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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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To continue making the teaching profession more accessible to candidates from historically excluded groups, experts provide recommendations for policymakers at the state and federal level.
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Critics say the cash-strapped system misspent millions of dollars getting upgraded accounts for all students. CSU leaders insist they're needed to meet a changing economy.
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Gov. Newsom, Cal State and the California Community Colleges system signed multiple agreements with California's tech giants.
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Million dollar settlements to regain federal funding? Rising tuition, but layoffs and course cuts? We're here to help.
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Public health experts say sustained exposure to ethylene oxide increases the risk of various cancers.
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Indiscriminate raids. Removal of U.S. citizens. Pressure to leave the country. For UC Irvine professor and evolutionary biologist Adriana Darielle Mejía Briscoe, the answer is yes.
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Most schools are relying on existing policies that allow for individual accommodations. But some are also tapping into lessons from the pandemic.
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The activists took on a range of issues, from LGBTQ healthcare to immigrants’ rights.
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Video footage can be used to keep government employees accountable.
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Most community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, but few manage to transfer.
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The state offers multiple pathways toward completing its requirements, but many students who enter the teaching profession still risk getting into debt, even before accounting for cost of living.
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Students who started high school wearing face masks and testing for COVID-19 graduate in the midst of widespread immigration raids.
