Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published July 26, 2025 5:00 AM
A memorial to the Japanese Fishing Village that once stood on Terminal Island until its demolition in World War II.
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Josie Huang
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LAist
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Topline:
An industrial island in L.A. Harbor has emerged as a hub of activity for federal immigration agents — and outraged community members monitoring their activity.
Where is it? Terminal Island, in the L.A. port complex, is best known for housing shipyards, warehouses and the remnants of a demolished Japanese American fishing village.
Why now:?Soon after the raids began, Harbor Area Peace Patrols began sending volunteers to monitor the government vehicles streaming in and out of the sole access road to the federal facility, which holds a U.S. Coast Guard base and low-security prison housing.
Read on ... to learn about how the history of Terminal Island has served as a catalyst for the group of volunteer patrols.
Tucked inside the Port of Los Angeles, an industrial island has become an unexpected flashpoint in the federal immigration crackdown.
Terminal Island is best known for housing shipyards, warehouses and the remnants of a Japanese American fishing village demolished during WWII.
But since the immigration sweeps began last month in L.A., the island has also become a hub for the agents staging at the federal facility there — and the locals keeping watch over them on behalf of their immigrant neighbors.
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ICE sweeps spur citizen patrols on Terminal Island — and troubling World War II memories
Soon after the sweeps began, Harbor Area Peace Patrols began sending volunteers to monitor the government vehicles streaming in and out of the sole access road to the gated facility, which holds a U.S. Coast Guard base and a low-security prison.
“We have people do shifts at Terminal Island throughout the day because it is such a strategic point,” said one of the volunteers, Victor Maldonado.
The Harbor Area patrollers say they’ve been able to tie about 60 of the government vehicles passing through Terminal Island to raids around the state, including a particularly chaotic operation at a cannabis farm in Camarillo.
Volunteers with Harbor Area Peace Patrols monitor Terminal Island for government vehicles.
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Josie Huang
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LAist
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ICE watch
Thousands of people have been arrested since the sweeps started June 6 in Los Angeles. During this period, local efforts to block raids have surged, with outraged residents patrolling their neighborhoods and sounding the alarm if they see agents.
The Harbor Area patrol formed within days of the first sweeps, with support from Union del Barrio.
Every morning, at 6:30 a.m., volunteers meet at local spot for their assignments before getting into their cars.
Aside Terminal Island, patrols also span Wilmington, San Pedro and Carson and involve scanning parking lots for agents and notifying undocumented workers of constitutional rights.
Some volunteers, including Maldonado, keep gravitating to Terminal Island because their information-gathering could have implications for people far beyond the port.
Almost daily, the Carson resident crosses the Vincent Thomas Bridge onto the island before he starts his day as an employee representative in labor disputes.
“Once you realize the importance of it, and that just simply being there you could prevent someone from being abducted, you feel like it's like a moral duty,” Maldonado said.
This past Wednesday, Maldonado was joined on the island by five other volunteers, armed with cellphones, cameras and binoculars. They photographed cars coming and going from the complex. Red flags for them are dark-tinted windows, mostly American makes and masked drivers. They've documented vehicles with missing license plates or plates being swapped between cars.
Harbor Area patrollers Victor Maldonado and Merci Macatrao walk past a memorial to a Japanese American fishing village that once stood on Terminal Island.
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Josie Huang
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LAist
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Maldonado is in charge of the Instagram page this day, and posts updates as he receives it from other volunteers, as well as sharing it with other community patrols.
Volunteer Gina Lumbruno says sometimes drivers flip them off, turn the camera phones on them or speed by dangerously close — the reason why the patrollers all now wear bright yellow safety vests.
“It’s so stupid,” Lumbruno said. “They give themselves away. They just profile their own selves by their actions.”
A dark chapter
The patrollers stand near a memorial to a vibrant fishing village for 3,000 islanders of Japanese descent who used to work on the harbor or in nearby tuna canneries. The bronze statue is of two fishermen facing opposite directions.
Lumbruno said before the raids, she used to visit the memorial regularly to clean off bird droppings and sweep away debris because of the deep meaning it held for her.
When she was growing up in San Pedro, Lumbruno’s tuna fisherman father told her what happened to the village. How it was demolished during World War II after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. How the Navy forced hundreds of residents into incarceration in Manzanar.
The only two buildings still standing housed a grocery and a dry goods store — structures that preservationists and locals like Lumbruno are trying to save from proposed demolition by port officials.
The A. Nakamura grocery store served the Japanese fishing community on Terminal Island.
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Tim Yuji Yamamoto
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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“This was something that was done,” said Lumbruno, who works in healthcare. “These people had their civil rights, their human rights, stripped from them just because of some xenophobic B.S., you know?”
Lumbruno said she sees a painful irony in federal agents driving by the bronze fishermen on their way to immigration operations.
