University administration has dozens of unauthorized flyers removed
by Leslie Layton | Posted May 6, 2025
The flyer that appeared on classroom doors last week
This story was updated at 4 p.m. today to include the university’s response.
Three hundred flyers suddenly appeared on campus doors at Chico State University last week, warning that law enforcement officers – a reference to immigration agents — would only be allowed in classrooms and other “private spaces” if they possessed judicial warrants.
“CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION” warns a flyer banner highlighted in yelllow. The flyer then notes that a classroom is a “private space” with entry restricted to faculty, staff and enrolled students. “Law enforcement may only enter with a valid judicial warrant … Everyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status, has the right to remain silent,” it continues.read more
In the Northern Sacramento Valley, immigration attorneys are hard to find
by Natalie Hanson | Posted April 9, 2025
photo by Karen Laslo
Sergio Garcia
Immigrant advocacy organizations are racing to block the Trump Administration’s attempts to enforce the campaign promise of “mass deportations” that could potentially affect millions of people.
But in the North State, many people live far away from immigration attorneys who could help them with their existing cases or new threats from ICE, said Chico attorney Sergio Garcia, who practices personal injury law, and in 2014, became the nation’s first undocumented person to obtain a law license. Garcia is now an American citizen.
Garcia regularly directs immigrants needing legal help to attorneys practicing in Sacramento.
In recent weeks, the federal government has revoked green cards and student visas — sometimes because of political views — and is pressuring the IRS to provide tax information that will help detain and deport people.
Legal experts joined an American Community Media panel March 28 to explain how the administration, through these actions, has circumvented due process – particularly by deporting hundreds of people to detention centers in Panama or El Savador.
Zenobia Lai, executive director of Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said there are two approaches within the administration’s strategy. The administration has first focused on “let no one in” — making the border crossing process more difficult, for one — and then moving to “kick everyone out,” she said.
“The process begins with (accusing people) of an unlawful presence, denying birthright citizenship and then shutting the door behind people … by creating a situation where young people are also denied a future after removal of the older generations,” Lai said.
Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization focused on immigration and criminal justice reform using the FWD.us Education Fund, said Trump will not stop expanding the definition of who he determines cannot live in America.
Schulte said the president will seek to remove people who secured legal entry from under many violent regimes, such as Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country and people fleeing Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. That will exacerbate pressure at the border and in the overwhelmed court system, he said.
“We heard so much during the campaign — to go back nine and a half years — about Mexicans and Muslims. We’ve seen an effort to expand this effort of criminalizing folks,” Schulte said.
David Leopold, former president and general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, emphasized how Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is the first such example since the federal government employed it during World War II to incarcerate Japanese Americans in internment camps. He said the goal is to remove Venezuelans from America, establishing a dangerous “policy by rhetoric” practice to bypass the country’s well-established courtroom processes and rules protecting due process for immigrants.
“This is about due process, and taking all of these complicated laws together is an abridgement and an encroachment,” Leopold said.
He added: “A majority of people held in ICE jails and prisons are in privately operated facilities — many of these are in the South, and Louisiana has many of them.”
Garcia, the Chico attorney, emphasized how crucial Trump’s rhetoric has been to not only make people fearful, but embolden people who are prejudiced against migrants.
“The reality is that the rhetoric is frankly what’s most harmful because it emboldens others to no longer hide their racism,” Garcia said. “The fact remains (while) Trump has deported less people than Biden and Obama, what’s truly harmful are his terror tactics that affect the most vulnerable.
“In the end, his economic policies will sink us all,” Garcia added, “but I guess the philosophy of some is, ‘That’s ok as long as he gets rid of immigrants first.’”
Garcia was approved for his green card soon after coming to the United States, but then waited in the so-called “line” for the actual card for more than 20 years.
There are a few resources available for people living in rural Northern California. Chico State’s DREAM Center offers support for undocumented students and those from mixed-status immigrant families, including consultations with its immigration legal services provider, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA).
NorCal Resist – an immigrant advocacy organization – posts regularly about potential ICE raids in the Sacramento Valley.
“Please remember many people are terrified right now,” NorCal Resist said in an April 6 Facebook post. “Sharing unverified rumors causes harm and distress to people who we all care about. We will immediately post information once verified. If you are a student who has had a visa revocation you are also welcome to reach out to us for assistance connecting with legal and other resources.”
Natalie Hanson is a contributing editor at ChicoSol.
Former Chico State professor John Nishio has ample reason to organize a pilgrimage honoring Japanese American prisoners of war.
His father and grandparents were among those held captive during World War II, and as a biologist, he believes he’s found a link between his field of science and his family history.
Epigenetic markers are the environmental factors that impact gene expressions, he said. Some of these markers, or chemicals, he explained, can attach to the DNA and be transferred to successive generations.
