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"slug": "as-america-turns-250-san-franciscos-role-in-defining-citizenship-endures",
"title": "As America Turns 250, San Francisco’s Role in Defining Citizenship Endures",
"publishDate": 1782317436,
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"headTitle": "As America Turns 250, San Francisco’s Role in Defining Citizenship Endures | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>It was a high-pressure moment when Cecillia Wang stepped into the U.S. Supreme Court in April to deliver oral arguments defending \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/birthright-citizenship\">birthright citizenship\u003c/a>. But, she said, she had the spirit of millions of Americans’ ancestors with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt a lot of the weight of all those hopes and aspirations, and really a belief in the promise of this country, that birthright citizenship is so much a part of the fabric of what it means to be an American,” Wang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the landmark case \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11423\">\u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>Wang — the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union — challenged \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078161/trump-executive-order-ending-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling-who-is-affected-can-citizen-be-revoked\">President Donald Trump’s executive order\u003c/a>, which seeks to deny U.S. citizenship to babies whose parents aren’t citizens or permanent legal residents. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its highly anticipated ruling by the end of the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Birthright citizenship is just one of the landmark legal victories won by 19th-century Chinese immigrants. Their court battles helped secure constitutional protections that remain at the center of today’s debates over citizenship, due process and democracy. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Asian American historians, legal scholars and civil rights advocates say those contributions remain largely absent from the national narrative, even as the rights they helped establish face renewed challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The semiquincentennial, they say, offers an opportunity to examine who helped build American democracy — and to recognize that immigrants were not only beneficiaries of constitutional rights, but among their architects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The right to automatic American citizenship was established in 1898 under the 14th Amendment when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">Wong Kim Ark\u003c/a>, a Chinese cook born in San Francisco, successfully defended his claim to U.S. citizenship after officials argued that his parents’ Chinese citizenship disqualified him from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088380\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088380\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1354\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836-1536x1040.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">American Civil Liberties Union attorney Cecillia Wang spoke outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 1, 2026. President Donald Trump attended in person as the court heard a landmark case weighing the constitutionality of his effort to end birthright citizenship. \u003ccite>(Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a constitutional lawyer, Wang has worked many cases at the Supreme Court, but she said this was the first one to hit very close to home: Wang is a recipient of birthright citizenship, and her personal history made her role at the nation’s highest court meaningful for many immigrants and second-generation Americans — especially Asian Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t tell you how many people have told me, both friends and loved ones, but also total strangers: ‘I listened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/trump-v-barbara-oral-argument/675665\">that argument;\u003c/a> it’s the first time I’ve ever listened to a Supreme Court argument. My parents, who are immigrants, listened to [it] and they’ve never listened to [one] before,’” Wang said. “‘And we’re all cheering you on.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wang said the effort to overturn a centuries-old constitutional right has helped spotlight critical and often overlooked Asian American history, particularly highlighting how the Chinese community’s 19th-century legal victories helped secure foundational protections for both Americans and noncitizens. Many constitutional protections are now under attack by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Birthright citizenship is only one example. Early Chinese immigrants filed more than 10,000 lawsuits to fight discrimination and raised money to hire prominent white lawyers to argue on their behalf. Some cases reached the Supreme Court, and the resulting decisions continue to undergird many modern civil rights cases, including disputes over \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">equal protection and due process\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to reframe the American story have been fueled by descendants of some of the country’s earliest immigrants. They’ve illuminated little-known chapters of the nation’s history by unearthing family archives and sharing personal stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088375\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong walks through Ross Alley in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 14, 2026. Wong, 76, is the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, who won birthright citizenship in 1898 in the Supreme Court. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Norman Wong, a Bay Area resident and the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, has been on a media blitz since January to share his family’s legacy and protect birthright citizenship. He’s appeared at public events, been invited to speak on panels and been interviewed by national and local news outlets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, he traveled to Washington, D.C., for birthright citizenship hearings and gave a speech outside of the Supreme Court. It’s work that Wong didn’t expect to do at this stage of his life, but it’s a role and responsibility that he accepts willingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider it a duty and a privilege to, in a sense, serve, because these times need people to volunteer and help,” Wong, 76, said. “I think especially for Chinese Americans who are afraid of [how] their history might implicate them … We need to get out from under that rock.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of his life, Wong had no idea he was a descendant of Wong Kim Ark. His father, Wong Yook Jim, rarely spoke about his past or their family lineage, let alone who Wong’s great-grandfather was. Wong only discovered the connection in his 50s — but he was no stranger to Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088377\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088377\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1091\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival-1536x838.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Wong Yook Jim, grandson of Wong Kim Ark, with his two sons, Gary (left) and Norman Wong (right), during the early 1950s in San Francisco.\u003cbr>Right: Wong Yook Jim during the mid-1950s.\u003cbr>Norman Wong didn’t know he was a descendant of Wong Kim Ark until he was in his 50s because his Chinese family never spoke about their family history. He says of his father, “He didn’t talk about his mother or his father or any of that … We didn’t even know he actually came from China … as far as I knew, he could have been born here.” \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Norman Wong.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a UC Berkeley student during the 1970s, Wong was a part of the multiracial \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies\">Third World Liberation Front movement\u003c/a> in the Bay Area, when widespread student strikes helped establish the country’s first ethnic studies programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was during that period that the Asian American identity was first conceived. Wong also protested the demolition of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reels/DAt5-VRqL3z/\">San Francisco’s International Hotel\u003c/a> — a landmark event widely regarded as the catalyst for the Asian American movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong said his activism as a young man helped prepare him for his current role as a public advocate for immigrants and other vulnerable groups in America. He’s not only fiery in his efforts to preserve his great-grandfather’s contributions, but also in his critiques of the Trump administration, especially as it prepares to host the nation’s 250th-anniversary celebrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s ironic that Trump is our president while we’re extolling the virtues of the United States, and he’s showing the worst side of America,” Wong said. “I think the main story is ‘who we should be as a people?’ instead of just celebrating that we’re Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, said having people like Wong speak out exemplifies how vital it is to connect history to the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088374\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong stands in front of a mural depicting his great-grandfather, Wong Kim Ark, on the corner of Sacramento and Grant streets in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Sunday, June 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s really significant to share our stories to change the narrative about Asian Americans, to change the narrative of America,” Jeung said. “I think digging up and reclaiming our history is critical to helping us face the challenges of what we’re dealing with now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeung is a co-founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11876972/inside-the-california-organization-tracking-anti-asian-hate-incidents\">Stop AAPI Hate\u003c/a>, a movement that started during the COVID era, which has helped reshape the way the country views racism against Asians. But Jeung said Asian American activism isn’t new; it’s always been a part of the Asian American experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Asians were really unruly when they came. They were engaged in massive disobedience against every law … They used every means available to their disposal to challenge racist laws,” Jeung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One example is the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case, \u003ca href=\"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/\">\u003cem>Yick Wo v. Hopkins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>,\u003c/em> in which \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">Chinese laundrymen sued San Francisco\u003c/a> because of an unfair laundry ordinance — one of many discriminatory laws designed to make life and earning a livelihood difficult for Chinese immigrants. With the help of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the laundrymen won and secured 14th Amendment protections, including equal rights and due process for noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088373\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People walk through the intersection at Pacific and Stockton streets in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jeung said that the current debates over constitutional protections and who qualifies for U.S. citizenship are especially relevant to Asian Americans because 19th-century Asians were, in his words, the “foundational aliens” — the group through which the boundaries of American citizenship were drawn and the limits of constitutional rights were tested. The restrictions imposed on Chinese immigrants helped define who could — and could not — be considered American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole idea of American citizenship and belonging was based on the opposite, the Asian as the paradigmatic alien,” Jeung said. “And so today, the treatment of immigrants is sort of based on how America treated Asians initially as aliens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That treatment includes being regarded as economic scapegoats, as threats to national security, ineligible for citizenship despite legal ties, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085159/immigration-courts-are-using-a-new-tactic-to-speed-up-deportations\">being denied due process rights\u003c/a> and subjected to hostile political rhetoric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Jeung said, early Chinese immigrants also created a model of how to seek justice. By organizing across their community and bringing their fights to the courts, they called out the hypocrisy of America and challenged the nation to live up to its espoused values.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“I am an American” in various languages is etched into a plaque honoring Wong Kim Ark in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were supposed to have inalienable rights to the pursuit of happiness … but aliens didn’t get those rights, and the same holds true today. Undocumented people don’t have the right to … due process, habeas corpus; they don’t have the right to be innocent until proven guilty,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the parallels between the past and present, Jeung believes the country’s upcoming celebrations should raise some critical questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a question for America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Are those rights inalienable, are they sacred to all? Or why do we only hold them for a certain privileged few?”[aside postID=news_12050233 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-YICK-WO-ARCHIVAL-06-KQED.jpg']Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, a legal and civil rights nonprofit in San Francisco, has worked for decades to ensure rights are upheld for some of the most vulnerable groups in the Asian American community. The organization was part of the nationwide class action in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>, and Kohli said this has been a “pivotal moment” for the Asian Law Caucus, as many constitutional protections beyond birthright citizenship are under threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ground has really shifted under most civil rights organizations,” Kohli said. “We have to be more strategic, more creative than ever … we need to build a coalition of supporters … we can’t just fight in court. We have to win on the streets as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kohli pointed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081927/supreme-court-ruling-on-voting-wont-change-california-districts-but-could-hurt-democrats\">recent weakening of the Voting Rights Act\u003c/a> by the Supreme Court — including decisions limiting the consideration of race in drawing congressional maps — as emblematic of the direction the country is heading towards as it approaches its 250th anniversary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The Trump administration] has revealed to us the vulnerabilities in our democracy,” Kohli said. “The checks and balances of power relied on people acting with integrity … one of the things that was not contemplated … is that an administration could act with such impunity and feel very justified in violating not just norms, but the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of vulnerabilities in the nation’s democratic institutions, Kohli and other advocates argue that preserving a multiracial democracy will require deeper solidarity across communities and a recognition of the connections between different groups’ struggles for rights and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Wang, that broader struggle for rights and belonging stretches beyond the Chinese American experience. That’s why she said there’s another important group of ancestors to acknowledge when discussing birthright citizenship and other constitutional ideals: Black freedom fighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088378\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088378\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An American flag, a San Francisco flag and the Chinese flag fly on Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 20, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[They] both achieved the end of slavery, and Reconstruction in the form of civil rights legislation in the 1960s … we need to connect those efforts,” Wang said, noting that the constitutional protections invoked by Chinese immigrants originated from Black Americans’ struggle against slavery. Without the \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/reconstruction-amendments/\">Reconstruction Amendments\u003c/a> and the legal framework earned by Black Americans, Chinese litigants wouldn’t have been able to test those guarantees in court and secure them for generations of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the political climate and the ongoing challenges to constitutional protections may easily overshadow the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary for some, Wang said she still plans to commemorate the milestone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to let the president take away my joy,” she said. “I remember the bicentennial; I was a little kid and remember the excitement of it … there are a lot of people who have a critique of American exceptionalism and those critiques are very valid. But for me personally, I feel so fortunate to be a U.S. citizen. I feel so fortunate to be American. And I think being a civil rights lawyer is a really profound expression of American patriotism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wang marvels at the fact that she, a Chinese American lawyer and daughter of immigrants, was able to argue the birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court at a time when Chinese people like Wong Kim Ark lived in an era when they were barred from testifying in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088379\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088379\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mural depicting Wong Kim Ark is seen through the Floating Sushi Boat restaurant on the corner of Sacramento and Grant in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 20, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That arc of history is not lost on Norman Wong. It may explain why he’s been so tireless in his efforts to share who his great-grandfather was and what he achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked what’s next for his family’s legacy after the Supreme Court issues its ruling, Wong said he hopes there will no longer be a need for such a public role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I’m not needed anymore, I’ll just fade away,” Wong said. “People shouldn’t worry about [birthright citizenship], and all of this will be a footnote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, though, Wong believes there are still countless family stories waiting to be told — if others are willing to share them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We shouldn’t be ashamed of our personal history. It’s time for us to say who we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help Us Document Chinese American History\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>KQED is launching a reporting series exploring how Chinese immigrants in 19th-century California helped shape the rights and freedoms many Americans enjoy today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we tell these stories, \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/appYRab8nOv1F5DoN/pagzLWLgeFJm7OqcO/form\">we want to hear from you\u003c/a>. Do you have family ties to San Francisco Chinatown or the Bay Area’s early Chinese American communities? Family photographs, letters, documents or stories passed down through generations? Do you know of local histories, legal battles or community contributions that deserve greater attention?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reporter Cecilia Lei is collecting stories, memories and historical materials that may inform or be featured in our reporting. Email her at clei@kqed.org and help us preserve and share this history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/appYRab8nOv1F5DoN/pagzLWLgeFJm7OqcO/form\">SHARE YOUR STORY\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Cases involving Chinese immigrants from San Francisco reached the U.S. Supreme Court and helped establish birthright citizenship, now under threat as America celebrates 250 years as a nation.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It was a high-pressure moment when Cecillia Wang stepped into the U.S. Supreme Court in April to deliver oral arguments defending \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/birthright-citizenship\">birthright citizenship\u003c/a>. But, she said, she had the spirit of millions of Americans’ ancestors with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt a lot of the weight of all those hopes and aspirations, and really a belief in the promise of this country, that birthright citizenship is so much a part of the fabric of what it means to be an American,” Wang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the landmark case \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11423\">\u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>Wang — the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union — challenged \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078161/trump-executive-order-ending-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling-who-is-affected-can-citizen-be-revoked\">President Donald Trump’s executive order\u003c/a>, which seeks to deny U.S. citizenship to babies whose parents aren’t citizens or permanent legal residents. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its highly anticipated ruling by the end of the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Birthright citizenship is just one of the landmark legal victories won by 19th-century Chinese immigrants. Their court battles helped secure constitutional protections that remain at the center of today’s debates over citizenship, due process and democracy. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Asian American historians, legal scholars and civil rights advocates say those contributions remain largely absent from the national narrative, even as the rights they helped establish face renewed challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The semiquincentennial, they say, offers an opportunity to examine who helped build American democracy — and to recognize that immigrants were not only beneficiaries of constitutional rights, but among their architects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The right to automatic American citizenship was established in 1898 under the 14th Amendment when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">Wong Kim Ark\u003c/a>, a Chinese cook born in San Francisco, successfully defended his claim to U.S. citizenship after officials argued that his parents’ Chinese citizenship disqualified him from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088380\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088380\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1354\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GettyImages-2268796836-1536x1040.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">American Civil Liberties Union attorney Cecillia Wang spoke outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 1, 2026. President Donald Trump attended in person as the court heard a landmark case weighing the constitutionality of his effort to end birthright citizenship. \u003ccite>(Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a constitutional lawyer, Wang has worked many cases at the Supreme Court, but she said this was the first one to hit very close to home: Wang is a recipient of birthright citizenship, and her personal history made her role at the nation’s highest court meaningful for many immigrants and second-generation Americans — especially Asian Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can’t tell you how many people have told me, both friends and loved ones, but also total strangers: ‘I listened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/trump-v-barbara-oral-argument/675665\">that argument;\u003c/a> it’s the first time I’ve ever listened to a Supreme Court argument. My parents, who are immigrants, listened to [it] and they’ve never listened to [one] before,’” Wang said. “‘And we’re all cheering you on.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wang said the effort to overturn a centuries-old constitutional right has helped spotlight critical and often overlooked Asian American history, particularly highlighting how the Chinese community’s 19th-century legal victories helped secure foundational protections for both Americans and noncitizens. Many constitutional protections are now under attack by the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Birthright citizenship is only one example. Early Chinese immigrants filed more than 10,000 lawsuits to fight discrimination and raised money to hire prominent white lawyers to argue on their behalf. Some cases reached the Supreme Court, and the resulting decisions continue to undergird many modern civil rights cases, including disputes over \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">equal protection and due process\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to reframe the American story have been fueled by descendants of some of the country’s earliest immigrants. They’ve illuminated little-known chapters of the nation’s history by unearthing family archives and sharing personal stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088375\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong walks through Ross Alley in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 14, 2026. Wong, 76, is the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, who won birthright citizenship in 1898 in the Supreme Court. