Bills to be introduced to Legislature that would place limitations on ICE
by Lindajoy Fenley | Posted June 29, 2025
Antonio Villaraigosa. photo by Angela George, courtesy of Wikimedia.
The state attorney general, a former Los Angeles mayor, and an immigration lawyer, at a June 27 panel, vowed to continue the challenge to the Trump Administration’s unlawful assault on California immigrants.
“You can’t physically stop [the Administration]. That’s not possible. But we need to challenge them in every possible way,” Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor, told dozens of journalists attending an American Community Media panel. Villaraigosa said that “every way possible” means suing the federal government as well as engaging the public to push back through peaceful protest.read more
Federal workers brace for downsizing; infrastructure cutbacks will affect District 1
by ChicoSol staff | Posted March 25, 2025
photo by Karen Laslo
Lyndall Ellingson
More than 200 people attended a weekly protest near 1st District Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s Chico office on March 21, demanding in-person town halls that haven’t taken place since 2017 and urging the Republican congressman to defend federal programs threatened with huge funding cutbacks.
The turnout was more than twice that of the protest a week earlier. Some passing cars honked in response to show support. There were few young people participating in what has been dubbed in some social media posts as the #FindLaMalfa protest, and has been organized by a coalition of activists from several groups.
(LaMalfa has since announced a “telephone town hall” to be held at 6 p.m. March 26. His office has told reporters that a phone conversation with the congressman will be open to registered voters with valid phone numbers in Butte, Glenn, Yuba, Sutter and Colusa counties, but there will be no call-in.)
Lyndall Ellingson, 66, a retired public health professor at Chico State, joined the protest to “demand that our elected representative Doug LaMalfa have a town hall [and] listen to his constituents about defending Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.”
The Social Security Administration has said it will close some regional offices, cut positions and eliminate a system that allowed beneficiaries and applicants the chance to prove their identity by phone. As of March 31, it will be necessary to apply online or report to a local office.
In a March 23 interview with Chico’s Enterprise-Record, the congressman addressed reports there will be cuts to services and/or benefits. “It’s all nonsense,” he told the ER.
“…there is no Medicaid cuts. There is no Social Security cuts. There is no cuts to the VA system; the employee stuff, we’ve still got more work to do with that.”
But Ellingson said that although the funding for Social Security benefits has not yet been touched, the infrastructure that makes it possible for many recipients to apply and receive guidance is being undermined.
“They’ve shut down phone service, so people can no longer talk to a phone representative at Social Security about their benefits,” Ellingson said. “So that means if you can’t get through online — it could be your system, it could be your weak WiFi, it could be that you’re an elder and you’re not very digitally skilled — you have to actually go into an office — but they’re closing down the offices.”
Possible cuts to Medicaid worrisome
Ellingson also mentioned the controversial budget resolution recently passed by the House with LaMalfa’s vote in favor. It includes a proposed $880-billion cut in spending over the next 10 years.
Such a deep cut to spending by the committee that oversees Medicaid, analysts say, would impact that program, which provides health insurance to disabled and low-income people. In California, that program is known as Medi-Cal and covers more than one-third of the state’s population.
In a statement on his website, LaMalfa says: “This budget resolution is a critical step toward restoring fiscal responsibility and reining in Washington’s out-of-control spending.”
“The magnitude of the cuts is just extraordinary, and nothing in American history has been remotely this size,” said Stan Dorn, director of the Health Policy Project at UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, at a briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services. “The closest previous cut … in 1981 … resulted in a 13% drop in Medicaid enrollment, and that would translate into a 9 million person loss today.”
Dorn said people of all races and ethnicities will be at risk, but “communities of color are especially vulnerable.” Over 20 million Latinos and 13 million African Americans have Medicaid as their source of health insurance today, he said.
“That includes almost 60% of all Black children, and more than one-third of all African American adults aged 65 and older. So these are folks who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care. And if Medicaid gets cut, where will they be?”