Some of them, he said, “are related to stress, so the stress that my father experienced during the war could have been passed on to me.”
In 1942, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated 120,000 people of Japanese descent in 10 prison camps. Nishio’s father and paternal grandparents were all placed in the Jerome camp in Arkansas.
As co-founder of the Jerome Rohwer Committee, a non profit that is organizing its first pilgrimage in honor of the thousands of non-convicted prisoners who were placed in prison camps, Nishio believes in the importance of remembering history — especially in an era of growing challenges to immigrant rights.
“If we teach people what happened, there’s an inkling of a possibility that they may understand it enough that they won’t repeat it,” he said.
The Jerome Rohwer Committee has focused on the pilgrimage so far, but Nishio has a more ambitious vision.
“Because Jerome and Rohwer are the most eastward camps, if we could establish some educational centers in Arkansas, that would be the most eastward interpretive center for the U.S. concentration camps,” Nishio said. “People in the East would come to Arkansas to learn about that history.”
The Jerome camp was officially called the “Jerome War Relocation Center” and was located in southeastern Arkansas near the town of Jerome. The Rohwer camp was named the “Rohwer Relocation Center” and was 27 miles from Jerome.
The words “relocation” and “internment” to describe what happened are inaccurate, and now widely considered to be misleading euphemisms. Nishio, other Japanese Americans and scholars say the more accurate term is “concentration camps,” which is what Jerome and Rohwer are called by Densho, a nonprofit that documents this history.
“It’s ‘concentration camp,’ not ‘internment camp,’ not ‘relocation center,'” Nishio told ChicoSol. “[Internment] is what the government used to soften the crime they committed.”
Between 1942 and 1945, Jerome held 8,497 people at its peak; more than 8,000 were imprisoned at Rohwer in McGehee, Ark.
For those incarcerated, who lost properties, lands, and freedom, their experience in the camps became a lifelong trauma and a subject often shrouded in silence.
“If we teach people what happened, there’s an inkling of a possibility that they may understand it enough that they won’t repeat it” — John Nishio
Nishio, who was born in 1951, first heard of the concentration camp when his older brother wrote an essay on it for a high school assignment in 1965.
“I was in 8th grade then and I didn’t really understand what was going on,” Nishio said. “My parents never talked about it.”
In the 1970s, Nishio got exposed to this history at UC Santa Cruz. He started reading more about the concentration camps on his own.
“The civil liberties of the Japanese and Japanese Americans were completely taken from them,” Nishio said. “They gave up their property, they gave up their lives, they gave up everything forcibly. I shouldn’t even say they gave it up. It was stripped from them.”
Nishio, with his long white hair, white beard, and deep, expressive eyes, is usually a soft-spoken man, but when he talks about the camps, he becomes intensely serious.
“When you learn what the United States government did, if you’re not angry, then you’re not a human being,” he said.
He also started to understand his parents’ behavior more after learning that history. Nishio grew up in the Fresno area, and as a Japanese descendant, he never learned to speak Japanese or wear traditional Japanese clothing. That was an intentional choice by his parents, he said.
One of the few traditional elements in his childhood life was Japanese food, because food could be enjoyed only at home and not be seen by people outside the family.
“They didn’t want me to have an accent,” Nishio said. “They wanted us to fit in. I understand that my parents had pressure on them to help us succeed, to protect us. They were going to do everything to not have [incarceration] happen to their children.”
Diane Suzuki-Brobeck, a Japanese American who lives in Chico, had a similar experience in that she learned about the history as an adult. She said that both sides of her family were incarcerated in the camps. Her father was in Gila River in Arizona, and her mother was in Rohwer.
Growing up, she always thought the “camp” occasionally mentioned in her parents’ conversations was some summer camp. She talked with her parents about the camp for the first time in her 20s.
Her “patriotic and enduring” father always thought of the camp as the government’s protection for the Japanese community against racism and danger. She, however, is more inclined to believe what she once heard at a workshop: “If it was for our protection, why were their guns faced inwards rather than outwards?”
In 2001, when more and more third-generation Japanese Americans started recording the history, Nishio interviewed his father about his experience in the camp and taped the conversation. Nishio’s father, George Nishio, told a story that impressed his son.
When the Army came to the Jerome camp to recruit men to fight in the war, the older Nishio gave a speech, expressing his objection to the recruitment and to segregation in the military. “The fact that we’re here in prison is a violation of all the democratic principles that we learned and believed in, and then you have the nerve to ask us to join…,” the older Nishio said to his son, recalling his words from that moment.
When he finished, the camp residents applauded.