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Norman Wong, a Bay Area resident and the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, has been on a media blitz since January to share his family’s legacy and protect birthright citizenship. He’s appeared at public events, been invited to speak on panels and been interviewed by national and local news outlets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, he traveled to Washington, D.C., for birthright citizenship hearings and gave a speech outside of the Supreme Court. It’s work that Wong didn’t expect to do at this stage of his life, but it’s a role and responsibility that he accepts willingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider it a duty and a privilege to, in a sense, serve, because these times need people to volunteer and help,” Wong, 76, said. “I think especially for Chinese Americans who are afraid of [how] their history might implicate them … We need to get out from under that rock.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of his life, Wong had no idea he was a descendant of Wong Kim Ark. His father, Wong Yook Jim, rarely spoke about his past or their family lineage, let alone who Wong’s great-grandfather was. Wong only discovered the connection in his 50s — but he was no stranger to Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088377\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088377\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1091\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/normanarchival-1536x838.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Wong Yook Jim, grandson of Wong Kim Ark, with his two sons, Gary (left) and Norman Wong (right), during the early 1950s in San Francisco.\u003cbr>Right: Wong Yook Jim during the mid-1950s.\u003cbr>Norman Wong didn’t know he was a descendant of Wong Kim Ark until he was in his 50s because his Chinese family never spoke about their family history. He says of his father, “He didn’t talk about his mother or his father or any of that … We didn’t even know he actually came from China … as far as I knew, he could have been born here.” \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Norman Wong.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a UC Berkeley student during the 1970s, Wong was a part of the multiracial \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies\">Third World Liberation Front movement\u003c/a> in the Bay Area, when widespread student strikes helped establish the country’s first ethnic studies programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was during that period that the Asian American identity was first conceived. Wong also protested the demolition of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reels/DAt5-VRqL3z/\">San Francisco’s International Hotel\u003c/a> — a landmark event widely regarded as the catalyst for the Asian American movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong said his activism as a young man helped prepare him for his current role as a public advocate for immigrants and other vulnerable groups in America. He’s not only fiery in his efforts to preserve his great-grandfather’s contributions, but also in his critiques of the Trump administration, especially as it prepares to host the nation’s 250th-anniversary celebrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s ironic that Trump is our president while we’re extolling the virtues of the United States, and he’s showing the worst side of America,” Wong said. “I think the main story is ‘who we should be as a people?’ instead of just celebrating that we’re Americans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, said having people like Wong speak out exemplifies how vital it is to connect history to the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088374\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260614-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong stands in front of a mural depicting his great-grandfather, Wong Kim Ark, on the corner of Sacramento and Grant streets in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Sunday, June 14, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s really significant to share our stories to change the narrative about Asian Americans, to change the narrative of America,” Jeung said. “I think digging up and reclaiming our history is critical to helping us face the challenges of what we’re dealing with now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeung is a co-founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11876972/inside-the-california-organization-tracking-anti-asian-hate-incidents\">Stop AAPI Hate\u003c/a>, a movement that started during the COVID era, which has helped reshape the way the country views racism against Asians. But Jeung said Asian American activism isn’t new; it’s always been a part of the Asian American experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Asians were really unruly when they came. They were engaged in massive disobedience against every law … They used every means available to their disposal to challenge racist laws,” Jeung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One example is the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case, \u003ca href=\"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/\">\u003cem>Yick Wo v. Hopkins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>,\u003c/em> in which \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">Chinese laundrymen sued San Francisco\u003c/a> because of an unfair laundry ordinance — one of many discriminatory laws designed to make life and earning a livelihood difficult for Chinese immigrants. With the help of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the laundrymen won and secured 14th Amendment protections, including equal rights and due process for noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088373\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People walk through the intersection at Pacific and Stockton streets in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jeung said that the current debates over constitutional protections and who qualifies for U.S. citizenship are especially relevant to Asian Americans because 19th-century Asians were, in his words, the “foundational aliens” — the group through which the boundaries of American citizenship were drawn and the limits of constitutional rights were tested. The restrictions imposed on Chinese immigrants helped define who could — and could not — be considered American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole idea of American citizenship and belonging was based on the opposite, the Asian as the paradigmatic alien,” Jeung said. “And so today, the treatment of immigrants is sort of based on how America treated Asians initially as aliens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That treatment includes being regarded as economic scapegoats, as threats to national security, ineligible for citizenship despite legal ties, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085159/immigration-courts-are-using-a-new-tactic-to-speed-up-deportations\">being denied due process rights\u003c/a> and subjected to hostile political rhetoric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Jeung said, early Chinese immigrants also created a model of how to seek justice. By organizing across their community and bringing their fights to the courts, they called out the hypocrisy of America and challenged the nation to live up to its espoused values.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260607-ChinatownActivism-JY-02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“I am an American” in various languages is etched into a plaque honoring Wong Kim Ark in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were supposed to have inalienable rights to the pursuit of happiness … but aliens didn’t get those rights, and the same holds true today. Undocumented people don’t have the right to … due process, habeas corpus; they don’t have the right to be innocent until proven guilty,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the parallels between the past and present, Jeung believes the country’s upcoming celebrations should raise some critical questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a question for America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Are those rights inalienable, are they sacred to all? Or why do we only hold them for a certain privileged few?”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, a legal and civil rights nonprofit in San Francisco, has worked for decades to ensure rights are upheld for some of the most vulnerable groups in the Asian American community. The organization was part of the nationwide class action in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>, and Kohli said this has been a “pivotal moment” for the Asian Law Caucus, as many constitutional protections beyond birthright citizenship are under threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ground has really shifted under most civil rights organizations,” Kohli said. “We have to be more strategic, more creative than ever … we need to build a coalition of supporters … we can’t just fight in court. We have to win on the streets as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kohli pointed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081927/supreme-court-ruling-on-voting-wont-change-california-districts-but-could-hurt-democrats\">recent weakening of the Voting Rights Act\u003c/a> by the Supreme Court — including decisions limiting the consideration of race in drawing congressional maps — as emblematic of the direction the country is heading towards as it approaches its 250th anniversary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The Trump administration] has revealed to us the vulnerabilities in our democracy,” Kohli said. “The checks and balances of power relied on people acting with integrity … one of the things that was not contemplated … is that an administration could act with such impunity and feel very justified in violating not just norms, but the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of vulnerabilities in the nation’s democratic institutions, Kohli and other advocates argue that preserving a multiracial democracy will require deeper solidarity across communities and a recognition of the connections between different groups’ struggles for rights and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Wang, that broader struggle for rights and belonging stretches beyond the Chinese American experience. That’s why she said there’s another important group of ancestors to acknowledge when discussing birthright citizenship and other constitutional ideals: Black freedom fighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088378\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088378\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-03-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An American flag, a San Francisco flag and the Chinese flag fly on Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 20, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[They] both achieved the end of slavery, and Reconstruction in the form of civil rights legislation in the 1960s … we need to connect those efforts,” Wang said, noting that the constitutional protections invoked by Chinese immigrants originated from Black Americans’ struggle against slavery. Without the \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/reconstruction-amendments/\">Reconstruction Amendments\u003c/a> and the legal framework earned by Black Americans, Chinese litigants wouldn’t have been able to test those guarantees in court and secure them for generations of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the political climate and the ongoing challenges to constitutional protections may easily overshadow the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary for some, Wang said she still plans to commemorate the milestone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to let the president take away my joy,” she said. “I remember the bicentennial; I was a little kid and remember the excitement of it … there are a lot of people who have a critique of American exceptionalism and those critiques are very valid. But for me personally, I feel so fortunate to be a U.S. citizen. I feel so fortunate to be American. And I think being a civil rights lawyer is a really profound expression of American patriotism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wang marvels at the fact that she, a Chinese American lawyer and daughter of immigrants, was able to argue the birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court at a time when Chinese people like Wong Kim Ark lived in an era when they were barred from testifying in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088379\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088379\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/20260620-ChinatownActivism-JY-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mural depicting Wong Kim Ark is seen through the Floating Sushi Boat restaurant on the corner of Sacramento and Grant in San Francisco’s Chinatown on June 20, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That arc of history is not lost on Norman Wong. It may explain why he’s been so tireless in his efforts to share who his great-grandfather was and what he achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked what’s next for his family’s legacy after the Supreme Court issues its ruling, Wong said he hopes there will no longer be a need for such a public role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I’m not needed anymore, I’ll just fade away,” Wong said. “People shouldn’t worry about [birthright citizenship], and all of this will be a footnote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, though, Wong believes there are still countless family stories waiting to be told — if others are willing to share them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We shouldn’t be ashamed of our personal history. It’s time for us to say who we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>***\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Help Us Document Chinese American History\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>KQED is launching a reporting series exploring how Chinese immigrants in 19th-century California helped shape the rights and freedoms many Americans enjoy today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we tell these stories, \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/appYRab8nOv1F5DoN/pagzLWLgeFJm7OqcO/form\">we want to hear from you\u003c/a>. Do you have family ties to San Francisco Chinatown or the Bay Area’s early Chinese American communities? Family photographs, letters, documents or stories passed down through generations? Do you know of local histories, legal battles or community contributions that deserve greater attention?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reporter Cecilia Lei is collecting stories, memories and historical materials that may inform or be featured in our reporting. Email her at clei@kqed.org and help us preserve and share this history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/appYRab8nOv1F5DoN/pagzLWLgeFJm7OqcO/form\">SHARE YOUR STORY\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "like-an-angel-meet-the-helpers-working-at-bay-area-immigration-court",
"title": "‘Like an Angel’: Meet the Helpers Working at Bay Area Immigration Court",
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"content": "\u003cp>The woman nodded nervously as the judge told her, through a Spanish interpreter, that this was her last chance to apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/asylum\">asylum\u003c/a>. She’d already been given two opportunities. Now she had until July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you,” the woman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside the immigration courtroom in Concord, Sergio Jaime Lopez greeted her with a smile. Sharply dressed and warm, the 39-year-old explained he was there to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The woman, Rosaura, was from Mexico. Small, middle-aged and visibly flustered, she stumbled through an explanation in Spanish. “It’s just that sometimes — I mean, how would I know?” she said. “I told my daughters, but — well, no. So where do I go to apply for that, then? Or — I don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I want is to help you,” Jaime said, handing her an asylum application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosaura, who, like other asylum seekers KQED spoke to, asked to use only her first name for fear of retribution, told him she lived far away, in a small town near the southern end of the Central Valley. He handed her a packet listing free and low-cost legal resources by region, then offered to connect her with a volunteer who could help her fill out the paperwork — aware that, with most \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078868/as-legal-aid-groups-face-budget-cuts-san-francisco-awards-1-group-millions\">immigration legal aid groups\u003c/a> overwhelmed by calls, she’d be unlikely to get a lawyer in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show up with the application in hand,” he told her, referring to her next court date. “Otherwise, the judge told you, ‘I will deport you if you don’t bring me anything.’ OK?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12065491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12065491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stickers and flyers on a table in the Undocumented Community Center at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, on Nov. 28, 2023. At this center, students without legal status can access financial and legal aid as well as guidance in navigating grant applications. \u003ccite>(Photo by Amaya Edwards for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He took down her phone number and told her to expect a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime’s days are filled with Rosauras — people navigating the complex bureaucracy of immigration court, often without attorneys, interpreters or a clear sense of what judges are asking of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my experience, people are too afraid in that courtroom to understand what is happening,” said Jaime, the community defense program manager for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oursafecenter.org/\">SAFE Center\u003c/a> in Contra Costa County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His work to help people understand has taken on new urgency as the Trump administration aggressively reshapes the nation’s immigration system, including by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">shutting down San Francisco’s longtime immigration court\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, it was Northern California’s principal immigration court. Over time, advocates built around it one of the most extensive immigrant-defense networks in the U.S. — a web of nonprofit legal organizations, volunteer court companions, rapid-response groups and pro bono attorneys who help immigrants find their way through a system where they’re not guaranteed legal representation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the end of this year, thousands of cases handled at the downtown courtroom on Montgomery Street are expected to be transferred to Concord, about 30 miles to the northeast, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975904/new-bay-area-immigration-court-opens-aims-to-tackle-deportation-backlog\">the immigration court is only a couple of years old\u003c/a> and the support infrastructure around it is still developing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime knows the importance of building up that network. He once stood in front of an immigration judge himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A firsthand look at a complex system\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Growing up in Granada, a picturesque colonial city on the shores of Nicaragua’s largest lake, Jaime studied business administration, worked in sales, married and started a family. Then, he said, the political situation changed. “It was not safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Out of concern for relatives still in Nicaragua, he spoke only cautiously about why he fled. “People in power … want to remain in power no matter what,” he said. “And that’s when it’s really dangerous for other people to speak against them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, he left behind his pregnant wife and began a six-month journey north through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. Along the way, he spent two weeks in a derelict jail in Chiapas and was slashed by a stranger with a knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12011934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12011934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The heavily fortified U.S.-Mexico border fence ends in the Pacific Ocean between the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood and Border Field State Park in San Diego, Sept. 16, 2024. \u003ccite>(Zoë Meyers for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the U.S. border, he applied for asylum from Tijuana under the Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/migrant-protection-protocols/\">“Remain in Mexico” program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After one of his hearings, he was unexpectedly detained while returning to Tijuana and spent six months in a San Diego detention facility. There, he began teaching himself the intricacies of the U.S. immigration system, studying books and case law in the library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point I realized, oh my God, this is so complex,” he said. “Because even with my education level, I couldn’t understand much.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wrote letters to immigration legal aid organizations until one agreed to take his case. After his release, he moved to the Bay Area, where a woman with extra space in her Piedmont home offered him a place to stay through an immigrant support network.[aside postID=news_12082287 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250820-ICEActivity-05_qed.jpg']He lived there until 2023, when he was granted asylum. “It felt so good … because I had the hope that I’m going to see my family soon,” he said. The following year, his wife and two children joined him in California. So when Jaime learned about a new job helping immigrants like him navigate the Concord court, he immediately felt drawn to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, he’s at the court nearly every day it’s open, helping people find their courtrooms, understand judges’ instructions and connect with services, while training a growing cohort of volunteers to do the same. He runs the volunteer \u003ca href=\"https://www.im4humanintegrity.org/2025/03/welcome-navigator-bienvenidos-navegadores/\">welcome navigator program\u003c/a> at the court, a collaboration between various community and legal services organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the people appearing in Concord immigration court were released into the United States after crossing the border and issued notices to appear before an immigration judge. Many are seeking asylum. Their first hearings are often brief procedural appearances where judges explain charges, deadlines and legal rights. Individual asylum hearings, where a judge decides whether someone can remain in the country, are typically scheduled years into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University, \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/backlog/\">more than 3 million\u003c/a> cases are pending in immigration courts across the country. Concord alone already has nearly 60,000 such cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084722\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12084722 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The office building that houses the immigration court in Concord on May 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With thousands more cases coming from San Francisco, the backlog means “people are going to have longer and longer waits to actually have their day in court,” said Milli Atkinson, who runs the San Francisco Bar Association’s Immigrant Legal Defense Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many immigration advocates and legal observers see the restructuring of the Bay Area courts as part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068969/sf-immigration-courts-looming-closure-raises-concerns-about-path-to-asylum\">broader shift in the culture of the immigration court system\u003c/a> under the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By closing courts and reassigning cases — and in this case, to Concord — the Executive Office for Immigration Review is thinking, ‘How do we change that pro-immigrant culture that we saw in the immigration courts for many years?’” UC Davis law professor Kevin Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The kids feel their fear’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a morning in late April, Jaime stood near the door of a packed courtroom. Next to him, a volunteer court observer took careful notes on the proceedings, sweat stippling his forehead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge sat behind two computer screens, the top of her head barely visible above them. Lawyers from around the state appeared remotely on large monitors while their neatly dressed clients sat in person before the judge, one after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An hour in, it was hot, and the kids in the audience were starting to squirm. Jaime spotted a girl, maybe 5 years old, with dark bushy bangs, in the back row of the gallery, and he quietly squeezed through the aisle to hand her a picture book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12085604 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sergio Jaime Lopez, community defense program manager for the SAFE Center, outside the Concord immigration court on May 7, 2026. Jaime helps people in deportation proceedings navigate the court and connect with resources and legal representation. