Border-crossing journalism from the Sacramento Valley
by Lindajoy Fenley
Joel Verdejo Flores worked without authorization for nearly five years in California before obtaining a green card that made him a permanent resident in 1995.
He was 20 years old, Bill Clinton was president and moving beyond residency to citizenship didn’t seem like a pressing matter. But that changed in 2016 with the election of President Donald Trump.
by Leslie Layton
It took Sergio C. Garcia longer to become a U.S. citizen than it took for his native country, Mexico, to win independence from Spain.
It took longer than it took for him to win the right to practice law, becoming the nation’s first, so-called undocumented attorney.
Garcia will be sworn in as a U.S. citizen in a ceremony today in Sacramento – the end of a journey that began in 1994 when he was brought to the country as a teen who knew even then that if he was going to live in the United States, he wanted to belong as a participating citizen.
by Leslie Layton
Almost 50 people showed up for a protest Thursday in Paradise to oppose the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of the people passing by on the Skyway honked in support of the protesters.
“I never thought I would be a person outside with a sign,” said one of the organizers, John Tackitt (pictured above behind the banner.) “But even if it’s just doing a little something, it’s something.”
by Gabriel Sandoval
Aldo is worried, indeed afraid, that President Donald Trump may soon end or phase out a federal deportation-relief program, making it harder for him to live, work and study in the United States.
“My plan of getting my master’s, my plan of getting my doctorate, now looks very unrealistic,” said Aldo, a senior anthropology major at Chico State who requested that ChicoSol omit his last name.
by Leslie Layton and Kate Sheehy
Sandra Jimenez never expected that she’d have to visit her husband in 30-minute spells at an Elk Grove jailhouse. Or that only a few days after their one-year wedding anniversary, he would be fighting deportation and she would be wondering whether she’d have to leave her country — the United States — to be with him.
by Dave Waddell
Federal immigration officials recently briefed the sheriffs of three counties – Shasta, Tehama and Glenn – on north state raids that are expected to last about a week, Glenn County Sheriff Rich Warren said today.
Warren said raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were supposed to start three days ago and were expected to continue for several more days. He said he has not been informed about any arrests in Glenn County, nor was he aware of any bookings of immigrants at the county jail.
