Former President Donald Trump walks to greet people after he arrived at LAX in Los Angeles, April 5, 2019.
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AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
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Topline:
With former president Donald Trump set to return to the White House, local leaders in California say they’re determined to use their political office to resist his policies. LAist interviewed experts on key issues facing Southern Californians to get a sense of what’s in store for L.A.
Immigration: Mass deportations have been a centerpiece of Trump’s campaign. If they’re actually carried out, the effect could be huge in L.A. County, where one-in-three residents are immigrants and 8% lack legal authorization. But experts said many parts of California have already enacted policies to limit cooperation with federal immigration officials, depriving Trump of key resources needed to expel millions of immigrants.
Housing: Trump has also said mass deportations of immigrants will free up more housing, reducing costs for others. But housing analysts say the more likely outcome in California could be higher rents due to ballooning budgets to build new housing, as construction workers are forced to leave and Trump’s tariffs increase the cost of important materials like lumber and steel.
Read on… to learn what could be in store for Southern California under Trump’s environment, LGBTQ+ and health care policies.
With former president Donald Trump set to return to the White House, state and local leaders in California say they’re determined to use their political office to resist his policies.
But what has Trump proposed to do on key issues facing Californians like housing, the environment, health care and the border? And what could local leaders do in overwhelmingly Democratic cities like Los Angeles to thwart his campaign promises?
LAist interviewed experts on these topics to get a sense of what’s in store for L.A.
The border and immigration
Trump made mass deportations a centerpiece of his campaign, and promised on his first day in office to close the U.S. border with Mexico and restrict migrants from seeking asylum.
Those policies, if carried out, have the potential to profoundly disrupt daily life in L.A. County, where one-in-three residents are immigrants and 8% lack legal authorization, according to USC Dornsife’s 2024 State of Immigrants report.
“We can expect Trump's approach to the border to include policies and practices that intentionally seek to foment chaos,” said Monika Langarica with the UCLA School of Law’s Center for the Immigration Law and Policy.
But Langarica said California has already enacted local policies to limit cooperation between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement, who would need to play a crucial role in scaling up deportation efforts to meet Trump’s goals.
Deportations of millions of migrants would be unlikely to happen right away. Such a large-scale effort could first require massive government spending and coordination.
Trump’s former senior advisor Stephen Miller has said mass deportation could involve building staging grounds near the border. And Trump has said he would rely on local police to work with the federal government’s 6,000 Enforcement and Removal officers.
“In California there are already important protections built in,” she said. “There is a lot more that can be done by way of state policies to further limit the ability of the federal government to come in and seek to collude with local law enforcement agencies to seek to carry out these so-called mass deportation plans.”
Niels Frenzen, director of USC’s Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, said Trump could also try to end a program that extends authorization to live and work in the U.S. to those who arrived in the country illegally as children. About 64,000 people in the L.A. area currently have authorization under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
Another possibility: California officials who resist Trump’s immigration policies could find themselves threatened with losing federal resources, Frenzen said.
“In Trump campaign rallies, he said if Newsom doesn't get in line, the federal government is not going to provide FEMA assistance for wildfire recovery,” Frenzen said. “Then it's just a question of, does the state have the political and the financial capability of resisting those pressures from the federal government?”
Housing affordability
Deportation has also been a cornerstone of Trump’s message on housing affordability, with the former president saying expelling immigrants would free up more housing and reduce costs for others.
But housing analysts in California say the more likely outcome from such efforts could be ballooning construction budgets that translate into steeper rents.
“[Deportations] will cause massive pain and hardship for the people who are affected. And a lot of the folks getting deported are actually critical for housing supply,” said Ben Metcalf, managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. “Most of the [construction] workforce these days is being made up of immigrants, including many who may not have all their citizenship or legal documentation perfected."
Trump’s plans to raise tariffs could also cause the cost of imported homebuilding materials, such as lumber and steel, to spike, Metcalf added.
“One could imagine 20% tariffs massively raising the cost and decreasing the availability of the materials that are needed to build homes,” he said. “Those would be huge drags, I think, on forward supply in California.”
LGBTQ+ communities
Trump repeatedly took aim at LGBTQ+ communities on the campaign trail, airing ads that disparagingly said Vice President Kamala Harris’ positions on issues affecting transgender people showed she was for “they/them” while he was for “you.”
Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, said California has maintained an affirming policy environment, and she expected that to continue under state law.
“What we might see in California is that LGBT people would retain many of the same rights that they have enjoyed under the Biden administration, or any administration,” she said. “But what would happen is we would expect some significant conflict with the federal government.”
For example, in education, California has a number of laws protecting LGBTQ+ students’ rights to participate in sports and use gender-affirming restrooms. Redfield said those aren’t directly threatened by a Trump administration.