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The girl looked through the book a few times, then turned her attention to grooming her father’s hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Jaime, seeing these children is one of the hardest parts of the work. “Sometimes they smile, they’re really happy, they don’t care about what is going on. But sometimes also, I can see the fathers are terrified,” he said. “The kids feel their fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, the young girl was lying on the floor between benches while a man in an orange jumpsuit appeared by video from a detention facility in Louisiana. Amid confusion about his arrest record, which appeared to include a conviction for leaving the scene of an accident, the government attorney asked for additional time to prepare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge addressed the man: “Do you want more time to find an attorney?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Locked up in here, I can’t get one,” he said, explaining that he’d tried calling around, but nobody answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She repeated her question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No, I don’t want anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the back of the room, Jaime’s colleague crouched down to offer the girl more books. When her family was finally called before the judge, alongside several other people without attorneys, she carried one with her to the front of the courtroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the judge explained that the proceedings would determine whether the family had a right to remain in the United States, the girl sat cross-legged on the floor, paging through the comic book. Her parents took the judge up on her offer of more time to find an attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024761\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ixchel Barragán, left, and Maria Zavaleta, associate attorney with Bean, Lloyd, Mukherji, & Taylor, LLP, at an informational session about immigration services at Willow Cove Elementary in Pittsburg, California, Jan. 29, 2025. More than 300 people attended the event organized by Stand Together Contra Costa and the Pittsburg Unified School District, which offered free, private consultations with immigration attorneys, medical services and a resource fair. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Afterward, Jaime walked them out of the courtroom and offered a free consultation with the attorney of the day — a position staffed by lawyers who volunteer their time and attorneys with \u003ca href=\"https://standtogethercontracosta.org/\">Stand Together Contra Costa\u003c/a>, a collaboration between the county and other organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Concord courthouse now has attorneys of the day on hand about 70% of the time, and advocates say they’re working to get to full-time coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volunteers who aren’t attorneys have also been trained to help people complete asylum applications when they have nowhere else to turn — as in Rosaura’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reciprocating life-changing support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Concord immigration court is housed in a modern, mirrored office building near downtown. Often, a line forms outside before it opens at 8, serenaded by a makeshift chorus made up of congregants from around the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a Tuesday morning, a small group from Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland and Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek stood on the sidewalk singing “This Little Light of Mine” in alternating Spanish and English verses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They held signs that read “Keep families together,” “Don’t lose hope,” and “We are here with you.” Cars honked as they passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12084723 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Rae, a volunteer at the Concord immigration court, at her home in Oakland on May 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“People have come up to us, hugged us, thanked us, sometimes in tears,” said Penny Rosenwasser, of Kehilla. “The lawyers come up, too, and just thank us, because it gives them support as well. We’re all part of it together, a team.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Rae, a volunteer in training, started her work at the court out on the sidewalk. Today, she stood in the lobby preparing to begin a day of learning alongside Jaime. She’d already watched the required videos and tagged along with other volunteers; now she was here to learn from the man in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rae, 73 with silver shoulder-length hair and metal-framed glasses, is a former emergency medicine doctor from Texas who moved to California after retiring in 2020. “I just feel the need to help these people. They’re coming here to start a better life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court occupies the top three floors of the 10-story building, also home to an urgent care center and various businesses. When Rae emerged on the top floor, she encountered a security line curled around the narrow elevator bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One by one, people fed their bags into the X-ray scanner and stepped through the metal detector. Rae, with her replacement hip and knee, got a thorough wanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Much more rigorous than TSA,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, the walls, ceiling and linoleum floors were white. Fluorescent lights blazed down on notices tacked to the walls with warnings about asylum fraud and the “benefits and consequences” of self-deportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorneys provide simultaneous translation for a member of the public attending an informational session about immigration services at Willow Cove Elementary in Pittsburg, California, Jan. 29, 2025. More than 300 people attended the event organized by Stand Together Contra Costa and the Pittsburg Unified School District, which offered free, private consultations with immigration attorneys, medical services and a resource fair. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jaime, in an azure blazer and black-rimmed glasses, greeted Rae and launched into a tutorial. He described the role of volunteers: Be present, supportive and smile; give people resource packets and connect them with the attorney of the day. He showed her where he stores the box of donated children’s books in various languages and explained that there’s limited grant funding available to cover the $100 annual asylum application fee. He reminded her not to give legal advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every couple of minutes, he stopped to attend to a need, speaking in Spanish to people looking for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you have court?” he asked a lost-looking woman, then showed her to courtroom 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volunteers wearing baby blue lanyards or blue vests that read “Contra Costa Civil Rights Alliance” stepped in and out of courtrooms, ushering people to the pro bono attorney room and explaining judges’ instructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s this?” a man asked Jaime upon emerging from the courtroom with a document in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The judge gave you more time to get an attorney,” Jaime said. “It’s not a requirement, but it helps.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He offered the man a consultation with the attorney volunteering that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12059883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12059883\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ernesto Reyes holds a sign outside the San Francisco Immigration Court in downtown San Francisco on Oct. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Is it free?” the man said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime assured him it was and showed him to a waiting area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have court in September. What should I do?” another man said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then a woman with a black ponytail reaching down her back asked: “Do I have to come back with an attorney?” He explained that she — like everyone else seeking asylum — would have to prove to the judge that she had a well-founded fear of persecution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know it because you lived it, but the judge doesn’t know any of that. It’s up to you to explain it and provide evidence,” Jaime said. “An attorney can help with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rae stood beside him, doing her best to take notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t expect you to do all that,” Jaime said with a smile. He could tell Rae was a bit overwhelmed. “It’s a lot of information. You don’t need to know everything right now.”[aside postID=news_12085305 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251124-SJHUDCUTS-JG-07-KQED.jpg']Rae is one of more than 100 volunteers Jaime has trained to do this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of them have provided life-changing support for the people they serve — among them a weary-eyed woman from El Salvador named Janet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after arriving in the United States, Janet found someone she believed was an attorney and paid her about $4,500 to shepherd her asylum case. But when she went to court, the judge had no record of her application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Janet reached back out to the woman she had hired, the woman assured her she would resubmit the application before Janet’s next hearing. But that day, there was still no application on file.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A welcome navigator at the Concord court encouraged her to speak with the attorney of the day. Unable to reach the person Janet had hired, or find her online, the attorney delivered a hard truth: “‘I’m going to be honest with you, she’s a scammer,’” Janet said. “I didn’t know what to do, whether to cry or — I don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge gave her one final opportunity to apply for asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I found a volunteer here,” Janet said. The volunteer helped her fill out the application, and Janet’s case is now back on track after the scam cost her a year and a half. She’s scheduled to return to court in 2029 for a decision on her asylum claim and can apply for a work permit in the meantime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was like an angel placed in my path,” Janet said of the volunteer who worked with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085605\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12085605 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Rae, a volunteer at the Concord immigration court, at her home in Oakland on May 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jaime had his own angels helping him on his asylum journey. Now, his work is a way of honoring all the support he got and reciprocating it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As many people help me, I want to help too,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even changing one life would make the effort worthwhile in his eyes. But it’s clear that the network of volunteers he’s empowered with the empathy and savvy required of the job has gone far beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside in the sunshine, he offered Rae a final piece of advice: “Be kind with everybody.” Not just people in deportation proceedings, but the guards, the judges and the government attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The system is not perfect, but it’s the only one right now,” he said, and “people are still winning asylum, even in this really bad scenario.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "After San Francisco’s immigration court closed, advocates are bracing for an influx of cases in Concord and building up a support system there — and one man is at the heart of the effort.",
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"title": "‘Like an Angel’: Meet the Helpers Working at Bay Area Immigration Court | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The woman nodded nervously as the judge told her, through a Spanish interpreter, that this was her last chance to apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/asylum\">asylum\u003c/a>. She’d already been given two opportunities. Now she had until July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you,” the woman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside the immigration courtroom in Concord, Sergio Jaime Lopez greeted her with a smile. Sharply dressed and warm, the 39-year-old explained he was there to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The woman, Rosaura, was from Mexico. Small, middle-aged and visibly flustered, she stumbled through an explanation in Spanish. “It’s just that sometimes — I mean, how would I know?” she said. “I told my daughters, but — well, no. So where do I go to apply for that, then? Or — I don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I want is to help you,” Jaime said, handing her an asylum application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosaura, who, like other asylum seekers KQED spoke to, asked to use only her first name for fear of retribution, told him she lived far away, in a small town near the southern end of the Central Valley. He handed her a packet listing free and low-cost legal resources by region, then offered to connect her with a volunteer who could help her fill out the paperwork — aware that, with most \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078868/as-legal-aid-groups-face-budget-cuts-san-francisco-awards-1-group-millions\">immigration legal aid groups\u003c/a> overwhelmed by calls, she’d be unlikely to get a lawyer in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show up with the application in hand,” he told her, referring to her next court date. “Otherwise, the judge told you, ‘I will deport you if you don’t bring me anything.’ OK?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12065491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12065491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/112823_DACA-Students_AE_CM_20-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stickers and flyers on a table in the Undocumented Community Center at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, on Nov. 28, 2023. At this center, students without legal status can access financial and legal aid as well as guidance in navigating grant applications. \u003ccite>(Photo by Amaya Edwards for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He took down her phone number and told her to expect a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime’s days are filled with Rosauras — people navigating the complex bureaucracy of immigration court, often without attorneys, interpreters or a clear sense of what judges are asking of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my experience, people are too afraid in that courtroom to understand what is happening,” said Jaime, the community defense program manager for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oursafecenter.org/\">SAFE Center\u003c/a> in Contra Costa County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His work to help people understand has taken on new urgency as the Trump administration aggressively reshapes the nation’s immigration system, including by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">shutting down San Francisco’s longtime immigration court\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, it was Northern California’s principal immigration court. Over time, advocates built around it one of the most extensive immigrant-defense networks in the U.S. — a web of nonprofit legal organizations, volunteer court companions, rapid-response groups and pro bono attorneys who help immigrants find their way through a system where they’re not guaranteed legal representation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the end of this year, thousands of cases handled at the downtown courtroom on Montgomery Street are expected to be transferred to Concord, about 30 miles to the northeast, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11975904/new-bay-area-immigration-court-opens-aims-to-tackle-deportation-backlog\">the immigration court is only a couple of years old\u003c/a> and the support infrastructure around it is still developing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime knows the importance of building up that network. He once stood in front of an immigration judge himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A firsthand look at a complex system\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Growing up in Granada, a picturesque colonial city on the shores of Nicaragua’s largest lake, Jaime studied business administration, worked in sales, married and started a family. Then, he said, the political situation changed. “It was not safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Out of concern for relatives still in Nicaragua, he spoke only cautiously about why he fled. “People in power … want to remain in power no matter what,” he said. “And that’s when it’s really dangerous for other people to speak against them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, he left behind his pregnant wife and began a six-month journey north through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. Along the way, he spent two weeks in a derelict jail in Chiapas and was slashed by a stranger with a knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12011934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12011934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241031-BORDER-CROSSINGS-ZM-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The heavily fortified U.S.-Mexico border fence ends in the Pacific Ocean between the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood and Border Field State Park in San Diego, Sept. 16, 2024. \u003ccite>(Zoë Meyers for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the U.S. border, he applied for asylum from Tijuana under the Trump administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/migrant-protection-protocols/\">“Remain in Mexico” program\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After one of his hearings, he was unexpectedly detained while returning to Tijuana and spent six months in a San Diego detention facility. There, he began teaching himself the intricacies of the U.S. immigration system, studying books and case law in the library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point I realized, oh my God, this is so complex,” he said. “Because even with my education level, I couldn’t understand much.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wrote letters to immigration legal aid organizations until one agreed to take his case. After his release, he moved to the Bay Area, where a woman with extra space in her Piedmont home offered him a place to stay through an immigrant support network.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He lived there until 2023, when he was granted asylum. “It felt so good … because I had the hope that I’m going to see my family soon,” he said. The following year, his wife and two children joined him in California. So when Jaime learned about a new job helping immigrants like him navigate the Concord court, he immediately felt drawn to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, he’s at the court nearly every day it’s open, helping people find their courtrooms, understand judges’ instructions and connect with services, while training a growing cohort of volunteers to do the same. He runs the volunteer \u003ca href=\"https://www.im4humanintegrity.org/2025/03/welcome-navigator-bienvenidos-navegadores/\">welcome navigator program\u003c/a> at the court, a collaboration between various community and legal services organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the people appearing in Concord immigration court were released into the United States after crossing the border and issued notices to appear before an immigration judge. Many are seeking asylum. Their first hearings are often brief procedural appearances where judges explain charges, deadlines and legal rights. Individual asylum hearings, where a judge decides whether someone can remain in the country, are typically scheduled years into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University, \u003ca href=\"https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/backlog/\">more than 3 million\u003c/a> cases are pending in immigration courts across the country. Concord alone already has nearly 60,000 such cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084722\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12084722 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The office building that houses the immigration court in Concord on May 7, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With thousands more cases coming from San Francisco, the backlog means “people are going to have longer and longer waits to actually have their day in court,” said Milli Atkinson, who runs the San Francisco Bar Association’s Immigrant Legal Defense Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many immigration advocates and legal observers see the restructuring of the Bay Area courts as part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068969/sf-immigration-courts-looming-closure-raises-concerns-about-path-to-asylum\">broader shift in the culture of the immigration court system\u003c/a> under the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By closing courts and reassigning cases — and in this case, to Concord — the Executive Office for Immigration Review is thinking, ‘How do we change that pro-immigrant culture that we saw in the immigration courts for many years?’” UC Davis law professor Kevin Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The kids feel their fear’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a morning in late April, Jaime stood near the door of a packed courtroom. Next to him, a volunteer court observer took careful notes on the proceedings, sweat stippling his forehead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge sat behind two computer screens, the top of her head barely visible above them. Lawyers from around the state appeared remotely on large monitors while their neatly dressed clients sat in person before the judge, one after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An hour in, it was hot, and the kids in the audience were starting to squirm. Jaime spotted a girl, maybe 5 years old, with dark bushy bangs, in the back row of the gallery, and he quietly squeezed through the aisle to hand her a picture book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12085604 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260507-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sergio Jaime Lopez, community defense program manager for the SAFE Center, outside the Concord immigration court on May 7, 2026. Jaime helps people in deportation proceedings navigate the court and connect with resources and legal representation. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The girl looked through the book a few times, then turned her attention to grooming her father’s hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Jaime, seeing these children is one of the hardest parts of the work. “Sometimes they smile, they’re really happy, they don’t care about what is going on. But sometimes also, I can see the fathers are terrified,” he said. “The kids feel their fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, the young girl was lying on the floor between benches while a man in an orange jumpsuit appeared by video from a detention facility in Louisiana. Amid confusion about his arrest record, which appeared to include a conviction for leaving the scene of an accident, the government attorney asked for additional time to prepare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge addressed the man: “Do you want more time to find an attorney?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Locked up in here, I can’t get one,” he said, explaining that he’d tried calling around, but nobody answered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She repeated her question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No, I don’t want anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the back of the room, Jaime’s colleague crouched down to offer the girl more books. When her family was finally called before the judge, alongside several other people without attorneys, she carried one with her to the front of the courtroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the judge explained that the proceedings would determine whether the family had a right to remain in the United States, the girl sat cross-legged on the floor, paging through the comic book. Her parents took the judge up on her offer of more time to find an attorney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024761\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02022-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ixchel Barragán, left, and Maria Zavaleta, associate attorney with Bean, Lloyd, Mukherji, & Taylor, LLP, at an informational session about immigration services at Willow Cove Elementary in Pittsburg, California, Jan. 29, 2025. More than 300 people attended the event organized by Stand Together Contra Costa and the Pittsburg Unified School District, which offered free, private consultations with immigration attorneys, medical services and a resource fair. