This CA school district is standing up to Trump’s immigration crackdown

As President Donald Trump’s administration continues its crackdown on immigration, one California school district stands out to ensure all its students — regardless of legal status — can feel safe and access vital resources, reports CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones.

Serving more than 500,000 students, Los Angeles Unified School District is the country’s second largest school district. Within days of Trump’s reelection in November, its school board passed a resolution vowing to protect students from immigration enforcement on campuses.

The district also has a hotline for families seeking assistance related to immigration; provides free legal help through partnerships with local nonprofits; and has a virtual academy for students who are housebound due to fears of deportation.

Amid drops in enrollment and attendance from increased immigration raids, the district organizes volunteers to help escort children to and from school for parents who are afraid to leave their homes. 

These efforts have been led by Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, a former immigrant without legal status. His outspoken defense for immigrant rights has captured the attention of some educators and advocates, who say it’s important that school leaders stand up for their students.

• Carvalho, at a recent panel on immigration: “It is my compelling moral responsibility, as well as professional responsibility, to protect all children. On the sidewalks of America, we don’t have some reserved for immigrants and others for everybody else. Everybody walks the same sidewalk of hope and opportunity.”

At the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last week two measures that aim to protect immigrant students: One prohibits school staff from sharing information about students to immigration authorities without a judicial warrant, and the other requires schools to notify families when immigration officials are on campus.

Read more here.

California is home to more than 300 data centers, and two bills regulating these power-guzzling facilities now await the governor’s decision, writes CalMatters’ Khari Johnson.

Both measures have been notably amended since their introduction: One would require data center operators to disclose how much water they estimate their centers will consume whenever they apply for or renew a business license or permit.

Data centers can use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day as part of their cooling systems, and many facilities are located in drier areas of the state. But one amendment made to the bill would require operators to share their water data with water suppliers — not government officials.

Another bill originally aimed to ensure that utility companies wouldn’t leave customers financially on the hook for the energy infrastructure they build to power data centers. Now, however, the measure only authorizes state regulators to assess whether data centers shift costs to ratepayers — a power the state’s public utility commission already has.

Read more here.

Millions of dollars in canceled federal grants have left California researchers and educators in the humanities scrambling for new funding — threatening various projects focused on local history, the immigrant experience, border studies and more.

As Lylah Schmedel-Permanna of CalMatters’ College Journalism Network explains, in April the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled over $10.2 million to projects in California. The agency notified campuses that it “is repurposing its funding allocations … in furtherance of the President’s agenda.”

CalMatters found that of all the 29 California campuses that had ongoing NEH-funded projects at that time, every campus but one had their funding cut. Canceled grants ranged from about $23,000 to more than $500,000, though the University of Southern California lost over $1.2 million in total canceled projects.

Cal State San Bernardino lost nearly $150,000 in three-year funding for its “Inland Empire Project,” which would provide a teaching framework that links local history with broader U.S. history. The project is led by historian and professor Michelle Lorimer, who said she was devastated after receiving notice about the grant termination.

Read more here.

After years of cracking down on California’s oil industry, Gov. Newsom approved legislation last week to boost oil production in Kern County. CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on this measure, which aims to address rising gasoline prices, as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

And check out another video from CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow and Robert about another bill on the governor’s desk that would make it easier for hunters and landowners to kill mute swans, an invasive species in California. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.