Ellingson, the public health professor, said low-income groups in general are more vulnerable and susceptible to these kinds of federal funding cuts. The 1st congressional district has a poverty rate of slightly more than 15 percent.
Chico VA workers on edge
Reports that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans major staff cutbacks — AP reports that an internal memo discusses plans to cut some 80,000 positions — have staff on edge in Chico.
“Everybody’s on pins and needles — even our leadership,” a local VA staffer, who asked not to be identified, told ChicoSol in a telephone interview. The staffer said she is less than two years from retirement and didn’t want to jeopardize her position by being identified in a news story. “We’re all pretty stressed out, and we all work beyond 40 hours a week.”
Some VA staffers working remotely have been ordered to return working at their workplaces by May 5, she said, but the Chico locale is already short on office space. They’ve been asked to send weekly emails explaining what they’ve accomplished. Some are “wondering if it’s worth working for the federal government,” she said.
“I believe we do really good work,” she said, “and people who don’t wash out, they don’t last. All of us are worried about our veterans, and we deal with many high-risk veterans.”
At Friday’s protest, Chico’s Margret Valdes, 56, focused on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“I’m deeply upset and saddened and angry about the sweeping attack against our federal agencies in terms of all of the layoffs and firings and quote unquote reduction,” Valdes said.
“If we’re saving money, if we’re supposedly taking bloat out of the government, then we should be able to see an itemized tally list as to where these monies are going to be going and what services that they would be providing for the citizens.”
Valdes said her 88-year-old mother is not capable of getting on the internet to “figure out Social Security.” Instead, she wants to make a phone call to someone or visit the office to ask relevant questions. “When they start shutting down the infrastructure that would allow these services to flow effectively, then it’s effectively cutting Social Security,” Valdes said.
Valdes hopes LaMalfa can address issues “that are going to make an everyday impact on people’s lives.”
“That is why we would need a town hall so that we could voice our concerns,” Valdes said. “As we’ve seen in town halls across the country, when representatives have to face listening to what people really have to say, it’s pretty undeniable that what they’re trying to purport is the truth, or not.”
ChicoSol reached out to LaMalfa’s office for comment on whether an in-person town hall is in the works, and for a response to protesters, but the congressman couldn’t be reached by deadline.
Protest organizers say they’ll continue to congregate between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. every Friday near LaMalfa’s Chico office at 20 Independence Circle.
Some students and faculty worry; university officials say nothing has changed
by Yucheng Tang | Posted September 26, 2024
photo by Yucheng Tang
Professor Lindsay Briggs makes a suggestion at the Sept. 25 campus forum.
This story was updated Sept. 28 as more detail on the policy emerged.
On a list of 174 locations on the Chico State campus, only three are listed as “Public” that are available for sound-amplified assembly, marches, protests, and debate between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays by reservation, based on the newly-introduced, California State University (CSU) Interim Time Place Manner policy.
However, university spokesman Andrew Staples said Sept. 27 that outside spaces at Chico State, including Trinity Commons, can be used for “demonstrations, protest etc.” during campus operating hours that are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily if the area hasn’t already been reserved. A document sent to ChicoSol Sept. 28 called “Addendum Specifics” says those areas can be used for “non-amplified speech and expression.”
The policy was discussed during the Sept. 25 forum held by Chico State’s Office of Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion. Around 60 people attended the forum in Colusa Hall. The policy was established for all CSU campuses to regulate the use of university property.
Joseph Morales, university diversity officer, explained that the CSU Chancellor’s office developed the framework, and each university was asked to prepare a campus-specific addendum detailing how the policy would be implemented.
Based on the addendum posted by Chico State, university property is divided into “Public,” “Limited,” and “Non-Public.” Only “Public” locations are available for sound-amplified free speech activities, and the addendum’s page 2 restricts usage in Limited areas.