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Afterward, Jaime walked them out of the courtroom and offered a free consultation with the attorney of the day — a position staffed by lawyers who volunteer their time and attorneys with \u003ca href=\"https://standtogethercontracosta.org/\">Stand Together Contra Costa\u003c/a>, a collaboration between the county and other organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Concord courthouse now has attorneys of the day on hand about 70% of the time, and advocates say they’re working to get to full-time coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volunteers who aren’t attorneys have also been trained to help people complete asylum applications when they have nowhere else to turn — as in Rosaura’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reciprocating life-changing support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Concord immigration court is housed in a modern, mirrored office building near downtown. Often, a line forms outside before it opens at 8, serenaded by a makeshift chorus made up of congregants from around the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a Tuesday morning, a small group from Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland and Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek stood on the sidewalk singing “This Little Light of Mine” in alternating Spanish and English verses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They held signs that read “Keep families together,” “Don’t lose hope,” and “We are here with you.” Cars honked as they passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12084723 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-IMMIGRATIONCOURTVOLUNTEERS-01-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Rae, a volunteer at the Concord immigration court, at her home in Oakland on May 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“People have come up to us, hugged us, thanked us, sometimes in tears,” said Penny Rosenwasser, of Kehilla. “The lawyers come up, too, and just thank us, because it gives them support as well. We’re all part of it together, a team.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Rae, a volunteer in training, started her work at the court out on the sidewalk. Today, she stood in the lobby preparing to begin a day of learning alongside Jaime. She’d already watched the required videos and tagged along with other volunteers; now she was here to learn from the man in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rae, 73 with silver shoulder-length hair and metal-framed glasses, is a former emergency medicine doctor from Texas who moved to California after retiring in 2020. “I just feel the need to help these people. They’re coming here to start a better life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court occupies the top three floors of the 10-story building, also home to an urgent care center and various businesses. When Rae emerged on the top floor, she encountered a security line curled around the narrow elevator bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One by one, people fed their bags into the X-ray scanner and stepped through the metal detector. Rae, with her replacement hip and knee, got a thorough wanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Much more rigorous than TSA,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, the walls, ceiling and linoleum floors were white. Fluorescent lights blazed down on notices tacked to the walls with warnings about asylum fraud and the “benefits and consequences” of self-deportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250125_Immigration-Forum_DB_02190-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorneys provide simultaneous translation for a member of the public attending an informational session about immigration services at Willow Cove Elementary in Pittsburg, California, Jan. 29, 2025. More than 300 people attended the event organized by Stand Together Contra Costa and the Pittsburg Unified School District, which offered free, private consultations with immigration attorneys, medical services and a resource fair. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jaime, in an azure blazer and black-rimmed glasses, greeted Rae and launched into a tutorial. He described the role of volunteers: Be present, supportive and smile; give people resource packets and connect them with the attorney of the day. He showed her where he stores the box of donated children’s books in various languages and explained that there’s limited grant funding available to cover the $100 annual asylum application fee. He reminded her not to give legal advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every couple of minutes, he stopped to attend to a need, speaking in Spanish to people looking for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do you have court?” he asked a lost-looking woman, then showed her to courtroom 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volunteers wearing baby blue lanyards or blue vests that read “Contra Costa Civil Rights Alliance” stepped in and out of courtrooms, ushering people to the pro bono attorney room and explaining judges’ instructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s this?” a man asked Jaime upon emerging from the courtroom with a document in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The judge gave you more time to get an attorney,” Jaime said. “It’s not a requirement, but it helps.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He offered the man a consultation with the attorney volunteering that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12059883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12059883\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251014-ANTIFAROUNDTABLEFOLO-20-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ernesto Reyes holds a sign outside the San Francisco Immigration Court in downtown San Francisco on Oct. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Is it free?” the man said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaime assured him it was and showed him to a waiting area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have court in September. What should I do?” another man said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then a woman with a black ponytail reaching down her back asked: “Do I have to come back with an attorney?” He explained that she — like everyone else seeking asylum — would have to prove to the judge that she had a well-founded fear of persecution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know it because you lived it, but the judge doesn’t know any of that. It’s up to you to explain it and provide evidence,” Jaime said. “An attorney can help with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rae stood beside him, doing her best to take notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t expect you to do all that,” Jaime said with a smile. He could tell Rae was a bit overwhelmed. “It’s a lot of information. You don’t need to know everything right now.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Rae is one of more than 100 volunteers Jaime has trained to do this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of them have provided life-changing support for the people they serve — among them a weary-eyed woman from El Salvador named Janet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after arriving in the United States, Janet found someone she believed was an attorney and paid her about $4,500 to shepherd her asylum case. But when she went to court, the judge had no record of her application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Janet reached back out to the woman she had hired, the woman assured her she would resubmit the application before Janet’s next hearing. But that day, there was still no application on file.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A welcome navigator at the Concord court encouraged her to speak with the attorney of the day. Unable to reach the person Janet had hired, or find her online, the attorney delivered a hard truth: “‘I’m going to be honest with you, she’s a scammer,’” Janet said. “I didn’t know what to do, whether to cry or — I don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The judge gave her one final opportunity to apply for asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I found a volunteer here,” Janet said. The volunteer helped her fill out the application, and Janet’s case is now back on track after the scam cost her a year and a half. She’s scheduled to return to court in 2029 for a decision on her asylum claim and can apply for a work permit in the meantime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was like an angel placed in my path,” Janet said of the volunteer who worked with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085605\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12085605 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260508-ImmigrationCourtVolunteers-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Rae, a volunteer at the Concord immigration court, at her home in Oakland on May 8, 2026. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jaime had his own angels helping him on his asylum journey. Now, his work is a way of honoring all the support he got and reciprocating it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As many people help me, I want to help too,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even changing one life would make the effort worthwhile in his eyes. But it’s clear that the network of volunteers he’s empowered with the empathy and savvy required of the job has gone far beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside in the sunshine, he offered Rae a final piece of advice: “Be kind with everybody.” Not just people in deportation proceedings, but the guards, the judges and the government attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The system is not perfect, but it’s the only one right now,” he said, and “people are still winning asylum, even in this really bad scenario.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "he-won-equal-protections-for-all-san-francisco-residents-want-to-tell-his-story",
"title": "Chinese Laundrymen Won Equal Protections for All. San Francisco Wants to Tell Their Story",
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"headTitle": "Chinese Laundrymen Won Equal Protections for All. San Francisco Wants to Tell Their Story | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For many, the lot on the corner of Third and Harrison streets in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> is just a place to park before heading to a Giants game or an event downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, around 50 people gathered at the unremarkable concrete patch in the South of Market neighborhood for a different reason: to commemorate the 140th anniversary of \u003cem>Yick Wo v. Hopkins, \u003c/em>a late 19th-century \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crowd included longtime Asian American activists, Chinatown organizers, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and Supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman and Danny Sauter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So often, we think about the times that San Francisco has done something … that has changed the country and the world,” said Dorsey, who represents the district where the lot is located. “We always think about 20th-century [contributions], but the reality is that it started in the 19th century with the Chinese American community in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site was once home to Yick Wo, a laundry business that was owned and operated by a Chinese immigrant named Lee Yick from 1864 to 1886. It was one of over 200 Chinese-owned laundries scattered across San Francisco, but this one holds particular significance: it was at the center of a consequential ruling that established that the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses apply to all — even noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083335\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083335 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Historian and Chinese Historical Society board member David Lei attends a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>David Lei, a local Chinese American community historian, said he has always believed the lot deserved substantial recognition. He tried to champion that effort over the past 15 years by speaking about Yick Wo’s history, but it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\"> last year’s spotlight on the case\u003c/a> from KQED, as the Trump administration ramped up its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077496/trumps-mass-deportations-could-cost-the-bay-area-67-billion-a-year-report-says\">massive deportation campaign\u003c/a> — often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">without regard to immigrants’ rights\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">to\u003c/a> a fair hearing — that the history began to resonate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of [read] between the lines and it seemed like David was saying, ‘Oh, a little help here, please!’” said Karen Kai, a lawyer and board member of San Francisco Heritage, a nonprofit organization that helps preserve landmarks in the city. She helped kickstart an effort, along with other groups, including the Chinese Historical Society of America, to launch a campaign to establish a permanent marker at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doing so, they said, would help educate the public about a historical case that most people have never heard of outside of the legal community or people who study Asian American history. But this could soon change.[aside postID=news_12050233 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-YICK-WO-ARCHIVAL-06-KQED.jpg']The Supreme Court decision arrived while an intense anti-Chinese crackdown was taking place in San Francisco during the late 1800s. Chinese immigrants were routinely subjected to mob violence, their homes and businesses were often destroyed, and they faced legal discrimination by city officials, which made it difficult for them to earn their livelihoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Chinese immigrants were initially welcomed during the Gold Rush, they eventually became reviled as their population numbers grew, and their roles in the industrial workforce expanded. In addition to working as miners and railroad laborers, Chinese immigrants quickly met a demand that others were not eager to fill: laundry service. They eventually dominated the industry throughout the rest of the 19th century — much to the dismay of city residents and leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discriminatory city ordinances were often passed to make operating businesses, like laundries, difficult for Chinese immigrants. One notorious law in particular was passed in 1880, which required permits for wooden laundries. It was a move that targeted most Chinese-owned businesses; though they met other regulations, almost every Chinese laundry owner was denied a permit, while white owners were approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an extraordinary act of defiance, Yick, the laundry’s owner, continued operating his business anyway. He refused to pay the fine and was arrested. He and another fellow Chinese laundryman, Wo Lee, sued the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the financial support of an influential community coalition called the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Chinese Six Companies, as well as other powerful groups in San Francisco Chinatown, they hired top white lawyers to fight their case. Eventually, it made its way to the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083330 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen, Historian and Chinese Historical Society board member David Lei, District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter, and City Attorney David Chiu attend a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a unanimous 1886 ruling in favor of the Chinese laundrymen, the court declared that even if a law appears to be race-neutral, “if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand,” then it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And critically, the ruling said its protections “extend to all \u003cem>persons\u003c/em> within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of nationality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legal experts have said that \u003cem>Yick Wo\u003c/em> \u003cem>v. Hopkins \u003c/em>has been cited in “countless” ways, and provided the foundation for subsequent civil rights challenges that have shaped the modern-day legal system, including interracial marriage, school desegregation, voting rights and disability discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiu said he remembers reading the case as a law student and told the crowd that he’s parked at the lot each year to attend the Chinese New Year parade, without any idea that it was the site of Yick Wo\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083331\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083331\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">City Attorney David Chiu speaks during a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He reminded attendees that the case was just one of many brought forward by early Chinese immigrants — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078171/as-supreme-court-weighs-birthright-citizenship-sf-advocates-are-ready-to-stand-up\">Wong Kim Ark\u003c/a>, whose case established birthright citizenship in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration is currently looking to overturn it, and Chiu’s office is helping to fight that effort at the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiu said placing a permanent marker at the parking lot is not just about preserving important American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083333\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083333 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Christman of San Francisco Heritage holds a print of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins during a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the case’s 140th anniversary in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is a moment in time where we will remember, and we will continue to fight for our constitutional rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Lei, this galvanizing moment has been a long time in the making. He said he hopes to see a mural at the lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think people walk by plaques, but if you put in art with messaging, very impactful art … then it’ll bring a lot more attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083332\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083332 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Heritage Vice Chair Karen Kai speaks to a crowd of community members and media at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Until that decision is made, SF Heritage and other partner advocates will start gathering community input to narrow down options to present to the city. It will be a process that requires fundraising, political will, and, certainly, red tape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kai said she felt energized by the intergenerational gathering and the growing momentum to recognize how early Chinese immigrants shaped constitutional protections that now benefit everyone in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the commemoration honored their courage — and underscored the power of collective action: “We’re going to go for it. We’re just going to run with it now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For many, the lot on the corner of Third and Harrison streets in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> is just a place to park before heading to a Giants game or an event downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, around 50 people gathered at the unremarkable concrete patch in the South of Market neighborhood for a different reason: to commemorate the 140th anniversary of \u003cem>Yick Wo v. Hopkins, \u003c/em>a late 19th-century \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\">landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crowd included longtime Asian American activists, Chinatown organizers, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and Supervisors Connie Chan, Chyanne Chen, Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman and Danny Sauter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So often, we think about the times that San Francisco has done something … that has changed the country and the world,” said Dorsey, who represents the district where the lot is located. “We always think about 20th-century [contributions], but the reality is that it started in the 19th century with the Chinese American community in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site was once home to Yick Wo, a laundry business that was owned and operated by a Chinese immigrant named Lee Yick from 1864 to 1886. It was one of over 200 Chinese-owned laundries scattered across San Francisco, but this one holds particular significance: it was at the center of a consequential ruling that established that the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses apply to all — even noncitizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083335\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083335 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Historian and Chinese Historical Society board member David Lei attends a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>David Lei, a local Chinese American community historian, said he has always believed the lot deserved substantial recognition. He tried to champion that effort over the past 15 years by speaking about Yick Wo’s history, but it was\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050233/how-a-chinese-laundryman-shaped-us-civil-rights-from-san-francisco\"> last year’s spotlight on the case\u003c/a> from KQED, as the Trump administration ramped up its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077496/trumps-mass-deportations-could-cost-the-bay-area-67-billion-a-year-report-says\">massive deportation campaign\u003c/a> — often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">without regard to immigrants’ rights\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082287/trump-closes-san-franciscos-immigration-court-for-good\">to\u003c/a> a fair hearing — that the history began to resonate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of [read] between the lines and it seemed like David was saying, ‘Oh, a little help here, please!’” said Karen Kai, a lawyer and board member of San Francisco Heritage, a nonprofit organization that helps preserve landmarks in the city. She helped kickstart an effort, along with other groups, including the Chinese Historical Society of America, to launch a campaign to establish a permanent marker at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doing so, they said, would help educate the public about a historical case that most people have never heard of outside of the legal community or people who study Asian American history. But this could soon change.