“The federal government, under a conservative administration, might narrowly define Title IX and prohibit, for example, the inclusion of trans youth in sports that match their gender identity, or prohibit schools from allowing trans youth to use bathrooms that match their gender identity,” Redfield said. “The main result there is the risk of losing funding.”
Reproductive rights
In the 2022 mid-term election, about two-thirds of California voters decided to guarantee the right to an abortion and contraception in the state’s constitution following a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Proposition 1 inserted language into the state constitution saying, “the state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.”
But with conservatives soon to control the White House, the Supreme Court and potentially both houses of Congress, could the federal government override California’s protections? That’s unlikely. Even abortion opponents say they are not expecting big changes in the state.
“California already has such strong protections for the abortion industry that a Trump administration would not change anything, really,” said Mary Rose Short, the director of outreach for California Right to Life. “There is a lot of talk about, what if Trump signed a national abortion ban, or something like that. But that would require that to be presented to him by a majority of the states. And that is not feasible in the next four years.”
Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said in a written statement on Trump’s victory, “Planned Parenthood health centers in California will continue to be open for any person seeking care — even for those who do not call California home — and we will fight like hell to ensure it stays that way.”
Environmental protection
During Trump’s first term in office, climate goals became a central point of contention between the federal government and California, which often leads the U.S. on environmental standards.
Trump took aim at the state’s ability to set stronger tailpipe emission limits for cars back in 2019. A federal court decision earlier this year upheld California’s right to set these standards.
Julia Stein with the UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said these disputes could come roaring back with Trump returning to power.
“California will need to think of creative ways to continue to regulate in that space without a federal partner,” Stein said.
Stein added that the world is at a critical tipping point for addressing climate change, and other countries around the world will be looking to see what happens in the U.S.
“California kind of stepped up to fill that void last time,” Stein said. “Being able to make progress on these issues is incredibly important, and to be seen as a strong leader globally — not just domestically — on these issues is also hugely important.”
Health care costs
Trump has talked about lowering the expenses Americans face when seeking medical care and prescription drugs, but has not provided specifics on his health care policy priorities. During the presidential debate in September he said he had “concepts of a plan.”
Geoffrey Joyce, health policy director at USC’s Schaeffer Center, said getting rid of the subsidies would mean big changes locally.
“It would have a huge effect on California,” Joyce said. “Anytime you cut subsidies, you make it less attractive. More people would decide not to get insurance.”
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Across from an auto shop on Venice Boulevard and Albany Street sits a narrow, sunken strip of land lined with overgrown shrubs and cacti. It’s mostly filled with trash — from plastic bags and cups to containers, straws, chip bags and aluminum foil.
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Marina Peña
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The LA Local
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Topline:
Bioswales — narrow, sunken strip of land along some L.A. streets — are meant to capture and filter storm water runoff, helping reduce flooding and keep pollutants from flowing into the ocean. But citywide, there are about 23 bioswales that appear abandoned.
Why it matters: The sidewalk features were installed during former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Complete Streets program around 2018. The initiative aimed to improve streets, add greenery and better manage stormwater along key corridors across the city. But residents, like some in Pico Union, say that bioswales have become dumping grounds. In some cases, the concrete structures were installed but left without vegetation for years, presenting safety concerns.
What's being done about them? Steve Kang, president of the city’s Board of Public Works, said his office is now working to create a program similar to “Adopt-a-Median” that would allow community members and organizations to formally maintain bioswales. Under the proposal, participants would enter into agreements with the city, with support from the Office of Community Beautification, which can provide tools like gloves, trash bags and gardening supplies.
Across from an auto shop on Venice Boulevard and Albany Street sits a narrow, sunken strip of land lined with overgrown shrubs and cacti. It’s mostly filled with trash — from plastic bags and cups to containers, straws, chip bags and aluminum foil.
It’s original purpose was to capture and filter storm water runoff, helping reduce flooding and keep pollutants from flowing into the ocean. But neighbors in Pico Union say that this bioswale and many others across the city have become dumping grounds.
The sidewalk features were installed during former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Complete Streets program around 2018. The initiative aimed to improve streets, add greenery and better manage stormwater along key corridors across the city.
Local resident Aurora Corona — a longtime Pico Union community organizer involved in local environmental and cleanup efforts — said in some instances it looks like the bioswales were not fully installed.
Citywide, there are about 23 bioswales that appear abandoned, Corona said. Many are located in central and South Los Angeles and spread across at least eight council districts.
In some cases, the concrete structures were installed but left without vegetation for years, Corona said, raising concerns that they were never able to function as intended.
