, I think, the practical reality is that” in an airport “environment, it gets harder to exercise that right,” he said.

Bystander videos also provide important counternarratives to official law enforcement accounts. After the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by ICE officers in Minnesota earlier this year, Trump administration officials immediately claimed Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” intending to “massacre” officers — claims contradicted by the multiple eyewitness videos taken of the killing.

Officials with the Trump administration have, however, characterized filming ICE as “violence” and “doxing,” and Americans have faced detention by ICE after filming agents.

So all in all, while recording ICE might be your constitutional right, it also brings increasing risks. Read more about the logistics — and risks — of recording law enforcement officers like ICE agents.

What do immigrant advocates say about traveling during this time? 

San Francisco advocacy group Mission Action warns that noncitizens who do not currently have legal status “should carefully consider the risks of air travel, including domestic flights within the U.S.”

“Recent reporting suggests increased risks, including that TSA may be sharing traveler information with ICE, which could expose individuals to enforcement,” their social media post reads.

The Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership said people should “talk to an attorney before flying to understand your risk.” The guidance suggested people plan extra time before traveling and keep key documents — like proof of lawful status, pending applications or certified copies of criminal cases if the case was closed — on hand. The organization emphasized that people should not “sign anything” they’re given by immigration agents that they “don’t understand.”

The ACLU Northern California has a page that breaks down your rights at the airport and whether or not border officers can ask about your immigration status.

According to ACLU NorCal, U.S. citizens only have to “answer questions establishing your identity and citizenship (in addition to customs-related questions).”

However, the organization cautions that “refusing to answer routine questions about the nature and purpose of your travel could result in delay and/or further inspection.”

Noncitizen visa holders and visitors who refuse to answer questions could face a delay or be denied entry. Lawful permanent residents, like green card holders, only have to answer questions about their identity and permanent residency, according to ACLU NorCal.

“Refusal to answer other questions will likely cause delay, but officials may not deny you entry into the U.S. for failure to answer other questions,” ACLU NorCal advised legal permanent residents — noting that green card status “may be revoked only by an immigration judge,” and warning, “Do not give up your green card voluntarily!”

The Asian Law Caucus also has a helpful chart on what people of differing statuses can expect in airports when it comes to their baggage, device searches and length of potential detainment.

What should I do if I think I see ICE in an airport?

Instead of posting possible ICE sightings to social media, immigration advocates highly encourage people to call them first instead. With these hotlines, advocates can fact-check these sightings, with the goal of preventing the spread of misinformation online.

You can find the complete and updated list of rapid response numbers on the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice’s website.

You can also follow these organizations on their social media accounts to see if these are confirmed sightings or just rumors.

Immigration agents detained someone I know. How do I find them?

Typically, a person of any status can be detained up to 72 hours at a port of entry, according to the Asian Law Caucus. They can also be transferred to criminal or ICE custody.

KQED has a guide that walks you through how to potentially locate someone through different detention centers.

The primary way to find someone is through ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. You can also call ICE at 866-347-2423.

According to the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, it may take a few days for a person to appear in the ICE database. If the name you’re searching for isn’t showing up in the ICE system — or if you’re concerned about their safety and possible deportation — you can seek out assistance from advocacy organizations such as Freedom for Immigrants.

This story contains reporting from KQED’s Katie DeBenedetti, Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí, Tyche Hendricks and Carly Severn.

Nearly 86,000 of California’s children ages 0 to 3 — more than 5% of the state’s infants and toddlers — are estimated to have experienced homelessness in 2023-24, according to new data analysis by SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.

This is a 15% jump from about 74,000 young children in the year prior.

Only about 12,000 of those children in 2023-24 were enrolled in early learning programs. It is often in early learning programs where staff members are able to identify children experiencing homelessness and provide critical services for their development.

That just 14% of the youngest children experiencing homelessness are in these programs is potentially a troubling sign, experts say. It may indicate the state is not set up to accurately identify and reach most of these children.

“We just don’t have the full picture,” said Erin Patterson, a senior director at SchoolHouse Connection. “Data reporting infrastructure everywhere is lacking when it comes to infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness. There is no singular federal agency or program that captures everything.”