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Supreme Court decision arrived while an intense anti-Chinese crackdown was taking place in San Francisco during the late 1800s. Chinese immigrants were routinely subjected to mob violence, their homes and businesses were often destroyed, and they faced legal discrimination by city officials, which made it difficult for them to earn their livelihoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Chinese immigrants were initially welcomed during the Gold Rush, they eventually became reviled as their population numbers grew, and their roles in the industrial workforce expanded. In addition to working as miners and railroad laborers, Chinese immigrants quickly met a demand that others were not eager to fill: laundry service. They eventually dominated the industry throughout the rest of the 19th century — much to the dismay of city residents and leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discriminatory city ordinances were often passed to make operating businesses, like laundries, difficult for Chinese immigrants. One notorious law in particular was passed in 1880, which required permits for wooden laundries. It was a move that targeted most Chinese-owned businesses; though they met other regulations, almost every Chinese laundry owner was denied a permit, while white owners were approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an extraordinary act of defiance, Yick, the laundry’s owner, continued operating his business anyway. He refused to pay the fine and was arrested. He and another fellow Chinese laundryman, Wo Lee, sued the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the financial support of an influential community coalition called the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Chinese Six Companies, as well as other powerful groups in San Francisco Chinatown, they hired top white lawyers to fight their case. Eventually, it made its way to the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083330 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-04-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen, Historian and Chinese Historical Society board member David Lei, District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter, and City Attorney David Chiu attend a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a unanimous 1886 ruling in favor of the Chinese laundrymen, the court declared that even if a law appears to be race-neutral, “if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand,” then it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And critically, the ruling said its protections “extend to all \u003cem>persons\u003c/em> within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of nationality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Legal experts have said that \u003cem>Yick Wo\u003c/em> \u003cem>v. Hopkins \u003c/em>has been cited in “countless” ways, and provided the foundation for subsequent civil rights challenges that have shaped the modern-day legal system, including interracial marriage, school desegregation, voting rights and disability discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiu said he remembers reading the case as a law student and told the crowd that he’s parked at the lot each year to attend the Chinese New Year parade, without any idea that it was the site of Yick Wo\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083331\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083331\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">City Attorney David Chiu speaks during a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He reminded attendees that the case was just one of many brought forward by early Chinese immigrants — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078171/as-supreme-court-weighs-birthright-citizenship-sf-advocates-are-ready-to-stand-up\">Wong Kim Ark\u003c/a>, whose case established birthright citizenship in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration is currently looking to overturn it, and Chiu’s office is helping to fight that effort at the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiu said placing a permanent marker at the parking lot is not just about preserving important American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083333\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083333 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Christman of San Francisco Heritage holds a print of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins during a press conference at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the case’s 140th anniversary in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is a moment in time where we will remember, and we will continue to fight for our constitutional rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Lei, this galvanizing moment has been a long time in the making. He said he hopes to see a mural at the lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think people walk by plaques, but if you put in art with messaging, very impactful art … then it’ll bring a lot more attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083332\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12083332 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/20260511-YICKWOCOMMEMORATION-JY-06-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Heritage Vice Chair Karen Kai speaks to a crowd of community members and media at the parking lot on Third and Harrison streets to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco on Monday, May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Until that decision is made, SF Heritage and other partner advocates will start gathering community input to narrow down options to present to the city. It will be a process that requires fundraising, political will, and, certainly, red tape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kai said she felt energized by the intergenerational gathering and the growing momentum to recognize how early Chinese immigrants shaped constitutional protections that now benefit everyone in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the commemoration honored their courage — and underscored the power of collective action: “We’re going to go for it. We’re just going to run with it now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Dozens of nurses rallied outside \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/kaiser\">Kaiser\u003c/a> San Francisco on Monday to advocate for a San Francisco nurse who is set to lose her job — after the federal government did not process her temporary legal status in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surgical nurse, who has lived in the U.S. for most of her life and will remain anonymous due to safety concerns, immigrated from the Philippines when she was two years old. As an employee of Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center on Geary Boulevard, the nurse filed her DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, renewal application on Dec.1 — exactly 135 days before her status was set to expire on April 15. Despite applying well within the recommended window, she said she has not heard back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When her status lapsed, Kaiser placed her on 30 days of unpaid leave. That window closes on May 14. In response to her inquiries, Kaiser wrote that “It is your responsibility to keep your work authorization current,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2026/05/kaiser-nurse-daca-renewal-delay-san-francisco/\">\u003cem>Mission Local\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which first reported her case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kaiser said the organization was evaluating potential solutions. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been working directly with our employee to support her through this as best we can. We have been working with the union as well, and appreciate their advocacy on behalf of our employee. We are currently evaluating what potential solutions are available,” a spokesperson said in a statement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside of Kaiser on Monday, dozens of nurses chanted: “Defend DACA now,” calling on the hospital to extend the nurse’s unpaid leave. In a statement read aloud by fellow nurses at the rally, the soon-to-be-terminated nurse wrote: “I feel devastated and torn to pieces to be in a position where the fault lies with the innocent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, I ask Kaiser to extend my leave, because I want to thrive, too,” it said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hers is not an isolated case. According to the Migration Policy Institute, an estimated 500,000 immigrants currently hold DACA status, and many have been caught in a surge of federal processing delays — a trend that advocates told KQED accelerated this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083226\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083226\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diana Alfaro, a registered nurse, rallies against Kaiser’s plans to terminate a DACA recipient registered nurse outside of Kaiser Permanente on Geary Street in San Francisco on May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which serves more than 1,000 active DACA clients, said that over half of renewal requests filed since November 2025 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lisa Hoffman, the organization’s co-executive director, said delays of 150 days or more are now common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is just the latest attack,” Hoffman said. “It feels like DACA is being chipped away at piece by piece every day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sydney Simpson, a registered nurse at Kaiser San Francisco, said the hospital’s decision is both morally and practically wrong.[aside postID=news_12082440 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/240408-FCIDublin-018-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg']“To replace a nurse with her level of expertise is extremely painful for the organization — it’s expensive, it hurts our morale as nurses and it hurts patient quality of care,” Simpson said. “It seems like a really easy decision, but for whatever reason, they are holding their ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nurses pointed to a stark contrast with the University of California health system. Maureen Dugan, a UCSF registered nurse, said at Monday’s rally that the UC’s union contract explicitly protects DACA nurses from termination during renewal delays — and guarantees recall rights if they are temporarily let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“UC is committed to supporting DACA staff,” Dugan said. “We won that language in our last contract negotiations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, a coalition of Bay Area immigrant rights groups — including Justice Action Center, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area and Cornell Law School’s Path2Papers — filed a Freedom of Information Act request, demanding the Trump administration release data on how it is processing DACA renewals and what, if any, policy changes are driving the delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say DACA recipients are now making major life decisions — about their jobs, their housing, their families — without knowing when or whether their renewals will come through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vanessa Rivas-Bernardy, a staff attorney at Justice Action Center, said the delays reflect a program under sustained administrative pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083229\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Connie Chan rallies against Kaiser’s plans to terminate a DACA recipient registered nurse outside of Kaiser Permanente on Geary Street in San Francisco on May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“DACA recipients have been living in two-year increments — all their decisions, their whole lives are in these two-year chunks,” Rivas-Bernardy said. “This is just an exacerbation of that uncertainty and risk, but it’s been completely ramping up in recent months in a way we really haven’t seen before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the government does not respond to the FOIA request within 20 calendar days, Rivas-Bernardy said the coalition is prepared to file a federal lawsuit to compel disclosure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan attended Monday’s rally and called on Kaiser to change course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our nurses — DACA or otherwise — should not be punished for the Trump administration’s incompetence,” Chan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her written statement, the nurse said she is still holding on to hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know I am worthy, good enough, an exceptional nurse and member of this society,” she wrote. “I am a DACA recipient — a dreamer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Dozens of nurses rallied outside \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/kaiser\">Kaiser\u003c/a> San Francisco on Monday to advocate for a San Francisco nurse who is set to lose her job — after the federal government did not process her temporary legal status in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surgical nurse, who has lived in the U.S. for most of her life and will remain anonymous due to safety concerns, immigrated from the Philippines when she was two years old. As an employee of Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center on Geary Boulevard, the nurse filed her DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, renewal application on Dec.1 — exactly 135 days before her status was set to expire on April 15. Despite applying well within the recommended window, she said she has not heard back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When her status lapsed, Kaiser placed her on 30 days of unpaid leave. That window closes on May 14. In response to her inquiries, Kaiser wrote that “It is your responsibility to keep your work authorization current,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2026/05/kaiser-nurse-daca-renewal-delay-san-francisco/\">\u003cem>Mission Local\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which first reported her case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kaiser said the organization was evaluating potential solutions. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been working directly with our employee to support her through this as best we can. We have been working with the union as well, and appreciate their advocacy on behalf of our employee. We are currently evaluating what potential solutions are available,” a spokesperson said in a statement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside of Kaiser on Monday, dozens of nurses chanted: “Defend DACA now,” calling on the hospital to extend the nurse’s unpaid leave. In a statement read aloud by fellow nurses at the rally, the soon-to-be-terminated nurse wrote: “I feel devastated and torn to pieces to be in a position where the fault lies with the innocent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, I ask Kaiser to extend my leave, because I want to thrive, too,” it said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hers is not an isolated case. According to the Migration Policy Institute, an estimated 500,000 immigrants currently hold DACA status, and many have been caught in a surge of federal processing delays — a trend that advocates told KQED accelerated this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083226\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083226\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00122_TV-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diana Alfaro, a registered nurse, rallies against Kaiser’s plans to terminate a DACA recipient registered nurse outside of Kaiser Permanente on Geary Street in San Francisco on May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which serves more than 1,000 active DACA clients, said that over half of renewal requests filed since November 2025 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lisa Hoffman, the organization’s co-executive director, said delays of 150 days or more are now common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is just the latest attack,” Hoffman said. “It feels like DACA is being chipped away at piece by piece every day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sydney Simpson, a registered nurse at Kaiser San Francisco, said the hospital’s decision is both morally and practically wrong.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“To replace a nurse with her level of expertise is extremely painful for the organization — it’s expensive, it hurts our morale as nurses and it hurts patient quality of care,” Simpson said. “It seems like a really easy decision, but for whatever reason, they are holding their ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nurses pointed to a stark contrast with the University of California health system. Maureen Dugan, a UCSF registered nurse, said at Monday’s rally that the UC’s union contract explicitly protects DACA nurses from termination during renewal delays — and guarantees recall rights if they are temporarily let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“UC is committed to supporting DACA staff,” Dugan said. “We won that language in our last contract negotiations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, a coalition of Bay Area immigrant rights groups — including Justice Action Center, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area and Cornell Law School’s Path2Papers — filed a Freedom of Information Act request, demanding the Trump administration release data on how it is processing DACA renewals and what, if any, policy changes are driving the delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say DACA recipients are now making major life decisions — about their jobs, their housing, their families — without knowing when or whether their renewals will come through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vanessa Rivas-Bernardy, a staff attorney at Justice Action Center, said the delays reflect a program under sustained administrative pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12083229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12083229\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-KAISERDACA00360_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Connie Chan rallies against Kaiser’s plans to terminate a DACA recipient registered nurse outside of Kaiser Permanente on Geary Street in San Francisco on May 11, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“DACA recipients have been living in two-year increments — all their decisions, their whole lives are in these two-year chunks,” Rivas-Bernardy said. “This is just an exacerbation of that uncertainty and risk, but it’s been completely ramping up in recent months in a way we really haven’t seen before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the government does not respond to the FOIA request within 20 calendar days, Rivas-Bernardy said the coalition is prepared to file a federal lawsuit to compel disclosure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan attended Monday’s rally and called on Kaiser to change course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our nurses — DACA or otherwise — should not be punished for the Trump administration’s incompetence,” Chan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her written statement, the nurse said she is still holding on to hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know I am worthy, good enough, an exceptional nurse and member of this society,” she wrote. “I am a DACA recipient — a dreamer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California’s trial courts will have to collect and report data on civil arrests at their facilities, including those by federal immigration agents, under \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080832/tracking-ice-arrests-inside-california-courts\">a rule approved Friday\u003c/a> by the state’s judicial policymaking body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new requirement by the Judicial Council of California comes in response to an unprecedented rise in detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071732/california-chief-justice-steps-up-monitoring-of-immigration-arrests-at-courthouses\">at superior courts across California’s judicial system\u003c/a>, the nation’s largest. Attorneys, judges and public safety advocates have criticized the practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our court users have expressed concern and hesitation about coming to court. That concern has been amplified by additional visits to the Oroville courthouse by federal officers,” Sharif Elmallah, the court executive officer of the Superior Court of Butte County, told the council of mostly judges and attorneys Friday. “We know that when individuals fear potential arrest and enforcement actions, many will choose not to appear, even when required to by court order.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmallah said immigration enforcement officers apprehended several people who had cases before the court in Oroville on a single day in July. The agents have kept operating at the court, he added, including as recently as Wednesday of this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Victims of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and wage theft, advocates say, are declining to seek relief in court out of fear of encountering immigration enforcement there, hurting people’s access to justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Making courthouses a focus of immigration enforcement hinders, rather than helps, the administration of justice by deterring witnesses and victims from coming forward and discouraging individuals from asserting their rights,” California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said in earlier \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.courts.ca.gov/news/california-chief-justice-issues-statement-immigration-enforcement-california-courthouses\">statements\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11737489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2.jpg\" alt=\"The Alameda County Superior Courthouse, pictured on April 2, 2019.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-1200x801.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, seen on April 2, 2019. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Lister/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB668\">already prohibits\u003c/a> arrests related to immigration offenses and other civil law violations at court buildings, except when the enforcement agency has a written order signed by a judge, known as a judicial warrant. But immigrant advocates, public defenders and others say the state law lacks teeth, arguing that ICE has flouted it without any repercussions so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a bill working its way through the state Legislature aims to strengthen the ban on courthouse civil arrests and expand protections for people going to and from courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the Judicial Council’s separate new rule, the state’s 58 trial courts starting in June will be required to track and report whether officers identified themselves, presented a warrant or took an individual into custody, as well as the date and location of each incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the move will help state officials understand the scope of the issue, it won’t protect people’s fundamental right to access the courts, said Tina Rosales-Torres, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law and Poverty who estimates that ICE has conducted hundreds of arrests at California courts since January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a good first step. It is good to have data. I do not think it is sufficient to meet the crisis that we are in,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it is going to be helpful to kind of see at least a snippet of what is happening,” Rosales-Torres added. “But then what? The Judicial Council hasn’t proposed a solution, and data is only as effective as we use it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immigration arrests at California courthouses used to be rare, reserved for cases involving national security or other significant threats. As recently as 2021, during the first year of the Biden administration, top ICE officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ciEnforcementActionsCourthouses.pdf\">recognized\u003c/a> that routinely apprehending people in or near courts would spread fear and hurt the fair administration of justice.[aside postID=news_12080871 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/20251028_Immigrant-Mass-_Hernandez-7_qed.jpg']Since last year, as authorities moved to fulfill Trump’s mass deportation promises, federal officers have approached and handcuffed at least dozens of people at court hallways, exits and parking lots in Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and other counties. In San Bernardino, \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/post/advocates-raise-alarm-federal-arrests-rancho-cucamonga-courthouse/18863326/\">TV cameras filmed\u003c/a> agents in black vests restraining several men at the Rancho Cucamonga court parking lot in a single day this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some attorneys now warn clients they could see immigration enforcement in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Witnesses are failing to show up, and others are opting out of fighting legitimate cases, said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association. She and Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods wrote an \u003ca href=\"https://capitolweekly.net/ice-raids-in-our-courts-must-stop-now/\">opinion piece\u003c/a> condemning ICE’s presence in state courts after the agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057368/unprecedented-ice-arrest-inside-oakland-courthouse-draws-backlash\">arrested a man\u003c/a> leaving a court hearing in Oakland in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a foundational element of democracy to have a functioning court system,” Chatfield said. “And when people are afraid to go to court for whatever reason, you’ve really denied justice to an entire segment of our residents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 873, the bill that would strengthen California’s ban on civil arrests at courthouses, would also authorize the attorney general and those who are arrested to sue over violations. People would be entitled to damages of $10,000. The bill, by state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, D–San Bernardino, is supported by the California Public Defenders Association, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and other groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is part of a larger pushback in California against a surge in immigration enforcement netting more people without criminal convictions in cities’ public areas, parking lots of stores like Home Depot and at routine immigration check-ins. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1103\">SB 1103\u003c/a>, for instance, would require big-box home improvement retailers to report ICE enforcement activity at their facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other states, such as New York, also prohibit the civil arrests of people at courthouses or those traveling to and from such facilities unless an officer has a judicial warrant. The Trump administration challenged New York’s law last year, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California’s trial courts will have to collect and report data on civil arrests at their facilities, including those by federal immigration agents, under \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080832/tracking-ice-arrests-inside-california-courts\">a rule approved Friday\u003c/a> by the state’s judicial policymaking body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new requirement by the Judicial Council of California comes in response to an unprecedented rise in detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071732/california-chief-justice-steps-up-monitoring-of-immigration-arrests-at-courthouses\">at superior courts across California’s judicial system\u003c/a>, the nation’s largest. Attorneys, judges and public safety advocates have criticized the practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our court users have expressed concern and hesitation about coming to court. That concern has been amplified by additional visits to the Oroville courthouse by federal officers,” Sharif Elmallah, the court executive officer of the Superior Court of Butte County, told the council of mostly judges and attorneys Friday. “We know that when individuals fear potential arrest and enforcement actions, many will choose not to appear, even when required to by court order.