“It's just crazy to me,” she said. “The same thing that was done to them is what's happening now.”
Indefinite vigilance
Federal agencies did not respond to LAist’s requests for information about their Terminal Island operations.
But the office of U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán, who represents Harbor Area communities, said it has confirmed through the Coast Guard that its base is serving as a staging area for Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other personnel with the Department of Homeland Security.
A former immigration detention and processing center is housed on the same federal complex, but that dilapidated structure is not being used (except for a small portion by Coast Guard staff), according to Barragán’s office.
The Trump administration has given no timeline for how long the L.A. sweeps will last. But volunteers with the Harbor Area group vow to continue their work even as their numbers ebb and flow.
With the start of school, they expect participation may dip because a disproportionate number of volunteers are teachers. Maldonado is optimistic that others will step up.
“We're going to keep putting the information out there,” he said. “Even if it helps just one person, we're perfectly OK with that. As long as this continues, so will we.”
What we know: The city is in the very early stages of planning how to transform the 192 acres into a park. The preliminary report shows some potential amenities of the park, such as gardens, biking trails, art galleries, a community center and much more.
Background: After a long legal battle between the city and the Federal Aviation Administration, a settlement was reached that ruled that the city could close the more than 100-year-old airport. The park was controversial among residents because of air quality and noise concerns, and was the subject of many legal battles in recent decades.
What’s next? The city wants to hear from residents. You’re encouraged to review the framework and fill out this survey. Feedback will be accepted until April 26.
Elly Yu
typically reports on early childhood issues and from time to time other general news.
Published April 1, 2026 1:41 PM
Thousands of immigrants, including refugees and asylees, in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.
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Brandon Bell
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.
What’s new: The changes apply to certain immigrants who are here lawfully, including refugees and asylees. It also applies to people from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special visas for helping the U.S. military overseas.
Why now: The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.
What’s next: Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.
Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.
The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.
The changes remove eligibility for certain noncitizens, including people with refugee status and victims of trafficking. It also applies to immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special immigrant visas for helping the U.S. government overseas.
”These are folks … many of whom have large families that we have a commitment to as a country because we welcomed them and invited them here to find a place of refuge,” said Cambria Tortorelli, president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, a refugee resettlement agency. “They’re authorized to work and they’ve been brought here by the U.S. government.”
The federal spending bill, H.R. 1, made sweeping cuts to social safety net programs, including food assistance and Medicaid. In signing the bill, President Donald Trump said the changes were delivering on his campaign promises of “America first.”
Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. The state estimates about 72,000 immigrants with lawful presence will be affected across California.
CalFresh is the state’s version of the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Undocumented immigrants have not been eligible to receive CalFresh benefits.
State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.
Who the changes apply to:
Asylees
Refugees
Parolees (unless they are Cuban and Haitian entrants)
Individuals with deportation or removal withheld
Conditional entrants
Victims of trafficking
Battered noncitizens
Iraqi or Afghan with special immigrant visas (SIV) who are not lawful permanent residents (LPR)
Certain Afghan Nationals granted parole between July 31, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2023
Certain Ukrainian Nationals granted parole between Feb. 24, 2022, and Sep. 30, 2024
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Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.
CSU AI survey: CSU polled more than 94,000 students, faculty and staff, making it the largest survey of AI perception in higher education. Nearly all students have used AI but most question whether it is trustworthy. Both faculty and students want more say in systemwide AI policies. Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research.
The results: Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions. Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom. In addition to clarity around use of AI policies, students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”
Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.
That’s according to results of a 2025 survey of more than 80,000 students enrolled at CSU’s 22 campuses, plus faculty and staff — the largest and most comprehensive study of how higher education students and instructors perceive artificial intelligence.
Nationwide, university faculty struggle to reconcile the learning benefits of AI — hailed as a “transformative tool” for providing tutoring and personalized support to students — and the risks that students will depend on AI agents to do their thinking for them and, very possibly, get the wrong information. Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions.
Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom, said Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, representing more than 470,000 students.
“Both of these things are allowed to coexist right now without a policy,” she said.
Karroum said that faculty practices are too varied and that what students need are consistent and transparent rules developed in collaboration with students. “There are going to be students who are graduating with AI literacy and some that graduate without AI literacy.”
In February 2025, the CSU system announced an initiative to adopt AI technologies and an agreement with OpenAI to make ChatGPT available throughout the system. The system-wide survey released Wednesday confirms that ChatGPT is the most used AI tool across CSUs. The system will also work with Adobe, Google, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft and NVIDIA.
Campus leaders say the survey and accompanying dashboard provide much needed data on how the system continues to integrate AI into instruction and assessment.
“We need to have data to make data-informed decisions instead of just going by anecdote,” said Elisa Sobo, a professor of anthropology at San Diego State who was involved in interpreting the survey’s findings. “We have data that show high use, but we also have high levels of concern, very valid concern, to help people be responsible when they use it.”
