coronavirus Archives - ChicoSol News

COVID-19 stimulus package produces mixed results for those in dire need No relief yet for undocumented immigrants

by Sunita Sohrabji
EMS Contributor

SAN FRANCISCO — The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, signed into law last month, offers little relief to millions of vulnerable immigrants and low-wage workers, said panelists during a media briefing here.

The CARES Act was signed into law by President Donald Trump March 27. It was intended to help millions of workers who have lost their jobs as shelter-in-place orders are implemented around the nation to mitigate the community spread of the novel coronavirus. The relief package also provides small businesses with the Paycheck Protection Program, allowing them to keep employees on payroll for up to eight weeks. read more

Asylum processing suspended as travel restrictions increase Migrant management strategies are a tool, not a solution

photo by Leslie Layton

Migrants in crowded shelters on the Mexican side of the border who are pursuing asylum in the United States may be stuck there indefinitely.

by Lucy Hood
The United States has implemented travel restrictions on an unprecedented scale in recent weeks that immigration experts say are riddled with loopholes and devised in a way that puts vulnerable populations at risk.

This is especially true at the U.S.-Mexican border, they said, where tens of thousands of migrants living in shelters in northern Mexico now have a very slim, if any, chance of pursuing their asylum cases in U.S. immigration courts. read more

ChicoSol has confirmed the following deaths, all taking place on streets or in encampments in 2024:

River Chase Bernreuter, 25. His body was found Feb. 2 on Business Lane.

Kenneth James Corbitt, 44, whose body was found Feb. 5 on Fair Street.

Francisco Franco, 61, of Chico. His body was found Feb. 15 on Business Lane.

Julie Bergstrom, 41, of Oroville. Bergstrom was found dead Feb. 29 at the Alternate Site encampment approved by the City for unhoused individuals.

In a Jan. 17 email to ChicoSol, City Attorney John Lam said the City was not in violation of the Brown Act when it held a Jan. 6 emergency meeting.

Lam said the use of City property near The Hands sculpture in back of the Municipal Center by the nonprofit Safe Space the previous day had amounted to a “public take over.”

Safe Space, which operates an emergency winter sheltering program, ran intake in the space from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 5, an operation that it says proceeded smoothly. The group’s leadership said it believed that it was using public property as defined in the City code, and wasn’t required to get special permission.