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmallah said immigration enforcement officers apprehended several people who had cases before the court in Oroville on a single day in July. The agents have kept operating at the court, he added, including as recently as Wednesday of this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Victims of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and wage theft, advocates say, are declining to seek relief in court out of fear of encountering immigration enforcement there, hurting people’s access to justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Making courthouses a focus of immigration enforcement hinders, rather than helps, the administration of justice by deterring witnesses and victims from coming forward and discouraging individuals from asserting their rights,” California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said in earlier \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.courts.ca.gov/news/california-chief-justice-issues-statement-immigration-enforcement-california-courthouses\">statements\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11737489\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11737489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2.jpg\" alt=\"The Alameda County Superior Courthouse, pictured on April 2, 2019.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/ghost-ship-trial-2-1200x801.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, seen on April 2, 2019. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Lister/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB668\">already prohibits\u003c/a> arrests related to immigration offenses and other civil law violations at court buildings, except when the enforcement agency has a written order signed by a judge, known as a judicial warrant. But immigrant advocates, public defenders and others say the state law lacks teeth, arguing that ICE has flouted it without any repercussions so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a bill working its way through the state Legislature aims to strengthen the ban on courthouse civil arrests and expand protections for people going to and from courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the Judicial Council’s separate new rule, the state’s 58 trial courts starting in June will be required to track and report whether officers identified themselves, presented a warrant or took an individual into custody, as well as the date and location of each incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the move will help state officials understand the scope of the issue, it won’t protect people’s fundamental right to access the courts, said Tina Rosales-Torres, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law and Poverty who estimates that ICE has conducted hundreds of arrests at California courts since January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a good first step. It is good to have data. I do not think it is sufficient to meet the crisis that we are in,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it is going to be helpful to kind of see at least a snippet of what is happening,” Rosales-Torres added. “But then what? The Judicial Council hasn’t proposed a solution, and data is only as effective as we use it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immigration arrests at California courthouses used to be rare, reserved for cases involving national security or other significant threats. As recently as 2021, during the first year of the Biden administration, top ICE officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ciEnforcementActionsCourthouses.pdf\">recognized\u003c/a> that routinely apprehending people in or near courts would spread fear and hurt the fair administration of justice.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since last year, as authorities moved to fulfill Trump’s mass deportation promises, federal officers have approached and handcuffed at least dozens of people at court hallways, exits and parking lots in Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and other counties. In San Bernardino, \u003ca href=\"https://abc7.com/post/advocates-raise-alarm-federal-arrests-rancho-cucamonga-courthouse/18863326/\">TV cameras filmed\u003c/a> agents in black vests restraining several men at the Rancho Cucamonga court parking lot in a single day this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some attorneys now warn clients they could see immigration enforcement in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Witnesses are failing to show up, and others are opting out of fighting legitimate cases, said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association. She and Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods wrote an \u003ca href=\"https://capitolweekly.net/ice-raids-in-our-courts-must-stop-now/\">opinion piece\u003c/a> condemning ICE’s presence in state courts after the agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057368/unprecedented-ice-arrest-inside-oakland-courthouse-draws-backlash\">arrested a man\u003c/a> leaving a court hearing in Oakland in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a foundational element of democracy to have a functioning court system,” Chatfield said. “And when people are afraid to go to court for whatever reason, you’ve really denied justice to an entire segment of our residents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 873, the bill that would strengthen California’s ban on civil arrests at courthouses, would also authorize the attorney general and those who are arrested to sue over violations. People would be entitled to damages of $10,000. The bill, by state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, D–San Bernardino, is supported by the California Public Defenders Association, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and other groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is part of a larger pushback in California against a surge in immigration enforcement netting more people without criminal convictions in cities’ public areas, parking lots of stores like Home Depot and at routine immigration check-ins. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1103\">SB 1103\u003c/a>, for instance, would require big-box home improvement retailers to report ICE enforcement activity at their facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other states, such as New York, also prohibit the civil arrests of people at courthouses or those traveling to and from such facilities unless an officer has a judicial warrant. The Trump administration challenged New York’s law last year, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-demands-trump-withdraw-proposal-targeting-housing-for-mixed-status-families",
"title": "California Demands Trump Withdraw Proposal Targeting Housing for Mixed-Status Families",
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"headTitle": "California Demands Trump Withdraw Proposal Targeting Housing for Mixed-Status Families | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s Civil Rights Department is warning that the Trump administration’s crackdown on federal housing assistance for families with mixed immigration status could leave up to 30,000 people in the state at risk of eviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter this week, the state agency called on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to walk back the proposal, which it said would force thousands to confront “inhumane choices” between facing eviction or separating from their loved ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘We want them to withdraw this rule in its entirety,” CRD Director Kevin Kish said. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s going to harm people. It’s not going to help anyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, HUD proposed a change to federal housing policy requiring that every person in housing that receives the assistance submit proof of U.S. citizenship or of their eligibility as a noncitizen (as a refugee, asylum seeker or lawful resident). Those unable to do so could be evicted from HUD-supported programs, like public housing or Section 8 vouchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said at the time, adding that currently, only about a quarter of eligible Americans have access to HUD resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, a coalition of nearly 20 U.S. cities and counties, including San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County, also submitted a comment opposing the change, warning it would destabilize affordable housing operations. The National Housing Conference, which also submitted a letter, said the proposal “doesn’t fix a problem — it creates one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11738375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11738375 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A young girl holds a sign during a demonstration outside of the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 19, 2018 in San Francisco over the Trump administration family separation policy.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1276\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-1200x798.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young girl holds a sign during a demonstration outside of the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 19, 2018, in San Francisco over the Trump administration’s family separation policy. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a step backward that undermines decades of policy precedent that already balanced statutory compliance, family stability, administrative feasibility, and prudent stewardship of scarce federal housing resources,” the letter reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUD policy already prorates housing subsidies for mixed-status households to ensure that the benefit only applies to family members who have confirmed their immigration status. Eliminating those prorated subsidies, Kish wrote in the CDR letter on Tuesday, would cause the number and quality of public housing units to decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“HUD says that the goal is to make more housing available to eligible people, but its own analysis shows that won’t happen,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, household members who aren’t eligible for HUD assistance still contribute to the cost of housing. Kish said that HUD has estimated the proposed rule would require spending an additional $2,100 per household, which it anticipates would be paid for by reducing the number of households served by federal housing programs or by reducing the average spending on housing assistance.[aside postID=news_12079829 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/ImmigrantTaxes-GilsTaxServices.jpg']California has the highest percentage of mixed-status households in the U.S., accounting for about 36% of those that could be impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About three-fourths of those families consist of children who are of eligible status, and parents who are not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Separation is not a viable option for these families, and they will therefore be forced out of their homes,” the letter continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, of an estimated 645 tenants who could be affected, about 210 are children and 40 are seniors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government should be helping to prevent homelessness, not making it worse,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said. “This rule would destabilize affordable housing nationwide, increase homelessness, and punish eligible people simply because of who lives in their household.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 70% of residents in mixed-status households have an eligible immigration status, the letter from the cities argues that the policy would be most harmful to people who are eligible for housing assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CRD also alleges that the proposed rule could lead to eligible seniors and people with disabilities losing their access to housing assistance, since all family members will have to submit to new verification procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Significant numbers of senior citizens, citizens of color, citizens with disabilities, transgender citizens, and citizens with low incomes may be disproportionately affected,” the letter reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11888806\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11888806 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/GettyImages-1031228044-scaled-e1776901494677.jpg\" alt=\"A man and young boy hold hands as they walk in silhouette on an urban sidewalk in early morning sun.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Honduran father and his 6-year-old son walk to Sunday Mass on Sept. 9, 2018, in Oakland, California. They were one of almost 2,600 families separated due to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kish said that the department’s intent in filing the letter is to establish a record of opposition — and require HUD to respond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to hear what they have to say in response to our arguments,” he said. “And then if the rule goes forward, our letter helps us set up a challenge because we also believe that the rule is unlawful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kish wrote in his letter that the rule is unlawful under intentional discrimination and disparate impact analyses. He said what a legal challenge could look like is not yet known, and would be a conversation with the attorney general’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It represents a glaring example of HUD’s failure to abide by its duty under the [Fair Housing Act of 1968]to administer housing programs in ways that ‘mov[e] the nation toward a more integrated society,’” Kish wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ahall\">\u003cem>Alex Hall\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A state civil rights agency said the proposed change to the U.S. housing assistance policy would force families with mixed-immigration status to choose between facing eviction or separation from their loved ones.",
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"title": "California Demands Trump Withdraw Proposal Targeting Housing for Mixed-Status Families | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>’s Civil Rights Department is warning that the Trump administration’s crackdown on federal housing assistance for families with mixed immigration status could leave up to 30,000 people in the state at risk of eviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter this week, the state agency called on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to walk back the proposal, which it said would force thousands to confront “inhumane choices” between facing eviction or separating from their loved ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘We want them to withdraw this rule in its entirety,” CRD Director Kevin Kish said. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s going to harm people. It’s not going to help anyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, HUD proposed a change to federal housing policy requiring that every person in housing that receives the assistance submit proof of U.S. citizenship or of their eligibility as a noncitizen (as a refugee, asylum seeker or lawful resident). Those unable to do so could be evicted from HUD-supported programs, like public housing or Section 8 vouchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have zero tolerance for pushing aside hardworking U.S. citizens while enabling others to exploit decades-old loopholes,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said at the time, adding that currently, only about a quarter of eligible Americans have access to HUD resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, a coalition of nearly 20 U.S. cities and counties, including San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County, also submitted a comment opposing the change, warning it would destabilize affordable housing operations. The National Housing Conference, which also submitted a letter, said the proposal “doesn’t fix a problem — it creates one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11738375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11738375 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A young girl holds a sign during a demonstration outside of the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 19, 2018 in San Francisco over the Trump administration family separation policy.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1276\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/RS36430_GettyImages-978854834-qut-1200x798.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young girl holds a sign during a demonstration outside of the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 19, 2018, in San Francisco over the Trump administration’s family separation policy. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a step backward that undermines decades of policy precedent that already balanced statutory compliance, family stability, administrative feasibility, and prudent stewardship of scarce federal housing resources,” the letter reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUD policy already prorates housing subsidies for mixed-status households to ensure that the benefit only applies to family members who have confirmed their immigration status. Eliminating those prorated subsidies, Kish wrote in the CDR letter on Tuesday, would cause the number and quality of public housing units to decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“HUD says that the goal is to make more housing available to eligible people, but its own analysis shows that won’t happen,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, household members who aren’t eligible for HUD assistance still contribute to the cost of housing. Kish said that HUD has estimated the proposed rule would require spending an additional $2,100 per household, which it anticipates would be paid for by reducing the number of households served by federal housing programs or by reducing the average spending on housing assistance.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California has the highest percentage of mixed-status households in the U.S., accounting for about 36% of those that could be impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About three-fourths of those families consist of children who are of eligible status, and parents who are not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Separation is not a viable option for these families, and they will therefore be forced out of their homes,” the letter continues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, of an estimated 645 tenants who could be affected, about 210 are children and 40 are seniors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government should be helping to prevent homelessness, not making it worse,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said. “This rule would destabilize affordable housing nationwide, increase homelessness, and punish eligible people simply because of who lives in their household.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 70% of residents in mixed-status households have an eligible immigration status, the letter from the cities argues that the policy would be most harmful to people who are eligible for housing assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CRD also alleges that the proposed rule could lead to eligible seniors and people with disabilities losing their access to housing assistance, since all family members will have to submit to new verification procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Significant numbers of senior citizens, citizens of color, citizens with disabilities, transgender citizens, and citizens with low incomes may be disproportionately affected,” the letter reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11888806\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11888806 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/09/GettyImages-1031228044-scaled-e1776901494677.jpg\" alt=\"A man and young boy hold hands as they walk in silhouette on an urban sidewalk in early morning sun.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Honduran father and his 6-year-old son walk to Sunday Mass on Sept. 9, 2018, in Oakland, California. They were one of almost 2,600 families separated due to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kish said that the department’s intent in filing the letter is to establish a record of opposition — and require HUD to respond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to hear what they have to say in response to our arguments,” he said. “And then if the rule goes forward, our letter helps us set up a challenge because we also believe that the rule is unlawful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kish wrote in his letter that the rule is unlawful under intentional discrimination and disparate impact analyses. He said what a legal challenge could look like is not yet known, and would be a conversation with the attorney general’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It represents a glaring example of HUD’s failure to abide by its duty under the [Fair Housing Act of 1968]to administer housing programs in ways that ‘mov[e] the nation toward a more integrated society,’” Kish wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ahall\">\u003cem>Alex Hall\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "as-supreme-court-weighs-birthright-citizenship-sf-advocates-are-ready-to-stand-up",
"title": "Supreme Court Justices Skeptical of Trump’s Challenge to Birthright Citizenship",
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"headTitle": "Supreme Court Justices Skeptical of Trump’s Challenge to Birthright Citizenship | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Justices appeared to lean toward rejecting the Trump administration’s challenge to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078161/trump-executive-order-ending-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling-who-is-affected-can-citizen-be-revoked\">birthright citizenship\u003c/a> during Wednesday’s oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court, where advocates from San Francisco showed up to defend the long-standing principle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite 128 years of Supreme Court precedent holding that babies born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status — dating back to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">case out of San Francisco\u003c/a> — the justices agreed to hear arguments in Trump v. Barbara. The Trump administration is seeking to defend a January 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">executive order\u003c/a> from the president stating that, unless a child has a parent who’s a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, they are not a U.S. citizen by birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every lower court that has weighed in, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-judges-immigration-be729b836581858a118ca92a0d083336?user_email=2a0bd7f2418d4be9198f23bf99a161f3f7a98fb9bf6d3820763d49b5c5f8fc81&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_Mon_March30_2026&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire\">has ruled\u003c/a> Trump’s order unconstitutional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During oral arguments Wednesday morning in Washington, conservative justices, whose votes will be key, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship-immigrants-4dca3a4e06f58d4378412ed711fab3a8?user_email=2a0bd7f2418d4be9198f23bf99a161f3f7a98fb9bf6d3820763d49b5c5f8fc81&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_Wed_Apr1_2026&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire\">posed difficult questions\u003c/a> to Solicitor General John Sauer, the federal government’s representative in the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The administration argued the amendment was ratified specifically to grant citizenship to former slaves born in the U.S., rather than children of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, but Coney Barrett pointed out that that isn’t in the amendment text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that Sauer’s argument relied on outlier exceptions to the 14th Amendment to argue against broader birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055174\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12055174 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left to right: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Win McNamee/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” Roberts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The precedent behind birthright citizenship goes back to an 1898 ruling in the case brought by San Francisco-born Wong Kim Ark, who was barred from reentry under the Chinese Exclusion Act after a trip to visit family in China, even though he carried paperwork attesting to his U.S. birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justices ruled in Wong’s favor, pointing to the 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1868 after the abolition of slavery, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s current argument seeking to restrict birthright citizenship hinges on the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which Sauer has asserted promises citizenship only to people who are “completely subject” to the U.S. and owe “direct and immediate allegiance” to the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In legal filings, Sauer said the Wong Kim Ark decision has been read too generously and does not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants and people in the U.S. temporarily because that “degrades the meaning and value of American citizenship.” He wrote that that interpretation has “incentivized” illegal immigration and “birth tourism” by people who want to gain a toehold to a life in the U.S.