“He said that when he was done, the captain didn’t say anything, just packed up and left. So that’s why I think my dad kind of felt good about what he had done,” Nishio said.
This story inspired Nishio. Looking back, he wishes he had done more to learn about his dad’s experience during the war. He didn’t realize how many questions he still wanted to ask until after his father passed away.
Nishio moved to Chico in 2002 from Wyoming to teach at Chico State.
In recent years, Nishio said he has spent more time riding his bicycle, watching movies and reading a lot of news on his phone.
“I am always involved in the environment and politics on my Facebook page. I’m always writing stuff like that because I am very concerned about our culture,” he said.
In 2024, he formed the Jerome Rohwer Committee to raise funds for the pilgrimage that will begin on May 21. The committee has a fund at North Valley Community Foundation.
Suzuki-Brobeck is considering joining the pilgrimage to visit the site of her mother’s incarceration.
Both Nishio and Suzuki-Brobeck told ChicoSol that when 9/11 occurred and Muslims came under attack, the first people who came to their aid were the Japanese Americans, who had also suffered discrimination and unfair treatment.
“There’s no doubt that the Japanese Americans understood what was going on,” Nishio said. “We still support the Muslims. Now we’re supporting the Palestinians. [It’s the] same thing — people are turning others into enemies when they’re not.”
Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol.
An addition was made to this story on March 3 to explain the terminology used to describe camps where thousands of Japanese American families were held.
We’re on the lookout for interesting people — particularly people who have flown under the radar — doing positive work in the community for our Changemaker series. If you have an idea, send it to chicosolnews@gmail.com
ICE representatives participate in CSUC student recruitment
by ChicoSol staff | Posted February 26, 2025
“Fuera ICE” (Out with ICE) reads a protester’s sign at the BMU today.
About 40 protesters gathered in front of the Bell Memorial Union (BMU) today to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a Chico State job fair.
Two recruiters from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a law enforcement agency within ICE, were recruiting at the fair. “No justice, no peace, until ICE leaves,” protesters chanted in the plaza outside the BMU as other students waited in line to check in so that they could attend the fair.
The single-door check-in process was a new step implemented for today’s fair, said Andrew Staples, university public relations manager.
A Chico State counselor participated in today’s protest, stating that ICE’s presence “causes fear and mental health anguish. It’s an impact on students.” He declined to identify himself because of what he said are his concerns about retaliation from the administration.
“I think it’s important for students and for faculty and staff to stand up and say something,” the counselor said. “I’ve met students who had concerns and issues and regards about the new immigration policies, and also having ICE on campus or people who represent Homeland Security. They have talked to me multiple times.”
PR Manager Staples told ChicoSol that he recognized that “it’s unsettling times, and it hasn’t been the most comfortable last couple of months on campus for sure.” But he also noted that “we are legally obligated to have organizations like HSI there.”
“We did not invite them, but we make these career fairs available to all kinds of organizations, and they evaluate and they sign up,” Staples said. “Once they sign up, as a federally-funded institution it’s our legal responsibility to not discriminate, to allow everyone who signs up to come.”
Staples thinks of the “peaceful protest” as a good example of “our campus community, making their voices heard, advocating for what they believe in.”
Staples said the safety measures for this career fair were “different” from measures implemented previously. “We knew that there was a strong possibility of free speech activity, and it’s a little bit more regulated on getting in and getting out.”
Two or three police officers stood next to the only entrance and exit. People needed to show student identification and check in their bags before attending, several fair attendees told ChicoSol.
A flier circulating earlier this week on social media announced a sit-in inside the BMU, and said, “Sitters will meet inside around the ICE recruitment table and sit down on all sides of it to prevent anyone from approaching.” That kind of disruption did not occur today.
Mac, a former Chico State student who preferred to remain unidentified, said she helped spread the word about the protest. “People who are currently allowed inside have to sign in, check in their bags. I doubt that if anybody from this (protest) area walked up, they would let us in,” she said.
Staples said that a sit-in, or chanting inside the BMU, would violate the university’s free speech policy, but all CSUC students were allowed to participate in the fair as long as it wasn’t a “disruption.”
ChicoSol was not allowed entrance to the fair or given an opportunity to seek comment from ICE recruiters.
Ty Torres, a construction management student at Chico State, attended the career fair inside the BMU. He said the protest was “kind of like an overreaction.”
“They (the recruiters) weren’t just talking about ICE, they were talking about other opportunities in their field. They were not actually deporting people right now,” Torres said.
Torres and his friend Payton Wheeler talked to the recruiters at the HSI booth. “They were hiring for a broad amount of positions, like sort of analytical stuff, more like information processing. They’re (also) having some sort of internship process,” Wheeler said.
A march against HSI’s presence took place on campus on Feb. 24.
