Si habla español, lea el documento (PDF), Conozca sus Derechos Educativos, en el sitio web del Departamento de Justicia de California.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a new press release on January 6, 2025: Attorney General Bonta Issues Guidance on Educational Rights of Immigrant Students and Their Families. Schools as well as families should be aware of these issues.
Note these links in that press release: “The complete Guide for Students and Families is available in English and Spanish at oag.ca.gov/immigrant/resources. Additional languages will be available in the coming days.”
California is bracing for stepped-up Border Patrol raids with the incoming President and his staff. The recent raid in Kern County on farm workers, reported by CalMatters, has many worried and scrambling already.
If you are one of the lucky ones who think you won’t be affected, think again. Farm workers who fear detention and possible deportation are not showing up to harvest. In Kern County the major crop right now is citrus. However, California has a year-long growing season, so farm worker raids will affect something you eat, sooner or later. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, “Over a third of the country’s vegetables and over three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California.”
This is not to condone illegal immigration. Rather, I want to point out that large-scale raids often catch people who are here legally, and even if such people are later released, it still negatively impacts their lives. Also, many immigrants who are here illegally have family members in the US that are here legally. One reason is that some children who were born here have one or both parents who were not, and some of those parents do not have legal immigration status yet, though some are in the process of applying for it. Thus, immigration sweeps have the potential to separate children–even US citizens–from their families. There are better ways to handle illegal immigration than massive sweeps of groups of people already here.