[aside postID=news_12078161 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty1.jpg']Among those outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday was Norman Wong. An East Bay resident and retired carpenter, Wong, 76, is the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong was born in San Francisco but didn’t grow up knowing the story of his ancestor or the role he played in U.S. history. He says when he first learned about Wong Kim Ark’s case 25 years ago, he thought it was “a curiosity of history” because birthright citizenship was settled law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I grew up knowing that I was American. All the kids that I ran around with, they knew they were American. Why? They were born here,” he told KQED ahead of the hearing. “It’s like assuming every time you breathe in and out, you get air. It was part of your whole being. We were proud to be American.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Supreme Court hearing, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said birthright citizenship is foundational to American democracy and promises equality under law to all children, regardless of race, class or parental background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a guarantee that every child born here has a personal stake in the American dream,” Bonta said. “It tells you something that President Trump willfully chose to start his second term by trying to knock down this fundamental and long-standing right. Fortunately, I believe he will fail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking outside the courtroom, Cecillia Wang, who argued on behalf of the ACLU, said the case was “nerve-wracking,” but appeared hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could not be more confident that despite the policy preferences of the current administration, that this attack on what it means to be American in the most fundamental way … will be turned down,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12078174 size-full\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People wait in line outside the Supreme Court Justice building to attend oral arguments on birthright citizenship, a day before the court is scheduled to address the case, on March 31, 2026, in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is set to convene on April 1 to consider the legality of President Trump’s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overturning the principle of birthright citizenship would create a bureaucratic nightmare and threaten the very fabric of American society, according to Winnie Kao, senior counsel with San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus, who is an attorney of record on the Barbara case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be a radical departure from over 120 years of precedent and understanding,” said Kao, whose organization had attorneys in court Wednesday alongside the ACLU and others. “It would be really hard for the public to understand and, I think, to accept.”[aside postID=news_12015449 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/20241119_BirthrightCitizenshipExplainer_GC-16_qed-1020x680.jpg']Since Trump’s executive order, Kao said her office has been fielding “powerful and upsetting” questions from people who are either undocumented or in the U.S. on temporary work or student visas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do you prove citizenship for your newborn when it’s not based on a birth certificate anymore?” she said. “Parents are calling us, wondering if their baby’s going to be subject to deportation … and what will statelessness mean for my baby?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in California believe the executive order would impose a useful limit on birthright citizenship. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, said the increased number of migrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration was justification for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It … brought to a head the fundamental question of whether any person in the world can break into our country, have a baby at taxpayer expense, have that baby declared an American citizen and then use that as a pretext to remain,” McClintock wrote in a Washington Times op-ed. “President Trump has issued an executive order challenging that notion for all future births.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Trump’s executive order, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023126/california-leaders-to-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-border-policies\">California immediately filed suit\u003c/a> along with 23 other states, the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia. While that case was not before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Bonta has \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-continues-fight-defend-birthright-citizenship-us-supreme\">filed a “friend of the court” brief\u003c/a> in the Barbara case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s said that California stands to lose federal funding for key health and education programs if nearly 25,000 babies born in the state each year lose the right to citizenship because of their parentage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032980\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032980\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, stands in front of a mural featuring his great-grandfather in San Francisco’s Chinatown on March 24, 2025, where Wong Kim Ark was born. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The effort to repeal birthright citizenship is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to restrict immigration and the rights of immigrants, including increasing arrests and deportations, halting refugee admissions, stripping temporary legal status from people fleeing war and instability, and invoking a travel ban against 39 countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong, whose great-grandfather’s case established the bedrock principle, said he considers Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship a first step in a larger effort to chip away at civil rights and the rule of law in this country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to stop it,” he said. “We need to be a principled people — with clear laws and clear ideas of who we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong said he’s watched that erosion accelerate over the past 15 months, culminating in the shooting deaths this winter of two Minneapolis protesters by immigration agents. He sees parallels between the bravery of his ancestors facing down anti-Chinese bigotry in the 19th century and Renee Good and Alex Pretti standing up for immigrants today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They weren’t violent. They didn’t do anything that deserved their lives. … We all should stand up, because two people died for all of us,” Wong said. “Are we just going to let it happen? Or are we going to stand up? Wong Kim Ark, he stood up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Justices appeared to lean toward rejecting the Trump administration’s challenge to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078161/trump-executive-order-ending-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling-who-is-affected-can-citizen-be-revoked\">birthright citizenship\u003c/a> during Wednesday’s oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court, where advocates from San Francisco showed up to defend the long-standing principle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite 128 years of Supreme Court precedent holding that babies born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status — dating back to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">case out of San Francisco\u003c/a> — the justices agreed to hear arguments in Trump v. Barbara. The Trump administration is seeking to defend a January 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">executive order\u003c/a> from the president stating that, unless a child has a parent who’s a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, they are not a U.S. citizen by birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every lower court that has weighed in, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-judges-immigration-be729b836581858a118ca92a0d083336?user_email=2a0bd7f2418d4be9198f23bf99a161f3f7a98fb9bf6d3820763d49b5c5f8fc81&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_Mon_March30_2026&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire\">has ruled\u003c/a> Trump’s order unconstitutional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During oral arguments Wednesday morning in Washington, conservative justices, whose votes will be key, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship-immigrants-4dca3a4e06f58d4378412ed711fab3a8?user_email=2a0bd7f2418d4be9198f23bf99a161f3f7a98fb9bf6d3820763d49b5c5f8fc81&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_Wed_Apr1_2026&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire\">posed difficult questions\u003c/a> to Solicitor General John Sauer, the federal government’s representative in the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The administration argued the amendment was ratified specifically to grant citizenship to former slaves born in the U.S., rather than children of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, but Coney Barrett pointed out that that isn’t in the amendment text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that Sauer’s argument relied on outlier exceptions to the 14th Amendment to argue against broader birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055174\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12055174 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/Brett-Kavanaugh-Getty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left to right: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Win McNamee/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” Roberts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The precedent behind birthright citizenship goes back to an 1898 ruling in the case brought by San Francisco-born Wong Kim Ark, who was barred from reentry under the Chinese Exclusion Act after a trip to visit family in China, even though he carried paperwork attesting to his U.S. birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justices ruled in Wong’s favor, pointing to the 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1868 after the abolition of slavery, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration’s current argument seeking to restrict birthright citizenship hinges on the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which Sauer has asserted promises citizenship only to people who are “completely subject” to the U.S. and owe “direct and immediate allegiance” to the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In legal filings, Sauer said the Wong Kim Ark decision has been read too generously and does not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants and people in the U.S. temporarily because that “degrades the meaning and value of American citizenship.” He wrote that that interpretation has “incentivized” illegal immigration and “birth tourism” by people who want to gain a toehold to a life in the U.S.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Among those outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday was Norman Wong. An East Bay resident and retired carpenter, Wong, 76, is the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong was born in San Francisco but didn’t grow up knowing the story of his ancestor or the role he played in U.S. history. He says when he first learned about Wong Kim Ark’s case 25 years ago, he thought it was “a curiosity of history” because birthright citizenship was settled law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I grew up knowing that I was American. All the kids that I ran around with, they knew they were American. Why? They were born here,” he told KQED ahead of the hearing. “It’s like assuming every time you breathe in and out, you get air. It was part of your whole being. We were proud to be American.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Supreme Court hearing, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said birthright citizenship is foundational to American democracy and promises equality under law to all children, regardless of race, class or parental background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a guarantee that every child born here has a personal stake in the American dream,” Bonta said. “It tells you something that President Trump willfully chose to start his second term by trying to knock down this fundamental and long-standing right. Fortunately, I believe he will fail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking outside the courtroom, Cecillia Wang, who argued on behalf of the ACLU, said the case was “nerve-wracking,” but appeared hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could not be more confident that despite the policy preferences of the current administration, that this attack on what it means to be American in the most fundamental way … will be turned down,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12078174 size-full\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/SCOTUSBirthrightCitizenshipGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People wait in line outside the Supreme Court Justice building to attend oral arguments on birthright citizenship, a day before the court is scheduled to address the case, on March 31, 2026, in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is set to convene on April 1 to consider the legality of President Trump’s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overturning the principle of birthright citizenship would create a bureaucratic nightmare and threaten the very fabric of American society, according to Winnie Kao, senior counsel with San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus, who is an attorney of record on the Barbara case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be a radical departure from over 120 years of precedent and understanding,” said Kao, whose organization had attorneys in court Wednesday alongside the ACLU and others. “It would be really hard for the public to understand and, I think, to accept.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since Trump’s executive order, Kao said her office has been fielding “powerful and upsetting” questions from people who are either undocumented or in the U.S. on temporary work or student visas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do you prove citizenship for your newborn when it’s not based on a birth certificate anymore?” she said. “Parents are calling us, wondering if their baby’s going to be subject to deportation … and what will statelessness mean for my baby?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in California believe the executive order would impose a useful limit on birthright citizenship. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, said the increased number of migrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration was justification for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It … brought to a head the fundamental question of whether any person in the world can break into our country, have a baby at taxpayer expense, have that baby declared an American citizen and then use that as a pretext to remain,” McClintock wrote in a Washington Times op-ed. “President Trump has issued an executive order challenging that notion for all future births.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Trump’s executive order, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023126/california-leaders-to-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-border-policies\">California immediately filed suit\u003c/a> along with 23 other states, the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia. While that case was not before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Bonta has \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-continues-fight-defend-birthright-citizenship-us-supreme\">filed a “friend of the court” brief\u003c/a> in the Barbara case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s said that California stands to lose federal funding for key health and education programs if nearly 25,000 babies born in the state each year lose the right to citizenship because of their parentage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032980\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032980\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250324-WongKimArk-02-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, stands in front of a mural featuring his great-grandfather in San Francisco’s Chinatown on March 24, 2025, where Wong Kim Ark was born. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The effort to repeal birthright citizenship is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to restrict immigration and the rights of immigrants, including increasing arrests and deportations, halting refugee admissions, stripping temporary legal status from people fleeing war and instability, and invoking a travel ban against 39 countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong, whose great-grandfather’s case established the bedrock principle, said he considers Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship a first step in a larger effort to chip away at civil rights and the rule of law in this country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to stop it,” he said. “We need to be a principled people — with clear laws and clear ideas of who we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong said he’s watched that erosion accelerate over the past 15 months, culminating in the shooting deaths this winter of two Minneapolis protesters by immigration agents. He sees parallels between the bravery of his ancestors facing down anti-Chinese bigotry in the 19th century and Renee Good and Alex Pretti standing up for immigrants today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They weren’t violent. They didn’t do anything that deserved their lives. … We all should stand up, because two people died for all of us,” Wong said. “Are we just going to let it happen? Or are we going to stand up? Wong Kim Ark, he stood up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "trump-executive-order-ending-birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-ruling-who-is-affected-can-citizen-be-revoked",
"title": "Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court: Who Could Be Affected by Trump’s Order?",
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"headTitle": "Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court: Who Could Be Affected by Trump’s Order? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On the same day he returned to the White House in 2025, President \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/donald-trump\">Donald Trump\u003c/a> signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046217/what-the-supreme-courts-latest-ruling-means-for-birthright-citizenship%5C\">an executive order\u003c/a> that would severely limit birthright citizenship in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, a lawsuit challenging this policy has reached the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices will hear arguments in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em> and decide if the president’s order — which would deny American citizenship to babies born in the country to parents who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents— is in line with the Constitution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s at stake in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Several lower courts have already ruled against the Trump administration and blocked the executive order from being enforced in the last 14 months. If the Supreme Court strikes down the order, that would confirm the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">longstanding interpretation\u003c/a> of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#CouldTrumpsexecutiveorderrevokeanyonesAmericancitizenship\">Could Trump’s executive order revoke anyone’s American citizenship?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#ImhavingababysoonCouldmyfamilybeaffected\">I’m having a baby soon. Could my family be affected?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The White House, however, \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">argues\u003c/a> that unless a child has a parent who’s a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, they should not be a U.S. citizen by birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If both parents are immigrants with no permanent legal status — a category that includes parents with no immigration documents, but also those with a student visa or temporary work permit — Trump’s executive order would deny those children U.S. citizenship at birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954996\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954996\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The ornate columned facade of the US Supreme Court.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Supreme Court in Washington on April 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2023, around 300,000 babies were born to undocumented parents, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/\">according to the Pew Research Center\u003c/a>. According to Trump’s order, these babies are “not subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. government and therefore do not qualify for citizenship. But the federal government has not provided clear information on what legal status would be provided to children born in this situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our community members would be stateless,” said Roslyne Shiao, co-executive director for AAPI New Jersey, an advocacy group for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that has also organized a rally at the Supreme Court on Wednesday in defense of birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court is expected to deliver its ruling sometime between June and July. As the country waits for this decision, KQED will be responding to questions from audience members about what’s at stake in this legal battle and what families need to know about the potential impacts of this Supreme Court ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What does Trump’s birthright citizenship order say?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 20, Trump signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">an executive order\u003c/a> declaring that the federal government would no longer grant documents that confirm citizenship, like a Social Security Number or passport, to children born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, who are in the following situations:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>At the time of birth, the baby’s biological mother was “unlawfully present” (with no legal status) in the U.S., and the biological father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>At the time of birth, the baby’s biological mother was in the U.S. with a temporary visa or permit, and the biological father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/GettyImages-2262729717-scaled-e1773182284895.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1413\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The text of the executive order, while written in legal language that is often opaque to the general public, suggests that the following families could be affected by Trump’s order:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Families where both parents have no legal immigration documents at the time of their baby’s birth\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Families where both parents only have a \u003cem>temporary \u003c/em>legal status, which could include: Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), H1-B holders, a student J-1 visa or an H-2A visa for agricultural workers, another temporary visa or humanitarian parole\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If one parent has no legal status and the other only has a temporary legal status, which could include: TPS, DACA, H1-B holders, a student J-1 visa or an H-2A visa for agricultural workers, another temporary visa or humanitarian parole.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>If the executive order is allowed to take effect, babies born to families in the above situations would not have birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is the federal government enforcing this order right now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No. The Trump administration currently cannot enforce the executive order due to a nationwide injunction \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/nx-s1-5463808/new-hampshire-judge-blocks-trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-nationwide\">issued last summer\u003c/a> by a federal judge in New Hampshire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order remains frozen until the Supreme Court makes a final decision over its legality. In the meantime, U.S. citizenship is still guaranteed to babies born to immigrant parents without permanent legal status.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who is behind \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From the moment that Trump signed his executive order in 2025, different groups have sought to stop this policy in the courtroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states — including California — announced a lawsuit the day after, and soon were able to obtain multiple nationwide injunctions from federal district judges. However, the Supreme Court \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044886/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-ruling-limits-nationwide-injunctions\">overturned these injunctions\u003c/a> last summer and ruled that lower courts had exceeded their authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078180\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078180\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1296\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2-1536x995.