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Julia Barajas
What I cover
I strive to bring nuance and context to the issue of immigration, which is often cast as a competition for limited resources or a concern for public safety.
Beholden to no political party, I document the impact of federal immigration policy on Southern California communities—including U.S. citizens of color—while holding our government accountable. My coverage centers human suffering and resilience, with an emphasis on how communities are taking collective action in response to this evolving landscape.
My background
I’ve covered a broad range of issues for English and Spanish-language news media—everything from environmental injustice to the arts. Most recently, I was LAist’s higher education reporter. My work has been recognized by the California News Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, the Press Club of Atlantic City, and the Society for Features Journalism.
My goals
I pledge to reflect SoCal’s economic, ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity in my reporting. This means making it a point to include people who speak Armenian, Arabic, Farsi, Khmer, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Zapotec, and all the other beautiful languages in the place we call home—while acknowledging that Tongva is the first language of this land.
How to contact me
If you or your community have been affected by federal immigration policy, I want to know about it. Also, if you have ideas about stories I should be covering, I welcome your thoughts. You can reach out by email. I'm at jbarajas@laist.com. Or, if you have a tip you’d like to share more privately, you can reach me on Signal. My username is @jbarajas.68.
Stories by Julia Barajas
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The longtime lecturer was arrested in May and could face up to 3 years in state prison.
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Federal and state-based aid can help students pay for tuition and fees, as well as other essentials, offering some an opportunity for a debt-free education.
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Administrators say the bargaining units should be dismissed, or that they have no standing. One campus is going after the federal agency in charge of union activity.
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Faculty want administrators to resume contract negotiations, but administrators say the union “has no standing.”
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As UC leaders grapple with how to respond to research grant cuts and a potential billion-dollar penalty, some are taking a defensive stand.
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Newly revealed data shows that hundreds of thousands of Californians are struggling to make their monthly student loan payments.
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On Thursday evening, dozens of researchers hosted a science fair at UCLA to demonstrate the long-term impact of frozen grants.
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Alfredo Ramos Martínez’s work has long been seen as apolitical. But this exhibition shows that he was deeply attuned to injustices around him.
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Why California might preserve in-state tuition rates for community college students who get deportedA bill in the state Legislature would allow deported community college students to continue their coursework online at in-state rates. DACA recipients who are denied re-entry to the U.S. would also be eligible.
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When President Donald Trump took office in January, nearly two dozen states allowed their respective undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition. That number is quickly diminishing.
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The settlement will be divided up among tens of thousands of residents.
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The budget gap has led to a tuition hike, along with spending cuts and fewer course offerings. At the same time, generative AI already has transformed higher ed — including post-grad job prospects.