Faculty at San Diego State designed the survey, which received more than 94,000 responses from students, faculty and staff. Among all responding CSU students, 95% reported using an AI tool; 84% said they used ChatGPT and 82% worry that AI will negatively impact their future job security. Others worry that they won’t be competitive if they don’t understand AI well enough.
“Even though I don’t want to use it, I HAVE TO!” wrote a computer science major. “Because if I don’t, then I’ll be left behind, and that is the last thing someone would want in this stupid job market.”
Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research. Just over 55% reported a positive benefit, while 52% said AI has had a negative impact so far.
San Diego State conducted its first campuswide survey in 2023 in response to complaints from students about inconsistent rules about AI use in courses, said James Frazee, vice president for information technology at the campus.
“Students are facing this patchwork of expectations even within the same course taught by different instructors,” Frazee said. In one introductory course, the professor might encourage students to use AI, but another professor teaching the same course might forbid it, he said. “It was a hot mess.”
In that 2023 survey, one student made this request: “Please just tell us what to do and be clear about it.”
Following that survey, the San Diego State Academic Senate approved guidelines for the use of generative AI in instruction and assessments. In 2025, the Senate made it mandatory that faculty include language about AI use in course syllabi.
“It doesn’t say what your disposition has to be, whether it’s pro or con,” Frazee said. “It just says you have to be clear about your expectations. Without the 2023 survey data, that never would have happened.”
According to the 2025 systemwide survey, only 68% of teaching faculty include language about AI use in their syllabi.
Sobo and other faculty who helped develop the 2025 survey hope other CSU campuses will find the data helpful in informing policies about AI use. The dashboard allows users to search for specific campus and discipline data and view student responses by demographic group.
The 2025 survey shows that first-generation students are more interested in formal AI training and that Black, Hispanic and Latino students are more interested than white students. At San Diego State, students are required to earn a micro-credential in AI use during their first year — another change that was made after the 2023 survey.
Students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”
The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 educators in the CSU system, said in a February statement that faculty should be included in future systemwide decisions about AI, including whether the contract with OpenAI should be renewed in July.
“CFA members continue to advocate for ethical and enforceable safeguards governing the use of artificial intelligence,” the CFA said in the statement, asking for “protections for using or refusing to use the technology, professional development resources to adapt pedagogy to incorporate the technology, and further protections for faculty intellectual property.”
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 1, 2026 12:00 PM
Tennis courts featured in an April Fools' Day social media post by Irvine.
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City of Irvine
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Instagram
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Topline:
Many Southern California cities and institutions are dropping big, grabby news today — from the city of Irvine going "pickle-ball" only, to the Huntington Botanical Gardens announcing it'll be bottling the scent of the famed corpse flower as a perfume.
Why now: Before you go "what the what" — remember today's the first day of April.
Read on ... to find a roundup of some of the April Fools' jokes from your city and local trusted institutions.
Many Southern California cities and institutions are dropping big, grabby news today. Before you go "what the what" — remember, it's the first day of April.
Here's a roundup of some of the April Fools' news dump items.
Irvine, the 'pickleball-only' city
Irvine announced that it'll be converting all tennis courts into pickleball courts by 2027. That's one notch for Team Pickleball in the ongoing turf war between tennis lovers and pickleball players over the fight for court space to engage in their beloved sport.
"Starting today, April 1, all tennis courts are being converted to pickleball courts as part of a citywide effort to make Irvine a pickleball-only City by 2027," the post stated. "We don’t just think this is a good idea … we dink it’s a great one."
Over in Long Beach, Mayor Rex Richardson announced the city's reigning royalty, the Queen Mary, will be renamed after another queen.
"After careful consideration, I am proud to announce that the Queen Mary will officially be renamed the RMS Queen Latifah," he said. "Long Beach is stepping into a new era as a major music destination — with a new amphitheater, a deep cultural legacy and a future built on sound. It’s only right that our most iconic Queen reflects that energy."
In real-real news, LBC native and everyone's favorite Olympics commenter Snoop Dogg is headlining the grand opening show of the Long Beach Amphitheater in June. That's the new waterfront venue near the RMS Queen Latifah.
Suspense writer James Patterson has more than 200 novels to his name, selling more than 450 million copies. If anyone deserves his own namesake branch, it would be Patterson, no?
The Los Angeles Public Library certainly dinks so, announcing today the James Patterson Canoga Park branch, "with wall to wall Patterson books and programming centered around this prolific author."
The opening of the corpse flower has become an annual event at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. The event brings legions hoping to get a whiff of the famed flower's "pungent aroma."
The San Marino institution announced that it's bottling the scent, as part of its new "The Huntington's Stank Collection."
"A musky gym sock note opens this unique fragrance, with a sweet, rotten-egg base to ground it. Smells like you — but smellier," the post explained.
