The Brief

Panic has continued to spread through immigrant communities across California ever since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in the light of his promises to conduct mass deportations.

Some immigrant families say this sense of fear is already affecting their daily lives — and heightened by frequent rumors of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sightings locally.

Concerns have also been stoked by the new administration’s reversal of a 2011 Department of Homeland Security policy that kept immigration agents away from “sensitive locations” like schools and churches.

According to the California Immigrant Data Portal, in 2021, 20% of minors in the state – around 1.8 million people – were either undocumented or living with someone undocumented. This was true for 32% percent of Latino teens and children, and 19% of Asian American youth.

So if you are part of a family that has been affected by the administration’s deportation plans, keep reading for how experts and advocates recommend parents and guardians can talk to young people about their rights when it comes to immigration enforcement — and how to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Bear in mind that this is not legal advice, and it’s always recommended that you consult an immigration attorney for guidance on your family’s specific situation.

What does a ‘family preparedness plan’ look like?

Kristina Lovato, the director of the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare Initiative at UC Berkeley, said that it’s “really important” for every family who could be affected by immigration enforcement to have what agencies and organizations call “a family preparedness plan” in case of an emergency.

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) has a thorough tool kit with guidance on ways to prepare for such a scenario, focusing on a care plan for children.

For example, ILRC suggests that parents should identify a trusted adult to take care of their kids, in case they are detained or deported. (There is a possibility that a child may end up in the child welfare system after a parent is detained or deported.)

There are three avenues to designate a trusted adult to care for for your child:

• Find another adult who can verbally agree to take care of your child in a situation where you cannot. The downside of a verbal agreement is that the trusted adult may not be able to make certain decisions for your child, like medical decisions, in the event that their parent or caregiver is deported.
• Complete a Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit so that the trusted adult can also make school and medical decisions on behalf of your child. This option does not impact your parental rights.
• Have the court appoint a guardian for your child by filling out a GC-211 form. This new guardian can, in certain situations, make more decisions than an authorized caregiver on behalf of your child, and the guardianship can also be made conditional, to “kick in” if a parent or caregiver is deported. This route does not take away your parental rights, but it does suspend them by granting legal custody of your child to someone else — making it “a serious decision” to embark on, notes ILRC, and one which should be accompanied by legal advice.

In any case, parents or caregivers should let their children know about their plan, recommends ILRC — telling them exactly who they would stay with if they were not there.

The toolkit also suggests documenting your child’s medications and medical conditions, such as allergies, and giving a copy to their school, and another to the adult you designated as an emergency caretaker.

Regardless of your child’s nationality, advocates suggest making sure they have a passport.

What should families know about ICE in schools?

Be familiar with California policy

Since the election, California has prepared to challenge Trump administration actions the state deems illegal. And while ICE can still operate in California, the state is not providing resources to them for immigration enforcement, except for cases of detaining people convicted of serious crimes.)

“No matter who is in the White House, in California, we will continue to lead with California values,” State Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a December news release. “My office will continue to use the full force of the law and every tool at our disposal to protect the rights of California’s immigrants – and we need staff at these critical locations to do the same.”

“We cannot let the Trump deportation machine create a culture of fear and mistrust that prevents immigrants from accessing vital public services,” said Bonta.

California law limits state and local participation in immigration enforcement activities. Bonta’s office updated its official guidance surrounding immigration enforcement in the state, stipulating that state courthouses, public healthcare facilities and public schools are required to adopt these policies “or equivalent policies.”

The state’s updated guidance for staff at schools and campuses asks that they do the following:

• Notify the local educational agency administrator of any immigration officer’s request to enter campus.
• Ask to see — and make copies or notes of — the officer’s credentials, including name and badge number; the phone number of their supervisor; any documentation that allows school access, like a warrant.
• Document the actions of any officer who enters the premises without consent.
• Notify children’s guardians as soon as possible of ICE activity, and do so before an officer questions or removes a student for immigration-enforcement purposes (“unless prevented by a judicial warrant or subpoena”).
• Notify the California Department of Justice of any attempt by an immigration officer to access a school site or a student by emailing immigration@doj.ca.gov.

According to the state attorney general, your family and your children have the right to:

• A public education, regardless of a parent or caregiver’s immigration status.
• Have documents remain private and protected by schools, which can only be released by guardian permission or in response to a court order or subpoena.
• File a complaint or report a hate crime.

If anyone in California suspects that a school or its staff are assisting ICE, state Bonta urged them to report these concerns to his office.