This is after years of sustained efforts by child homelessness experts that have led to heightened attention and short-term funding for students experiencing homelessness and the significant barriers K-12 schools face in identifying them. That focus has not always included the youngest Californians — infants and toddlers — in part because the state’s early learning system is far more fragmented.

This data from SchoolHouse Connection, an organization that advocates for homeless students, and Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan initiative to prevent and alleviate poverty, was shared with EdSource ahead of the Sept. 23 release of their third annual report on the prevalence of homelessness among children 0 to 3 nationwide.

The nearly 86,000 homeless infants and toddlers were 5.19% of about 1.6 million children ages 0 to 3 in 2023-24. The number is an estimate, taken by looking at the percentage of first grade students who were identified as homeless during the 2023-24 year and applying it to the census age group percentages for children ages 0 to 3.

To get to the number of children accessing early childhood programs, the researchers looked at enrollment data from Early Head Start, home visiting programs and local educational agencies, which are required to identify younger children experiencing homelessness if they receive federal funding.

Some children might have been identified and are simply not reflected in the estimate, in part because data access is extremely limited and fragmented across multiple public agencies, say the researchers.

Student homelessness across the K-12 system has risen 4% in the most recent data available. In years prior, it rose by up to 15%, according to state data.

Child homelessness experts contend the rise in student homelessness reflects several factors, including California’s skyrocketing cost of living and the end of pandemic-era housing protections.

At the same time, they point to short-term infusions of funding that have helped schools improve data collection systems and identification practices that allowed them to begin supporting more students.

Homeless liaisons have attributed many of those gains to a 2021 historic federal allocation of $800 million for schools nationwide, of which California received $98.76 million. The one-time pandemic-era funding was dedicated entirely to identifying and supporting students experiencing homelessness.

Child homelessness experts say data shows the funding worked: after what appeared as a significant dip in student homelessness rates at the peak of the pandemic, there was a sharp increase once schools reopened. They attribute this dramatic shift to the identification efforts by liaisons, who by then had the funding to hire staff to make phone calls to families they knew were struggling, distribute gas cards to help families get their children to school, pay for emergency temporary housing for evicted families and more.

The closest California has come to matching those pandemic-era dollars is a one-time $116 million grant approved by the state Legislature this year. It will support identification efforts, though it remains unclear how the state will distribute the funding.

“The state’s really going to have to be targeted about where this money goes, and I think a set-aside amount for identifying our youngest learners makes a ton of sense because that $116 million is not going to reach everybody,” said Joseph Bishop, executive director and co-founder of the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

But experts warn that without long-term funding to maintain those efforts in the TK-12 system, it will be even more difficult to build similar identification capacity in the early learning space to ensure children 0-3 can also be connected to services they need as their families find permanent housing. At the same time, they foresee that more children are likely to be in need in coming years.

“Given what we know about worsening economic conditions, we can certainly surmise that families with children, in particular, have been impacted by housing instability and homelessness,” said Patterson. “The tricky part, though, is pandemic funds are gone, and that means the capacity to identify has dwindled in many places, so we might be entering a phase where we see homelessness increasing, but identification is scaling back because of limited capacity, both in early childhood programs and among local educational agencies.”

Why counting homeless infants and toddlers is tough — and why it matters

Not only is the data from SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions likely an undercount, but there are other factors that affect the ability to identify students. The early childhood services system in the state is more fractured than K-12, say researchers. And, there may be limited knowledge of the responsibility of local education agencies to identify and support homeless students.

Knowledge of how the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act applies to early learning programs is also less widespread. The law requires local education agencies, such as school districts and certain preschools, to identify and support homeless students, including those younger than 4, which is the age for entering transitional kindergarten.

How does the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act help?

When McKinney-Vento was enacted decades ago, it established a broader definition of homelessness for students. For example, the law considers a student homeless if they are staying with relatives or in temporary housing due to economic hardship, loss of housing or a similar reason.

The law can apply to preschools under specific circumstances, including when a program is funded by a local education agency, like a school district. This flowchart provides some detail into whether an early learning program might be a McKinney-Vento preschool.

And if a homeless liaison identifies a homeless student with an infant or toddler sibling, the federal act requires them to refer the young child to early learning programs.

Even when McKinney-Vento does not directly apply, many early learning programs have adopted its broader definition of homelessness and require certain exceptions be made for homeless families. This could include allowing a child to begin attending the program while providing a grace period for families to produce enrollment documentation or giving priority enrollment to homeless families.