“You would agree the sidewalk outside the BMU (Bell Memorial Union) is a public area, right?” asked a student attending the forum. “But it is listed under your list of properties as a limited area. Can you help us understand how that’s fostering discourse and freedom of speech?”
The new policy also listed prohibited activities on university property, including camping, overnight demonstrations and overnight loitering.
Morales stressed that administrators will stick to the principle of “viewpoint and content neutrality,” which means they can only regulate where, when and how to hold the activities, but cannot interfere with the topic and viewpoints of the activities themselves.
Several audience members associated the new policy with a perceived crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests. One student said: “We all know that this policy is only now being put into effect to deny students’ ability to protest the CSU – after [spring] protests against Israel’s active genocide of Palestinian people. By this policy, protest is only permitted when and if the CSU deems it appropriate.”
Morales responded to the student: “My understanding is that many of the things that are understood to be new were already in existence. They just hadn’t been stated explicitly, like you can’t bring explosives to campus. Nothing happened in the last two months. ”
According to the CSU website, “While the requirements in the policy are not new and are already in place in many respects at each university and at the Chancellor’s Office, they are newly merged into a systemwide policy.”
“No building or campus space has been shifted into a new category because of the new policy” — Andrew Staples
Chico State’s Staples responded to a question from ChicoSol by email. “Overnight camping was not previously allowed under campus policy,” Staples noted. “Public, limited, and non-public is how space on campus is categorized. No building or campus space has been shifted into a new category because of the new policy.”
Some students and faculty members asked questions about what could be negative implications of the new policy on freedom of speech.
“For things that have been more politically contentious, I think I’m really afraid that it will just leave the possibility in the future open for those kinds of things to be quashed in silence,” said Adin White, an anthropology student at Chico State.
“It’s not really the details of the policy but the spirit of the policy, especially when it was enforced without much interaction with stakeholders like students and faculty, that really concerns me,” White said.
White told ChicoSol that he was worried the forum was just an opportunity for people to let off steam.
Michelle Rose, a political science professor at Chico State, also expressed concern.
“I’m concerned, given the context of the protests around the country, that the more explicit directions are also meant to facilitate the easier arrest of folks who are choosing to exercise their right to free speech.”
Aaron Schwartz, executive vice president of Associated Students, told ChicoSol after the forum: “From my understanding in the meeting, you were never able to protest in those non-public and limited areas, but now they are put in the written policy so the school can enforce it.”
“The misunderstanding that I have and what I am trying to figure out is how they are deciding what buildings are public or private. 25 Main Street is a non-public building on the list; it’s the Chico State Enterprises. How are you arguing it isn’t a building designed for public use while its mission statement is to go out into the community and engage?”
Revisions, he said, are “only gonna happen if students continue to remain vigilant and stay on top of this.”
Seema Sehrawat, the chief of staff to the university president, spoke during the forum: “I see that it says there are only three public areas. And I see that you are all saying that it’s restrictive. It’s our responsibility to go back, take this feedback and work on that. I heard that loud and clear.”
Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol.
This story was clarified to note that protests and demonstrations involving sound-amplification are the activities limited to public areas. The spelling of Adin White’s name was also corrected.
In May 1967, Black Panther members protesting police brutality and a new law marched on the State Capitol.
From The Sacramento Bee’s front page in 1967: “Two dozen armed Negroes entered the state Capitol at noon today and made their way to the back of the Assembly Chamber before they were disarmed and marched away by the state police.”
This happened in the midst of the ‘power to the people’ campaign organized to shine a light on police brutality in the Black community. After more than 50 years, has anything changed?
In Los Angeles, 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by cops as the whole country watched; somehow he survived.
Unfortunately, there have been thousands more killed unnecessarily at the hands of our police just over the last decade. Police departments across the country are all too often participating in behavior that shocks the conscience… and we all watch.