Know your right to remain silent

An ICE agent can approach a minor in a public space to ask questions or ask for their identification, said Lovato. But in this case — and almost all cases with law enforcement — the young person should know that they do not need to respond to any questions, according to legal experts.

Advocates counsel that children should not run away, and try to stay calm.

“A minor can state that they want to remain silent until they speak with a lawyer,” Lovato said. “Do not answer any questions about your birthplace, immigration status or how you’ve entered the United States.” Lovato also recommended not giving an ICE agent “any personal information about yourself or anyone in your family.”

Advocates say it may also be helpful for a child to carry a card that details their rights with them when they go out. You can find a printable version from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

KQED also has a guide on what advocates and legal experts say you can do during ICE encounters, which includes details like how to tell an ICE agent from a police officer and what advocates recommend you do if ICE knocks on your door.

If it is safe, legal experts say your child can also attempt to record ICE’s actions. KQED also has a guide on your rights when recording officers.

What can ICE do with children?

ICE is obligated to hand children over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement — part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — within 72 hours. (This rule has, however,  been violated before.)

If you are looking for a minor who has been detained, you can call, text or message through WhatsApp the Office of Refugee Resettlement at (800) 203-7001 or email information@ORRNCC.com.

If your child is 18 or over, you can use ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System to search for them. According to the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, it might take a few days for a person to show up in this ICE database. If this person has still not shown up in the database after those few days, you can contact advocacy organizations like Freedom for Immigrants through their form online or call (209) 757-3733.

Other organizations that support children include Legal Services for Children, Kids in Need of Defense and the Immigration Center for Women and Children.

Nicole Vara (left), with the Latino Task Force, stands with a group of elected and public safety officials, labor leaders, and community members fill the steps in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Jan. 28 during a press conference to reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to being a Sanctuary City.

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Beth LaBerge

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KQED

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How should you talk to your kids about ICE in the news?

Lovato studied the impact of deportations on Los Angeles families during the first Trump administration. She said many young people in these families faced an “ambiguous loss” after seeing a parent forcibly separated from them, coupled with the uncertainty of when they may be reunited.

“It’s a type of loss that is often unnoticed by the general public,” she said. She also noted many children in the study who had seen their parents deported then experienced anxiety that they themselves — or other family members — would be next, even if they had documentation.

It’s easy for young people and children to pick up on any tension around them — and kids “overhear everything,” said Ioanna Angelakis, a marriage and family therapist based in San Francisco.

“They might hear [something] in a certain way that they can’t understand and they can’t process,” she said. "This stress can appear in different ways for kids, like acting out in school.”

Because of this, she said, parents and caregivers should try to explain things to their child in age-appropriate language. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has this advice on how to explain traumas, especially in schools, to different age groups. KQED also has multiple guides on how to talk to children when the news is disturbing.

Some concrete advice advocates suggest for parents and caregivers:

Reassure your children

Angelakis said that while it may be difficult, parents need “to get their own fears under control.”

She said that parents should explain to their children — even if they’re teenagers — that their family will “continue to protect them” and will do everything they can to “make sure that the kids remain safe.”

“There is no easy solution for all of this, and it is truly terrifying if a family is in danger,” she said. But Angelakis said that a parent’s reassuring tone can help children from developing tremendous anxiety — or from mirroring their family’s stress.

Tell your child you have a plan

Angelakis said parents should try “putting some containment” on the anxiety their child is feeling, and let them know that “our family has a plan and we’re doing everything that we can to stay safe.”

These plans would include the back-up childcare and guardian situations suggested by the ILRC.

Tell your child they don’t have to say anything to law enforcement

Like adults, children have the right to remain silent when interacting with ICE under the law.

What’s more, for some children, advocates acknowledge that going to a police officer or providing information to people or schools might not be helpful for them or their families. This can be the case for a child from a mixed-status family, or a young person whose community has historically experienced violent responses from the police.

Lovato explained that immigration organizations have been encouraging parents to tell their kids and engage in a household practice of “saying no to ICE. Actually verbally, reciting it and practicing: just saying no.”

Regulate your own anxiety

Angelakis said in many situations, fear is warranted and rational — since for so many, ICE headlines hit close to home.

But she emphasized that parents should try to regulate their response when talking to their children. A way for guardians to check on their own anxiety by consulting with other trusted people in their life, and make sure they are not getting “caught in [their] own head,” said Angelakis.

This includes “making sure you breathe right,” she recommended. And that “we pass on the relevant information to the child” in a way that isn’t “skyrocketing anyone’s anxiety.”

Ways advocates suggest you can do this include:

• Having your child express their feelings, but not letting them try to comfort you.
• Giving a child some positive forms of control, like deciding what to have for dinner or choosing a game to play.
• Being a role model on how to handle distress and conflict, like making sure anger looks “in-control” rather than “out-of-control.”