Heberto Portobanco, owner of the Nicaraguan restaurant Portobanco in Pico Union, first noticed the bioswale outside his business about eight years ago, but it became hard to ignore about two years ago when it became a hazard.
“We had an accident, one of the people who does maintenance for us came and fell into it,” he said.
The bioswale was deeper and not fully finished, Portobanco said. After multiple people reported what happened to the city, Portobanco said the city added more soil to level it out.
“The idea might be nice, but if it’s not maintained, it’s a problem,” Portobanco said.
The biggest concern for Portobanco remains safety, especially as he said that people continue to use the space improperly or fail to notice it altogether.
He would be willing to help maintain the bioswale outside his restaurant if the city created a formal program to do so.
For him, keeping the space clean is also about pride and perception.
“I don’t want people to think that Latinos are careless and that we don’t take care of our surroundings,” he said, adding that a well-kept space could encourage others to take better care of the neighborhood.
Corona, the local organizer, has experienced similar issues to the ones Portobanco described.
She lives near two bioswales, including the one near Portobanco’s restaurant.
She first encountered them while organizing a cleanup around 2024 and said she didn’t initially know what they were. What she did know was that they were not being taken care of.
“I was tired of seeing this being a dumping ground, they would just throw trash here all the time,” she said.
That frustration pushed her to take action. She thought of what she had already done with other public spaces in her community.
In 2024, she helped transform a neglected dirt space on Venice Boulevard and Union Avenue into a small community green area — also known as a median — using local grant funding. With the help of volunteers, they removed contaminated soil and planted drought-tolerant greenery.
“It’s only been here since November and it’s grown a lot,” she said about the green belt, pointing to plants that started as small pots and are now taking root.
Corona continues to organize cleanups and, through the city’s “Adopt-a-Median” program, works with neighbors to maintain the space. She said she’d like to see a similar model applied to bioswales — essentially an “Adopt-a-Bioswale” program that would allow residents to take ownership of the ones near them.
“I think people would step up if they were given the chance and the support,” she said.
Across from an auto shop on Venice Boulevard and Albany Street sits a narrow, sunken strip of land lined with overgrown shrubs and cacti. It’s mostly filled with trash — from plastic bags and cups to containers, straws, chip bags and aluminum foil.
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Marina Peña
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The LA Local
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The program for the bioswales, as she envisions it, would involve planting California natives such as dudleya edulis, dudleya pulverulenta and other species that can withstand the weather. It would also call for improving their visibility by painting the bioswale borders in colors that reflect the neighborhood.
That idea has already been discussed at the city level.
Steve Kang, president of the city’s Board of Public Works, agrees that many bioswales now sit “barren” and are treated as “more of a trash repository.”
He said his office is now working to create a program similar to “Adopt-a-Median” that would allow community members and organizations to formally maintain bioswales.
“My intention is to make the process as seamless and easy as possible,” Kang said, adding that the goal is to launch the program sometime in 2026.
Under the proposal, participants would enter into agreements with the city, with support from the Office of Community Beautification, which can provide tools like gloves, trash bags and gardening supplies.
For residents like Corona and business owners like Portobanco, that kind of partnership could turn what are now neglected strips of land into something more useful.
“If we take care of these spaces, they can become something people are proud of,” Corona said. “It changes how people see the neighborhood and how they treat it.”
Makenna Cramer
leads LAist’s unofficial Big Bear bald eagle beat and has been covering Jackie and Shadow for several seasons.
Published April 3, 2026 11:48 AM
The first pip, or crack, was confirmed in one of the eggs around 10 a.m. Friday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Topline:
Big Bear’s famous bald eagles — Jackie and Shadow — appear to be welcoming a new chick into the world.
Why now: The first pip, or crack, was spotted in one of the feathered duo’s two eggs around 10 a.m. Friday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream of the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
Why it matters: More than 26,000 people were watching the livestream shortly shortly after the organization confirmed a pip had been spotted, which signals that an eaglet is starting to poke its way out of the egg shell.
The backstory: As of Friday, the first egg is around 38 days old and the second egg is about 35 days old. Jackie and Shadow's usual incubation timeline is around 38 to 40 days, according to the nonprofit.
Big Bear’s famous bald eagles — Jackie and Shadow — appear to be welcoming a new chick into the world.
The first pip, or crack, was spotted in one of the feathered duo’s two eggs around 10 a.m. Friday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream of the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
More than 26,000 people were watching the livestream shortly after the organization confirmed a pip had been spotted, which signals that an eaglet is starting to poke its way out of the egg shell.
“Yesterday afternoon, evening and throughout the night we heard little chirps coming from the chick,” Friends of Big Bear Valley wrote on Facebook to more than a million followers. “This indicates that the chick was able to break the internal membrane and took its first breath of air.”