An apparent disconnect between early learning and the TK-12 school system

Child education experts have noted a disconnect between early learning programs and the TK-12 school system, where homeless liaisons are already stretched thin.

“There’s a major flaw in not having those systems in place, and I think it can make the work of districts potentially more effective if we had earlier identification,” said Bishop of UCLA. “We don’t know or have the continuity across systems to know where kids are coming from, even sometimes within districts, let alone before TK.”

Bishop’s team published a report last week finding that nearly 300,000 homeless students were enrolled in California’s TK-12 public school system in the 2024-25 school year. This is an additional nearly 30,000 more students than what they estimated prior to the pandemic in 2018-19.

While the report did not include children experiencing homelessness who were enrolled in early learning programs — Bishop said his team wanted to include them but faced challenges obtaining the data — it found that many of the highest counts of homeless students were in elementary school districts.

Anticipating “where the need is coming from” via better identification and data collection could help districts better support their students.

“We’re sometimes shocked when students are struggling academically” once they reach elementary school, said Bishop. “That’s the ripple effect of not having the early warning systems.”

As fights about data centers erupt nationwide, California lawmakers have approved a pair of bills to make data center developers disclose how much water they really use.

The bills are a new test of whether California will set limits on an industry that’s becoming a flashpoint over water, electricity and the environmental consequences of artificial intelligence.

Lawmakers on Monday cleared Assembly Bill 2469 by Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo. The bill bars local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses its water plans and covers the full cost of any new water pipes, treatment or storage for the facility. 

This bill will now join Papan’s Assembly Bill 2619 on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

California senators last week, in a decisive 30 to 9 vote, approved the measure requiring data center operators to report their estimated or actual water sources and use — under penalty of perjury — when seeking and renewing a business license or permit.

It’s almost identical to a bill Papan authored last year, which Newsom vetoed amid pressure from the tech industry.

Newsom said at the time he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements … without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Papan said she’s often asked whether she thinks her do-over will survive Newsom’s desk, this time.

“To which I say, the opportunity for leadership has not gone away. If anything, it has been amplified,” Papan told CalMatters.

Since Newsom’s veto last year, public sentiment has shifted, with bipartisan backlash building against facilities that have become the ganglia of artificial intelligence.

A Public Policy Institute of California survey found that a majority of residents oppose construction of data centers in their areas, and are concerned about the environmental impacts.

“We currently are seeing a phase of heightened concern because of the rapid evolution of the industry — and the lack of transparency,” said Iris Stewart-Frey, an environmental science professor at Santa Clara University who led a study this year highlighting how rarely data center developers disclose their water use.

“I think that's where these bills can really make some progress in getting the sides back to the table and conversation,” Stewart-Frey said, “and also recreate some of this public trust.”

Lack of oversight, local bans

Opacity around data centers’ environmental impact is fueling fights around the state, from the desert and parched Imperial County to cities and farm towns.

With little oversight and even less state direction, local governments are saying no to data centers, citing concerns about environmental issues, electricity rates, and often, water.

Monterey Park, in the San Gabriel Valley, led the way when voters approved a permanent ban in June. The Coachella City Council approved its own ban last week to public applause. Others including the Tulare County Board of Supervisors are pausing as they weigh more permanent moratoriums.

Nationally, New York State has enacted a yearlong moratorium, and 70% of Americans told a Gallup poll that they oppose the facilities.

A fight over a data center in the city of Gilroy, in Santa Clara County, recently made national news, which Stewart-Frey attributed to growing public awareness and distrust of the secretive industry.

“It's also emblematic of the fact that the data center industry in California has not been releasing actual water use data, right?” said Stewart-Frey. “This lack of transparency is also biting them in the back here.”

Papan said that’s the point of her bills.

“I don't think we should be eliminating anything without sufficient knowledge about what their needs are, and then how can we meet those needs,” Papan said. “Help us help you,” she said, to data center developers, “because if you go into an area that doesn't have sufficient water supply for you, it's not going to work.”

The usual suspects, and new wildcards

The usual coalitions have lined up. Environmental and community groups back the bills, seeking more transparency over how much water these facilities really use. On the other side are the heavy-hitting and big-spending tech industry and business groups.