Angelakis said that while families can also try to limit their news intake, she acknowledges that many families are hearing about “terrifying” situations which are hard to ignore.

“It’s really important that we do have these conversations with kids, and [that] we do minimize any kind of anxiety evoking or anxiety increasing conversations.”

But she emphasizes: “Kids are pretty incredible. And super resilient and awfully smart.”

This story contains reporting by KQED’s Tyche Hendricks and Ki Sung.

California’s first-in-the-nation fast food council — created to give workers a voice on wages, safety and working conditions — has not met in over a year and has no chairperson.

Now the workers the council was built to protect, organized by the Service Employees International Union, are taking their concerns directly to the state, demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a chairperson so the council can do its work, as required by law.

Luna Mondragon, who works at a Carl’s Jr. in Milpitas, told CalMatters through a translator that she started out as a cook but has done many other duties in her five years there. After she joined the fast food workers union, she said she began speaking up, especially when she started to experience aches and pains from her job. Since then, she said she has been retaliated against, including with fewer shifts.

“If we don’t have our health we can’t accomplish anything,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “It’s so important for them to appoint a chair. We need the council.”

The council was created as part of a 2023 compromise that also set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. It has the power to set standards on wages, health, safety and working conditions — and to raise the minimum wage annually for hundreds of thousands of fast food workers at chains with 60 or more locations nationwide.

The council — composed of four members representing the businesses, four members representing labor and a chairperson who’s an “unaffiliated” member of the public — must, under state law, hold at least two meetings a year, though the law does not specify who should enforce this provision.

The council only held those meetings in 2024; last year it held two subcommittee meetings, the latest in February 2025. Shortly after, the council’s chairperson, Nick Hardeman, resigned when Newsom appointed him to a different state position. When reached by CalMatters, Hardeman said he did not want to speak on the record about a council he has not chaired in a while.

In 2022, the Legislature raised fast food workers’ minimum wage to $22 an hour. The industry fought back, gathering signatures to repeal the law. Workers across the state went on strike. In late 2023, the SEIU and the industry reached a last-minute compromise: Workers dropped a ballot fight in exchange for a $20 minimum wage and the establishment of the council. The SEIU-affiliated California Fast Food Workers Union launched the following year — lacking the collective bargaining rights of a traditional union but acting as an advocacy and membership group for workers.

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor, would not answer questions about the council, instead referring CalMatters to the state’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency. Crystal Young, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that there is no chairperson and the council’s meetings are on hold. The council’s four-person staff continues to respond to inquiries and prepare for future meetings, she said.

On April 16, marking about two years since the council’s first meeting, workers delivered a 96-page book to the governor’s office, describing more than 100 complaints filed with CalOSHA, the state labor department and different city agencies since the council’s formation, alleging wage theft and poor working conditions. The union estimates there are about 630,000 fast food workers in the state, about 75% of whom are people of color and 20% of whom are immigrants.

“Employers feel newly empowered to threaten us with calling ICE when we ask questions about paid sick leave or [workers’ compensation] or report health and safety hazards,” Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s worker who is a member of the fast food council, said in the book.

Rich Reinis, a member of the council who represents employers and is a former franchise owner, said he has no knowledge of when meetings will resume and is waiting. In his view, the council should have been discussing “fire and ICE.” The phrase refers to the effects of last year’s L.A. County fires on the fast food industry and its workers, some of whom lost their homes, and what businesses and workers need to know about immigration enforcement.

Reinis also wants the council to order a study of the wage increase’s effects on prices and employment. Competing studies by UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz have reached opposite conclusions, and the question of affordability remains unresolved, he said.

A Los Angeles Times columnist who analyzed the competing studies concluded the debate over the wage's effects is likely to continue. Hernandez, the councilmember, rejected the industry's claims the wage increase has hurt business. “The sky didn’t fall on the California fast food industry,” she said.

The council is also required to submit a performance review to the Legislature every three years — a deadline approaching without a single full meeting in the past year. Before he resigned, Hardeman, the former chairperson, said it was hard for the council to reach decisions.

“The staff will have to write a report without having any meetings,” Reinis said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Chris Holden, the former California assemblymember who authored the law that raised the workers’ wages and created the council, told CalMatters the council was “groundbreaking” and “needs to address the challenges that were the genesis of the council in the first place.” He said he hopes the governor is doing his due diligence to identify a new chairperson.