As of Friday, the first egg is around 38 days old and the second egg is about 35 days old. Jackie and Shadow's usual incubation timeline is around 38 to 40 days, according to the nonprofit.
There’s still time for the second egg to show signs of hatching, and a pip could be confirmed in the coming days.
What we know
Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, told LAist earlier this week that hatching is an arduous process for chicks that takes some time.
For example, last season, the first chick hatched more than a day after the initial pip was confirmed, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley records. The second chick hatched about a day after pipping as well, and the third chick worked its way out into the world about two days after the first crack was confirmed.
In March 2025, Jackie and Shadow welcomed two eaglet chicks with one remaining egg in their nest.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Jackie and Shadow's three chicks on March 7, 2025. One of the chicks later died, while Sunny and Gizmo successfully fledged a few months later.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Jackie and Shadow's eaglets during a feeding of fish in April 2025.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Sunny and Gizmo in Big Bear's famous bald eagle nest on Friday, April 18, 2025.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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Viewers watched as the surviving eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo, grew from a few ounces to several pounds in a matter of months before fledging, or taking their first flight away from the nest, last June.
But any chicks arriving this season will have to learn how to feed before they can fly.
The initial meals may be a bit awkward while the chicks learn to sit up straight. Jackie and Shadow could start feeding the chicks the same day they hatch, typically tearing off pieces of fish or raw meat and holding it up to their beaks.
Bald eagles don’t regurgitate food for their young, unlike other birds. But the feathered parents do pass along a "substantial amount of saliva” full of electrolytes and antibodies to their chicks during feedings, according to the nonprofit.
Voisard said new life coming to the nest is a reminder “why it’s so important to conserve their lands.”
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Matt Dangelantonio
has always been fascinated by sports teams' jersey and logo designs, and loves a good alternate jersey.
Published April 3, 2026 10:54 AM
Shohei Ohtani wearing the Dodgers new blue road jerseys, which the team debuted Friday, April 3 against the Washington Nationals.
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Scott Taetsch
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Getty Images North America
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Topline:
The Dodgers debuted a brand new blue road jersey for its game against the Washington Nationals. The new blues will now be part of the team's regular season jersey rotation for away games.
Why it matters: The team says it's a first for the Dodgers, who have traditionally only worn their gray jerseys for away games. The Dodgers now have three road options — two gray jerseys, one that says "Los Angeles" across the front and another that says "Dodgers," along with the new blues.
Dodger Blue.
For the first time in history, the Dodgers will be wearing a blue jersey as part of their regular uniform rotation on the road. pic.twitter.com/ce3EVFVJTd
The backstory: You've probably seen the Dodgers wearing similar blue jerseys during spring training, but up until now they've not been an everyday option for regular season games. It won't be the first time the team wears a blue jersey during the regular season, though. In 2021, the Dodgers debuted blue "City Connect" jerseys, seen below, for that season.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wearing the team's 2021 City Connect uniform.
Elly Yu
reports on early childhood. From housing to health, she covers issues facing the youngest Angelenos and their families.
Published April 3, 2026 5:00 AM
Under a new law that went into effect this year, childcare providers are barred from asking about a child's or family member’s immigration status.
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Maria Gutierrez
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LAist
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Topline:
Under a new law that went into effect this year, childcare providers are barred from asking about a child's or family member’s immigration status.
What’s new: California Attorney General Rob Bonta provided guidance this week to childcare providers on new legal requirements to protect children and their families from immigration enforcement activities.
The backstory: Lawmakers passed AB 495 last year aimed at helping and protecting families in light of immigration enforcement, including allowing a broader definition of relatives to step in as a caregiver if a parent is detained.
The details: Under the new requirements, childcare centers have to regularly update a child’s emergency contact to make sure someone can be reached in the case of a parent being detained.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta provided guidance this week to childcare providers on new legal requirements to protect children and their families from immigration enforcement activities.
Under a new law that went into effect this year, childcare providers are not allowed to collect information about a child's or family member’s immigration status, unless necessary under state or federal law. Bonta’s office says there currently is no such requirement, though that could change with federal programs like Head Start.
“Childcare and preschool facilities should be safe and secure spaces so children can grow, learn and simply be children,” Bonta said in a statement.
His office says daycare centers also should not keep information about a formerly enrolled child longer than is required by state law.
The new law also requires facilities to inform the attorney general’s office and the state’s licensing agency if they get any requests for information from law enforcement related to immigration enforcement.
Facilities also must ask families to regularly update a child’s emergency contact information to make sure someone can be reached in case a parent is detained by federal immigration officials.