Khara Boender, a Western government affairs director for the Data Center Coalition, said the trade association is concerned that these bills single out data centers from other non-agricultural water users.

Reporting tied to receiving a business license or permit “should apply to other similar commercial and industrial users, as that would provide context and a holistic view of water demands,” Boender told CalMatters.

A few wildcards have also entered the fight. As of mid-August, the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, and the Rural County Representatives of California opposed Papan’s bill requiring developers to disclose water plans and pay for upgrades.

In a July letter the groups said the measure — which would bar local governments from approving data centers that fail to disclose required information about their water plans — “undermines local governments’ ability to protect and represent their communities through established permitting mechanisms and community engagement processes.”

Water agencies have mostly stayed quiet, raising only technical issues, with one exception: Santa Clara Valley Water District, a water wholesaler in a data center hotspot, supported both bills.

“Despite local efforts to mitigate the impact of data center water demand, more information on water use could help local water agencies, such as Valley Water, plan for actual needs,” Joshua Golka, head of state government relations for Valley Water, said in a letter to Papan Friday.

Necessary but not sufficient 

Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, called Papan’s bills “necessary, but not sufficient.”

He expects that even with more data, small communities with limited resources and staff will still struggle to assess the benefits and risks. The version of AB 2619 that senators approved last week cut an earlier provision requiring California agencies to develop guidance for local governments.

Papan said that guidance would have been nice to have, but that there were state costs associated with developing it. An Assembly analysis estimated that developing water-use and emerging technology guidelines would cost $2 million the first year, and $1 million annually after that.

“The main goal has been transparency. Let me give you the data, and let's go from there,” Papan told CalMatters. “I just didn't want anything to divert from that main goal.”

Kiparsky called for the state to establish a strike team to help small communities analyze the data that would be produced under the legislation. He also thinks the state should post this information in one place so officials and academics can assess the impacts of data centers and the policies regulating them.

“To be really clear, data centers are not bad or good … we use them every day for just about everything we do involving technology,” Kiparsky said.

The real question, he said, is whether a given community — and its specific mix of land, water, and energy resources — is the right spot for one.

“You can’t answer those questions just with what’s required from this bill — you need to have the understanding that comes from experts looking at it,” Kiparsky said. “The state, in my opinion, can and should provide that.”

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

California’s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is already yielding results, with students sleeping more, reporting better mental health and scoring higher math and English scores, according to a new study.

The new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the effects of Senate Bill 328, California’s statewide mandate for later school start times. The law, which went into effect in 2022, requires most middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

The study found that the new law increased the share of students sleeping at least eight hours per night by 13%, meeting the minimum recommended for adolescents by health experts. The largest jump was among boys.

The study shows that “rest and sleep are incredibly important in the function of schools,” said Osea Giuntella, an author of the report. Although the short-term increase in sleep is moderate, it has led to significant improvements in mental health and academic outcomes, he said.

Giuntella, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studies sleep and economics, said the study’s first-year results are consistent with previous research linking better sleep to improved student well-being and academic performance. The study used changes in teachers’ commute arrival times from the American Community Survey as a proxy for later school start times, comparing sleep and mental health data before and after SB 328 took effect in the 2022-2023 school year and tracking academic gains from 2022 through 2025.

Gains in sleep, mental health, English and math

Students reported experiencing better mental health since schools shifted to later start times, with boys reporting the largest reductions in sadness, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students reporting the biggest drop in difficulties concentrating.

Terra Ziporyn, executive director at nonprofit Start Schools Later and longtime advocate of later school start times, said SB 328 was a key part of California’s response to what schools have described as a student mental health crisis.

“The first step in addressing student mental health problems is to not create them in the first place,” Ziporyn said. “You can get a lot of counselors, but systematically depriving an entire adolescent population of adequate sleep is a surefire way to hurt their mental health.”

The study also found significant improvements in academic achievement, with eighth grade students making measurable gains in math and English, particularly among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students.

Giuntella, the study’s author, said the improvement in scores was likely “largely driven by the change in sleep” based on comparable studies where increased sleep led to higher GPAs. That’s also why Hispanic students, who are already less likely to get adequate sleep than white students due to lower family income and family and work responsibilities, improved their math and English scores the most, Giuntella said.

Parents struggle with new schedules

The state mandate is the only one in the nation.