“I want to tell [the governor] to finish the job he started,” Julieta Garcia, a cook at a Pizza Hut in Los Angeles, told CalMatters through a translator. “Leave a good legacy for this generation and the future generation, so you can be recognized as a leader who gave fast food workers a chance.”

Young, the Labor & Workforce Development Agency spokesperson who was speaking on the governor’s behalf, confirmed that Newsom’s office received the workers’ book.

The governor's office has not said when — or whether — Newsom plans to appoint a chairperson to the council.

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

Nearly 20 years after founding a successful environmental and safety consulting services company, Robin Thorne said she still gets checked for being a Black woman in the construction industry.

“I've had situations where people, they don't even make eye contact, and then the male has to step back to say, 'She's running the show,'" she said.

Robin Thorne (in pink jacket) founded DemoChicks to help women of color land jobs in construction industries.

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Courtesy DemoChicks

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Thorne runs CTI Environmental, a multi-million dollar company that was contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers to do debris removal after the L.A. fires.

She’s been an engineer for decades and knows fewer than one of four workers in architecture, construction and engineering industries who are women — and much fewer are women of color.

That proportion is low considering 47% of the U.S. labor force are women.

That's why she’s organized a “Women in STEM Signing Day” at Long Beach City College on Saturday, May 30. The event’s meant to create the type of excitement normally associated with young people signing up for college sports teams.

She wants younger women to tap into their drive to succeed

There were far fewer women in these jobs when Thorne was growing up in Philadelphia, but she didn’t let roadblocks, including those in her personal life — like being a single mom on public assistance — stop her.

DemoChicks helps give young women of color exposure to construction-related jobs.

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“When I thought about being an engineer, I didn't think about it being male-dominated. I just knew I wanted to be an engineer,” she said.

She added that some women do give up on similar dreams or fail to find the spark that allows them to see themselves doing these jobs. That’s why Thorne started DemoChicks seven years ago. She wants young women to see her and think “engineer,” as well as connect with women who are already working in these industries.

Mentorship, examples, and money

The organization is called DemoChicks because demolition is one of the jobs that keeps Thorne’s company busy. More women are entering architecture, construction and engineering jobs than before, but the percentage of women in each industry is still low:

15% in engineering
26% in architecture
11% in construction

These are mostly stable jobs with good entry-level wages, jobs such as safety coordinators, project managers, project engineers and construction managers.

Beyond giving teen girls IRL examples of women in construction industry jobs, DemoChicks supports their academic efforts, which often means helping them out meet college expenses. DemoChicks gave out $1,000 scholarships to eight women last year (35 applied).

A third generation Latina truck driver from South LA

One of those scholarship recipients in 2024 was Ana Terrazas. She recalled growing up in South L.A., not as a latch key kid, but as a truck cab kid.

Ana Terrazas as a teen at her mother's construction job. Terrazas now works for a large construction company as a project engineer.

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Courtesy Ana Terrazas

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 ”My mother… was a truck driver,” Terrazas said, driving belly dump trailers on construction sites. Terrazas would help her mother change tires and lend a hand with any mechanical repairs. Her grandfather was a truck driver too.

“Since then I've always been obsessed with job sites, and also the superintendent, the one that would tell everybody where to go, how to do their job, and organize everything,” Terrazas said.

Two years ago she was working hard to finish her two majors — civil engineering and construction management — to earn her bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona. She applied for and was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from DemoChicks. That help, she said, had a big effect.

DemoChicks founder Robin Thorne, right, presents Ana Terrazas with a scholarship.

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Courtesy Ana Terrazas

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“I didn't have to take as many hours of work to be able to focus more on my studies and also in my internship during that time,” Terrazas said.

The internship, at Swinerton, a nationwide construction company that's more than 100 years old, turned into full time work as a project engineer.

Terrazas paid it forward earlier this year, inviting Thorne and a dozen DemoChicks to a Swinerton work site during Women in Construction Week. She urged the women to tap into their drive to succeed and lean on people like her for help.

“As long as they're driven and this is what they want, there shouldn't be a reason for them to not be able to get a job here,” Terrazas said.

With LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries just steps away, it may be easy to forget that we have the richest Ice Age fossil site on Earth right here with the La Brea Tar Pits.

But the museum and research facilities at the tar pits are also scheduled for a multimillion dollar renovation.

Built in 1977, the George C. Page Museum at the tar pits has a special place in the hearts of Angelenos who’ve ever taken a field trip to see its massive mastodon skeletons or dire wolf skulls. Or have maybe shed a tear at the sculptures of the mammoth family in distress in the Lake Pit out front.