Over this last decade, there has been an ever-escalating trend in the militarization of our police departments, and along with this militarization has come an attitude of ‘us versus them’ as the default police mindset. Cops see themselves as warriors, not guardians. Is it any wonder we go from one killing to the next? These attitudes of us-versus-them and warrior-versus-guardian will never lead to peaceful community policing.
Based on the Washington Post Fatal Force database, in 2019, across the United States, 1,004 people were shot and killed by police. In this same year more than 228 police officers committed suicide. That’s over 1,200 lives lost unnecessarily.
What’s wrong with this picture? Clearly, not only are our police killing us; the stress of the job is too often too much to handle and our cops are killing themselves in increasing numbers. Wouldn’t it be better to have mentally healthy cops on the beat?
Anyone who has played a video game of shoot’em up can become complacent when it comes to gun violence. But what really shocks the conscience, in real life, is watching the police shooter or police leader in violence do their fatal deeds in full view of their fellow officers.
Last month, in Minnesota, George Floyd was murdered, on camera. Anyone who has watched one of the countless cop shows on television that show explicit violence until we’re numb is not surprised by what they saw in the film of Floyd’s murder. It’s easy to think, “oh, poor fellow, get off him and get him up.” But the more you watch the more you can’t help but think, ‘Why doesn’t someone stop this?’
Oh wait, not just someone. Why not one of the other three cops standing there watching? Three human beings, three cops, with all sorts of training on how to handle confrontations of all kinds — and not one of them did anything to stop their fellow officer from killing yet another helpless human being.
These days, 99% of the time, cops are not on patrol alone. They are usually part of a pair, and almost immediately after an officer-needs-assistance call, they will be joined by a half dozen or more additional officers at the scene.
We can have all the discussions we want, we can even riot to express our outrage, but until cops on the beat police each other, until the blue code of silence is broken, these police killings will not end.
Today, our society seems hell bent on heroism. We have a media fascination and propagation of calling out to identify a hero every other minute. A doctor, a nurse, a firefighter, and very often a police officer is at the head of the hero queue. The real hero cops? They are the ones who step in front of their fellow officers and tell them, “Stop, stop it right now.”
Or how about that cop (alone) in Georgia who traveled out to a disturbing the peace call in a residential neighborhood? Upon arrival he found several Black teenagers playing basketball in the street and, yes, some loud music was playing. Did he call for backup? No. Was he aggressive in talking to the teenagers? No. Did he chat with them politely and quietly? Yes. Did he ask for the basketball and join the game? Yes.
That’s what community policing is all about.
I don’t think that George Floyd got this sort of treatment. So where were these “nice” cops while George Floyd was being murdered?
When cops are in training in their respective police academies, when they graduate, do they think, “Ahh, finally, I get to bust some heads”? No, I don’t think so. I think every single young cop out there starts out with an honest desire to “protect and serve.”
In my hometown of Chico, Calif., in October 2018, half a dozen police officers surrounded an 8-year-old boy, handcuffed him and despite pleas from passersby, refused to take off his handcuffs as he sat on the sidewalk, his hands cuffed behind him, the child crying uncontrollably.
Then, in July 2019, half a dozen police officers surrounded and tackled to the ground and handcuffed an 11-year-old girl during a so-called welfare check. Fortunately, these incidents did not result in the same sort of horrific outcomes the likes of which we saw in the Chico police killings of Tyler Rushing and Desmond Phillips.
De-escalation training, crisis intervention training and the application of these techniques in the field, and, civilian oversight of the police are imperative. But during all of the events just described, regardless of training, not one cop stood between these victims and their fellow cops’ abuse of power.
We can demonstrate all we want, and yes we might even riot to vent our anger, but nothing will change until real hero cops break the blue code of silence and step between we the public and their fellow officers’ abuse of power. This is the only solution to ending police violence. This is the moral imperative police officers must take to heart and must act upon.
George Gold is a computer systems engineer, a webmaster and a world traveler who is active in local police reform efforts.