“California set a huge precedent for the whole nation by saying, ‘We cannot leave what is essentially a public health decision in the hands of local districts,’ ” Ziproyn said. “It’s not just a negotiable school budget item that you trade off against anything else.”

But some parents have said later start times complicate work commutes, push back sports and extracurricular activities and lead to some students simply pushing back the time they go to bed.

The study found that sports and extracurricular activities did start later after the change to later start times, but the changes were “marginal and not statistically significant,” Giuntella said.

“And it’s true that, yes, students may even go to bed a little later than they were, but they are definitely sleeping in more in the morning,” she said.

Guintella described later start times as just “one institutional factor” that may help address a complex sleep-deprivation problem, pointing to issues like the rise in nighttime screen use.

‘Too hard and too expensive’ for some districts

Some school districts found the transition to later school start times “too hard and too expensive,” Ziporyn said. Ziporyn said district administrators could have received more guidance from the state Department of Education to explain the benefits of later start times, and involve families in finding solutions to logistical problems.

“(Schools) have to fully understand why this is being done and communicate it with confidence to the community that they’re doing the right thing for kids,” Ziporyn said.

San Francisco Unified, for example, worked with operations experts at the Yale School of Management, Georgia Tech University and Northwestern University to redesign their bus routes in response to the change. With more than 120 schools and 18 different start times, the district generated about 1,000 new feasible bus schedules, which ended up saving the district about $5 million and with a majority of families and staff members satisfied with the transition to later start times, according to a report by Yale Insights. 

But most schools in California did not have access to dedicated consultants to ease the transition, Ziporyn said.

“California could have improved making these resources more readily available to the districts,” Ziporyn said. “Built into the law was that there was supposed to be help from the state Department of Education about getting this done, and building that community buy-in is part of it.”

Giuntella said the state can improve its implementation of SB 328 by collecting statewide data on later school start times to “assess the impact of the reform.” In the meantime, schools can take from the study that later start times are “effective and powerful tools” for student outcomes.

“This happens often with some shock to individual and families’ habits, and so it also requires the ability to navigate this transition in a way that doesn’t backfire,” Giuntella said.

Erik and Lyle Menendez may get another chance at parole — and a bit sooner than expected.

The brothers were convicted of murder for the August 1989 shotgun killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. They’ve been held in prison for more than three decades.

On Monday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation revealed the brothers had been granted a parole suitability hearing tentatively scheduled for March 2027. Previously, the state had determined they would not get another parole hearing until August 2028.

The Menendez family issued a statement Monday, expressing appreciation to the Parole Board for recognizing the brothers’ efforts to change themselves and help others in prison.

“For almost 40 years, Erik and Lyle have worked to take responsibility for their actions, confront and heal from the unimaginable abuse and trauma they endured, grow as individuals, and dedicate themselves to serving others,” the statement read.

It continued: “Through efforts such as helping to establish a hospice program and creating Green Space, they have sought to build an environment that reminds people serving life sentences that their lives still have meaning and that, regardless of their circumstances, they can choose each day to grow, heal, accept accountability, and contribute something of value to the world around them.”

Background

Erik Menendez was 18 years old at the time of the murders. He’s now 55.

Lyle Menendez is now 58. He was 21 in 1989.

The brothers were tried twice in the 1990s in connection with the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez. The brothers claimed they were sexually abused by their father, a wealthy business and former music executive, and that their mother had been complicit.

The first trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial.

The defense argued that the brothers believed their lives were in danger at the time of the killings, and that their actions were not murder but imperfect self defense, meaning they genuinely believed the danger was imminent even if they were wrong.

In the second trial, the sexual abuse evidence was limited, and the jury reached a verdict.

The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A chance at parole

After they spent decades in prison, the brothers' asked the court for a hearing that would give them a chance at getting out. A judge later resentenced each of them to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole.

Last August, the brothers were denied parole for three years.

Parole commissioners said they took into account the brothers’ positive actions while in prison as well as their ages at the time of their crimes. But the commissioners also found each sibling would still pose a danger to the public if released, despite their efforts at rehabilitation.

It’s not clear why parole authorities moved up the brothers’ tentative parole suitability hearing date, but family members said they were grateful.

The family said in the statement that the move brings them “one step closer to a future with [the brothers] that once seemed impossible.”