-
Listen Listen
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
-
Author and professor Héctor Tobar reflects on nearly three decades of work.
-
California wants to make sure community college students don’t leave money on the table.
-
At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, admission to panels with popular authors goes fast, so make a plan for the reservations you most want to secure at the 2025 event on the USC campus.
-
Legal advocates say the department’s school wellness checks are a ‘cloak for immigration enforcement.’
-
Students from across the Los Angeles Community College District will be represented.
-
So far, about 24,000 more students have applied for help to pay for college compared to this time last year.
-
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has voted to create a "Unified Permitting Authority" aimed at cutting red tape for wildfire survivors who want to rebuild their homes.
-
Now on view at The Cheech in Riverside, a retrospective features dozens of pieces from the pioneering Chicana artist Amalia Mesa-Bains.
-
The Altadena Reciprocity Project aims to keep trees from burn sites in the community after the Eaton Fire.
-
A team out of Arizona State University is creating 3D models to help fire victims with their insurance claims, and to help bring closure.
-
Faculty and student activists say they’re proceeding with caution and camaraderie.
-
The Trump administration has threatened to withhold funds from schools who uphold the framework.