Anna Krause, an organizer of the protest held earlier this week, said she hoped students attending the fair understand the role of ICE.
“[We want] to make sure that people know that this organization they might be interested in working for has a very real and a very scary impact on their own classmates and members of their own community as well,” Krause said.
Homeland Security Investigations has job and volunteer openings
by ChicoSol staff | Posted February 24, 2025
Students protested at Chico State today.
A group of protesters circled the Chico State campus today, then gathered on the lawn near the Bell Memorial Union to protest the participation of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) at a job fair that will be held Feb. 26.
“No ICE on campus!” chanted marching protesters. “We do not need people who are choosing to dehumanize our fellow humans, our friends and our family and the members of our community on our campus, threatening their safety,” said an organizer, Anna Krause.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), San Francisco/NorCal, a law enforcement component within ICE, has registered to attend Chico State’s Business Career Fair. The flier for the fair indicates the agency has openings for special agents as well as student volunteers.
Krause, a biology graduate student, said the protest was organized spontaneously by a group of people “who saw the announcement about ICE being at the career fair and then just decided to protest.”
One protest sign read, “Mass deportation is not a career.”
Andrew Staples, public relations manager at Chico State, didn’t respond to ChicoSol’s request for comment before publication.
An email sent to the campus community from Isaac Brundage, vice president for student affairs, acknowledges that the presence of ICE on campus may be “alarming to some in our community.”
“We want to assure you that the HSI representatives attending are solely recruiters there to discuss career opportunities with students,” the email states, adding that the recruiters won’t be acting in any “enforcement capacity.”
The Feb. 21 email also says that the Career Center and Dream Center are collaborating to provide a “Know your Rights” workshop via Zoom at 3 p.m. Feb. 25.
ImmSchools: Public schools can create a safe environment
by Julian Mendoza | Posted February 12, 2025
photo by Julian Mendoza
Kassandra Ramondo (left) and Lizette Pilar
Hundreds of people gathered on Chico State’s campus Feb. 5 for a peaceful march in what was one of several recent local protests advocating for immigrant rights.
“I think it’s super important that people understand and know that immigrants do make the backbone of our country,” said Lizette Pilar, program coordinator at Chico State’s Gender & Sexuality Equity Coalition. “Especially in agriculture, a lot of our pickers are illegal immigrants or undocumented.”
Efforts are underway across the state — including passage of new laws, street protests and information sessions — to push back against the Trump Administration’s most extreme immigration measures. Downtown Los Angeles has had multiple protests including one that blocked U.S. 101 for hours. Ethnic Media Services (EMS), a a nonprofit news and communications agency, held a know-your-rights training Feb. 7 for media organizations.
One of the speakers was Amanda Alvarado-Ford, deputy directing attorney for the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area. She represents low-income immigrants who are mostly from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, and provided a series of suggestions that can help prepare communities.
“As undocumented people here in the U.S. we still are entitled to Constitutional protections,” said Alvarado-Ford. “Especially the protection to remain silent, and the protection and the right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures.”
Viridiana Carrizales, founder of ImmSchools, discussed how parents and educators can work together to mitigate fears, as well as create safe havens for schools. “I started this organization because no kid should ever be afraid of our schools,” Carrizales said.
Chico State students lead protest
Chico’s Feb. 5 protesters encountered a mostly positive reception as they walked around campus and parts of downtown. Bystanders and drivers showed their support by cheering and encouraging the crowd. Some drivers honked their horns in support of the pro-immigrant message.
“Since we are an organization that advocates for women and (the) LGBTQA community, we felt the need to stand up,” said Pilar, referring to the immigrant community.
“Say it Loud. Say it clear. Immigrants are welcome here,” protesters chanted as they made their way through campus and downtown Chico.
Their signs championed the importance of immigrants in American society and criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Popular Hispanic and Mexican music as well as dance performances were an integral part of the march.
“We depend on immigrants in this country,” said Dr. Gloria Lopez, an assistant professor in the Chico State History Department. “Immigrants are ultimately human beings.”
Protecting Constitutional rights
More than 200,000 people have been arrested in the past 30 days, according to data from ICE and reported by EMS. At least 8,000 people have been deported, and ICE has been instructed to arrest at least 1,200-1,500 people per day.
Some of Alvarado-Ford’s tips include:
Have access to documents that verify that you have lived in the U.S. in a safe, secure place where you or your loved ones can access them.
Undocumented citizens who have submitted an application for asylum, U Visa, T Visa or VAWA should have a copy of their receipt.
You have the right to remain silent; don’t say anything or lie to an ICE official. Assert that right in a respectful way to avoid undue harshness from an ICE agent.
If you encounter ICE at your door, you have the right to insist upon a judicial warrant.