All that stuff is staying, museum educator Kay Lai told LAist, but new interactive exhibits will allow visitors to better understand the science that’s happening in their own backyard.

A rendering of the new outdoor amphitheater at the La Brea Tar Pits.

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Courtesy the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County

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The transformation

“This museum, as beloved as it is, definitely needs that refresh,” Lai said. “And I’m really excited for the next generation of kids that gets to grow up and make new memories here with this new space.”

Lai said the museum refresh will include a new focus on Zed — the 80% complete Columbian mammoth found here — and other notable animals they’ve unearthed over the decades. The mammoth’s bones will be reassembled and Zed will “stand tall for the first time since the Ice Age,” according to the museum’s website.

“We’re able to focus on the very first saber-toothed cat fossils that we’ve ever discovered ... As well as some of our Ice Age survivors ... like Pebbles the Puma ... Pebbles would have been the ancestor of some of the mountain lions that still live in Los Angeles today, including P-22 that passed away a couple years ago,” Lai said.

Then there’s the fish bowl: you know, the fossil lab with windows where you can watch researchers at work?

An even better fish bowl

“So we’ll still have the fish bowl, but it’s going to be much more interactive and there’ll be much more discussion of what’s going on inside the fossil lab,” said Regan Dunn, assistant deputy director and curator at the new Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

A digital rendering of the new fish bowl at the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

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Courtesy the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County

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Dunn explained that the area where they store their collections of fossils and other specimens is getting major updates too.

“Super valuable, millions of specimens, will be in upgraded systems where there’s climate control. There’ll be enclosed cabinets and be under much better maintenance. And also allow for much more research to happen,” she said.

The La Brea Tar Pits are still very much an active paleontological research site. Dunn said any time a hole goes in the ground in the Hancock Park area, a new discovery is made.

With new outdoor classrooms and a 1-kilometer pedestrian pathway that will take visitors past excavation sites, the idea is to make the research going on here more visible to the public.

Your last chance to visit the tar pits before its two-year transformation is July 6.

A digital rendering showing the aerial view of the updated La Brea Tar Pits grounds.

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Courtesy the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

In the face of the nation's highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.

Assembly Bill 2046, dubbed the “Access to Affordable Gas Act” by its author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Stockton Democrat, advanced through the Assembly on a 59-0 vote with no debate or opposition.

The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amid the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.

“Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Ransom said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”

If approved in its current form, the measure would exempt manufacturers of E85 converter kits from an approval process by the state’s primary climate regulator, the California Air Resources Board, which requires companies to demonstrate the devices do not increase a vehicle's emissions. The bill would leave in place a separate federal certification process run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Members in Sacramento are looking for ways to try to reduce costs — or appear to reduce costs of driving — and so this is a way to do that,” said Aaron Smith, a UC Berkeley economist and fuels expert.

The converter kits, which cost between $800 to $1,250, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, would let drivers convert their cars to run on both gasoline and E85 fuel.

E85 is a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; the share of ethanol typically is between 55% and 85%, said Smith, the Berkeley expert.

Jeff Wilkerson, government affairs manager for Pearson Fuels, the largest E85 fuel provider in the state and a bill supporter, said E85 — much of which is made from Midwest corn — is largely insulated from overseas oil shocks that drive California gas prices. The ethanol blend has sold for $2 or more less per gallon than gasoline during recent price spikes.

While E85 is typically priced lower than gasoline and can reduce petroleum dependence and carbon emissions, it delivers 20% to 30% fewer miles per gallon, according to the air board, meaning drivers only save money when E85 is priced at least 20% to 30% below gasoline.

About 1.3 million vehicles in California can currently use the fuel, which is sold at about 640 stations statewide — just 3% of the state’s more than 15,000 fuel pumps, according to the bill analysis.

Ransom said more E85 pumps would be built if the state loosened restrictions and encouraged demand for the fuel blend. She stressed that her bill would present E85 as an alternative.

“For some people, it may not be a wise choice, but at least now it’s going to be a choice,” she said.

Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Smith, the Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.

The state’s own certification record offers a cautionary tale. Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the board, said the agency has received only five applications from companies for E85 conversion kits since 2008 and that none has cleared the certification process, which is designed to ensure modified vehicles still meet their original emissions standards. Supporters of the proposal argue the board moves slowly and its regulations are burdensome.

But loosening that standard carries its own risk, cautioned Aaron Kurz, senior consultant on the Assembly Transportation Committee, especially now.

As the federal government has stripped scientific expertise from regulatory decisions, he wrote in his analysis, “this committee should consider if the state should cede authority over an inherently scientific process and set a precedent for transferring approval authority to the federal government.”