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nine-month-old Tyler Colt enjoys a ride on his grandfather, Keith Kennedy’s, shoulders on June 30, 2016, in League City. \u003ccite>(Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the court still allows for nationwide injunctions in class-action cases. So in response, a coalition of civil rights groups presented the \u003ca href=\"https://www.asianlawcaucus.org/news-resources/news/brief-birthright-citizenship-scotus\">class-action \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/a> on behalf of newborn babies affected by the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those groups is the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus, whose legal team is arguing that the question of birthright citizenship was established a long time ago — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">128 years ago\u003c/a>, specifically, in the landmark case \u003cem>United States v. Wong Kim Ark\u003c/em>.[aside postID=news_12015449 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/20241119_BirthrightCitizenshipExplainer_GC-16_qed-1020x680.jpg']Born in San Francisco in the 1870s to Chinese immigrants, Wong Kim Ark sued the federal government when he was denied reentry into the U.S. after a trip to China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said that Wong was not a U.S. citizen but rather a Chinese national: a population that at the time was restricted from entering the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong’s case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where the federal government asserted that Wong could not be a citizen because his parents were not under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government at the time of his birth — a very similar claim to the one the Trump administration has used to defend its executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The justices did not accept this argument and \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649\">sided with Wong\u003c/a> in 1898. In its ruling, the court declared that the Fourteenth Amendment — initially written to defend the rights of formerly enslaved African Americans and their children — also “includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons, of whatever race or color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This legal battle is about defending the legacy of Wong Kim Ark and the Bay Area’s Chinese-American community that stood by him, said Winnie Kao, senior counsel for Asian Law Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the 120-plus years since, the decision has been understood to affirm that U.S.-born children are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status,” Kao said. “All three branches of government — Republican and Democratic — have relied upon that understanding since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"CouldTrumpsexecutiveorderrevokeanyonesAmericancitizenship\">\u003c/a>Would Trump’s executive order take away anyone’s American citizenship?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump’s executive order said nothing about rescinding the citizenship of people born in the U.S. before Feb. 19, 2025, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>I’m worried: Is my newborn baby still a U.S. citizen?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump’s executive order is still blocked nationwide as the Supreme Court makes a final decision, which isn’t expected until late June or early July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this moment, if your baby was born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, the federal government will still recognize them as a U.S. citizen, regardless of your own immigration status or what state the child was born in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Trump administration, what will happen to babies excluded from U.S. citizenship?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This remains unclear. The White House did not directly answer KQED’s question regarding what legal status would be available for affected babies if the Supreme Court rules in its favor.[aside postID=news_12078171 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/gettyimages-2157829281-11-1020x680.jpeg']Instead, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email to KQED that “[t]he Supreme Court has the opportunity to review the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and restore the meaning of citizenship in the United States to its original public meaning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also did not provide information on how children excluded from U.S. citizenship at birth would be able to attain this status in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Birthright citizenship is this really powerful idea that if you’re born in this country, you belong,” said Asian Law Caucus’s Kao. “You start as a full member of this democracy, regardless of your parents’ status or circumstances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some children could seek the citizenship of their parents’ home countries, that’s not guaranteed. Some nations — like \u003ca href=\"https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/losangeles/index.php/es/regcivil-podnotariales-menu2020/registro-de-nacimiento-de-hijos-de-mexicanos-nacidos-en-el-extranjero\">Mexico\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.br/pt-br/servicos/registrar-nascimento-no-exterior\">Brazil\u003c/a> — do make it possible for parents to register their baby for citizenship at a consulate in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But other nations, including \u003ca href=\"https://en.nia.gov.cn/n147418/n147458/c155976/content.html\">China\u003c/a>, prevent someone from seeking that country’s citizenship if that person lives elsewhere. And traveling abroad would be almost impossible for U.S.-born babies affected by the order, as they would lack a passport from any country.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"ImhavingababysoonCouldmyfamilybeaffected\">\u003c/a>I’m currently expecting a baby, and my family could be affected by this executive order. Should I do anything to prepare?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some legal scholars told KQED that they’d be surprised if the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration. One major reason they point out: every lower-ranking judge involved in this legal battle has said that the executive order goes against established law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just three days after Trump signed the executive order in January 2025, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour blocked the policy. “I have been on the bench for over four decades,” Coughenour said. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078279\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078279\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student carries her baby at Lincoln Park High School, a school for pregnant students and young mothers, in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(Veronica G. Cardenas/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, the possibility still exists that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court could hand Trump an unexpected victory and overturn historical precedent — as happened \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917776/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade\">in 2022\u003c/a> when the justices struck down \u003cem>Roe. v Wade\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kao from Asian Law Caucus said that even if the Supreme Court upholds the executive order, families could nonetheless anticipate an “implementation period” before the order took effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to anyone expecting a baby very soon, Kao said, talk with an immigration lawyer as soon as possible. “Get a passport [for the baby] immediately,” she said. “Don’t sit and wait.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "For more than a year, the Trump administration has fought a legal battle to enforce an executive order that will severely limit who can be a U.S. citizen at birth. Now, the Supreme Court must make a final, binding decision on the legality of this order.",
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"title": "Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court: Who Could Be Affected by Trump’s Order? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On the same day he returned to the White House in 2025, President \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/donald-trump\">Donald Trump\u003c/a> signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046217/what-the-supreme-courts-latest-ruling-means-for-birthright-citizenship%5C\">an executive order\u003c/a> that would severely limit birthright citizenship in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, a lawsuit challenging this policy has reached the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices will hear arguments in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em> and decide if the president’s order — which would deny American citizenship to babies born in the country to parents who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents— is in line with the Constitution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s at stake in \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Several lower courts have already ruled against the Trump administration and blocked the executive order from being enforced in the last 14 months. If the Supreme Court strikes down the order, that would confirm the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">longstanding interpretation\u003c/a> of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#CouldTrumpsexecutiveorderrevokeanyonesAmericancitizenship\">Could Trump’s executive order revoke anyone’s American citizenship?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#ImhavingababysoonCouldmyfamilybeaffected\">I’m having a baby soon. Could my family be affected?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The White House, however, \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">argues\u003c/a> that unless a child has a parent who’s a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, they should not be a U.S. citizen by birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If both parents are immigrants with no permanent legal status — a category that includes parents with no immigration documents, but also those with a student visa or temporary work permit — Trump’s executive order would deny those children U.S. citizenship at birth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954996\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954996\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The ornate columned facade of the US Supreme Court.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230705-SUPREME-COURT-SCOTUS-AP-JM-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Supreme Court in Washington on April 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2023, around 300,000 babies were born to undocumented parents, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/\">according to the Pew Research Center\u003c/a>. According to Trump’s order, these babies are “not subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. government and therefore do not qualify for citizenship. But the federal government has not provided clear information on what legal status would be provided to children born in this situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our community members would be stateless,” said Roslyne Shiao, co-executive director for AAPI New Jersey, an advocacy group for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that has also organized a rally at the Supreme Court on Wednesday in defense of birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court is expected to deliver its ruling sometime between June and July. As the country waits for this decision, KQED will be responding to questions from audience members about what’s at stake in this legal battle and what families need to know about the potential impacts of this Supreme Court ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What does Trump’s birthright citizenship order say?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 20, Trump signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/\">an executive order\u003c/a> declaring that the federal government would no longer grant documents that confirm citizenship, like a Social Security Number or passport, to children born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, who are in the following situations:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>At the time of birth, the baby’s biological mother was “unlawfully present” (with no legal status) in the U.S., and the biological father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>At the time of birth, the baby’s biological mother was in the U.S. with a temporary visa or permit, and the biological father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/GettyImages-2262729717-scaled-e1773182284895.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1413\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The text of the executive order, while written in legal language that is often opaque to the general public, suggests that the following families could be affected by Trump’s order:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Families where both parents have no legal immigration documents at the time of their baby’s birth\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Families where both parents only have a \u003cem>temporary \u003c/em>legal status, which could include: Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), H1-B holders, a student J-1 visa or an H-2A visa for agricultural workers, another temporary visa or humanitarian parole\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If one parent has no legal status and the other only has a temporary legal status, which could include: TPS, DACA, H1-B holders, a student J-1 visa or an H-2A visa for agricultural workers, another temporary visa or humanitarian parole.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>If the executive order is allowed to take effect, babies born to families in the above situations would not have birthright citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is the federal government enforcing this order right now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No. The Trump administration currently cannot enforce the executive order due to a nationwide injunction \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/nx-s1-5463808/new-hampshire-judge-blocks-trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-nationwide\">issued last summer\u003c/a> by a federal judge in New Hampshire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order remains frozen until the Supreme Court makes a final decision over its legality. In the meantime, U.S. citizenship is still guaranteed to babies born to immigrant parents without permanent legal status.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who is behind \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From the moment that Trump signed his executive order in 2025, different groups have sought to stop this policy in the courtroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states — including California — announced a lawsuit the day after, and soon were able to obtain multiple nationwide injunctions from federal district judges. However, the Supreme Court \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044886/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-ruling-limits-nationwide-injunctions\">overturned these injunctions\u003c/a> last summer and ruled that lower courts had exceeded their authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078180\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078180\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1296\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty2-1536x995.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nine-month-old Tyler Colt enjoys a ride on his grandfather, Keith Kennedy’s, shoulders on June 30, 2016, in League City. \u003ccite>(Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the court still allows for nationwide injunctions in class-action cases. So in response, a coalition of civil rights groups presented the \u003ca href=\"https://www.asianlawcaucus.org/news-resources/news/brief-birthright-citizenship-scotus\">class-action \u003cem>Trump v. Barbara\u003c/em>\u003c/a> on behalf of newborn babies affected by the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those groups is the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus, whose legal team is arguing that the question of birthright citizenship was established a long time ago — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015449/a-129-year-old-san-francisco-lawsuit-could-stop-trump-from-ending-birthright-citizenship\">128 years ago\u003c/a>, specifically, in the landmark case \u003cem>United States v. Wong Kim Ark\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Born in San Francisco in the 1870s to Chinese immigrants, Wong Kim Ark sued the federal government when he was denied reentry into the U.S. after a trip to China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said that Wong was not a U.S. citizen but rather a Chinese national: a population that at the time was restricted from entering the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wong’s case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where the federal government asserted that Wong could not be a citizen because his parents were not under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government at the time of his birth — a very similar claim to the one the Trump administration has used to defend its executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The justices did not accept this argument and \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649\">sided with Wong\u003c/a> in 1898. In its ruling, the court declared that the Fourteenth Amendment — initially written to defend the rights of formerly enslaved African Americans and their children — also “includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons, of whatever race or color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This legal battle is about defending the legacy of Wong Kim Ark and the Bay Area’s Chinese-American community that stood by him, said Winnie Kao, senior counsel for Asian Law Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the 120-plus years since, the decision has been understood to affirm that U.S.-born children are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status,” Kao said. “All three branches of government — Republican and Democratic — have relied upon that understanding since.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"CouldTrumpsexecutiveorderrevokeanyonesAmericancitizenship\">\u003c/a>Would Trump’s executive order take away anyone’s American citizenship?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump’s executive order said nothing about rescinding the citizenship of people born in the U.S. before Feb. 19, 2025, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>I’m worried: Is my newborn baby still a U.S. citizen?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trump’s executive order is still blocked nationwide as the Supreme Court makes a final decision, which isn’t expected until late June or early July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this moment, if your baby was born on or after Feb. 19, 2025, the federal government will still recognize them as a U.S. citizen, regardless of your own immigration status or what state the child was born in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Trump administration, what will happen to babies excluded from U.S. citizenship?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>This remains unclear. The White House did not directly answer KQED’s question regarding what legal status would be available for affected babies if the Supreme Court rules in its favor.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Instead, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email to KQED that “[t]he Supreme Court has the opportunity to review the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and restore the meaning of citizenship in the United States to its original public meaning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also did not provide information on how children excluded from U.S. citizenship at birth would be able to attain this status in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Birthright citizenship is this really powerful idea that if you’re born in this country, you belong,” said Asian Law Caucus’s Kao. “You start as a full member of this democracy, regardless of your parents’ status or circumstances.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some children could seek the citizenship of their parents’ home countries, that’s not guaranteed. Some nations — like \u003ca href=\"https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/losangeles/index.php/es/regcivil-podnotariales-menu2020/registro-de-nacimiento-de-hijos-de-mexicanos-nacidos-en-el-extranjero\">Mexico\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.br/pt-br/servicos/registrar-nascimento-no-exterior\">Brazil\u003c/a> — do make it possible for parents to register their baby for citizenship at a consulate in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But other nations, including \u003ca href=\"https://en.nia.gov.cn/n147418/n147458/c155976/content.html\">China\u003c/a>, prevent someone from seeking that country’s citizenship if that person lives elsewhere. And traveling abroad would be almost impossible for U.S.-born babies affected by the order, as they would lack a passport from any country.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"ImhavingababysoonCouldmyfamilybeaffected\">\u003c/a>I’m currently expecting a baby, and my family could be affected by this executive order. Should I do anything to prepare?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some legal scholars told KQED that they’d be surprised if the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration. One major reason they point out: every lower-ranking judge involved in this legal battle has said that the executive order goes against established law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just three days after Trump signed the executive order in January 2025, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour blocked the policy. “I have been on the bench for over four decades,” Coughenour said. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078279\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078279\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/BirthrightCitizenshipGetty3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student carries her baby at Lincoln Park High School, a school for pregnant students and young mothers, in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(Veronica G. Cardenas/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, the possibility still exists that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court could hand Trump an unexpected victory and overturn historical precedent — as happened \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917776/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade\">in 2022\u003c/a> when the justices struck down \u003cem>Roe. v Wade\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kao from Asian Law Caucus said that even if the Supreme Court upholds the executive order, families could nonetheless anticipate an “implementation period” before the order took effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to anyone expecting a baby very soon, Kao said, talk with an immigration lawyer as soon as possible. “Get a passport [for the baby] immediately,” she said. “Don’t sit and wait.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "farmworker-advocates-grapple-with-legacy-changes-as-california-replaces-chavez-holiday",
"title": "Farmworker Advocates Grapple With Legacy Changes as California Replaces Chávez Holiday",
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"content": "\u003cp>Reading about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a> inspired Rosalinda Guillen to organize strawberry pickers in Salinas with the union he co-founded, the United Farm Workers, in the 1990s, after the late labor leader had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as California has renamed Cesar Chavez Day — observed annually on March 31 — as Farmworkers Day — and begins \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077059/san-francisco-fought-to-name-a-major-street-after-cesar-chavez-will-it-be-renamed-again\">reconsidering how it honors\u003c/a> the civil rights icon, advocates like Guillen are confronting a deeper question: What happens to the farmworker movement when its most recognizable figure becomes a source of pain and controversy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guillen, 74, is worried the shattering of Chavez’s image by rape allegations \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077073/cesar-chavez-was-a-hero-to-farmworkers-now-they-confront-the-pain-of-alleged-abuse\">could demoralize organizers\u003c/a> and provide ammunition to agricultural corporations opposing raising wages for some of the nation’s lowest-paid laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Organizing for the rights of farmworkers anywhere in this country is one of the heaviest lifts that there is,” said Guillen, a former berry picker herself who \u003ca href=\"https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/guillen.htm\">helped reach\u003c/a> Washington state’s first union contract covering agricultural workers at a large winery in 1995.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any type of benefit that we fight for or organize for, the pushback from the industry is just huge,” she said. “There’s such a huge power imbalance that everything matters for us as we continue to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newly surfaced sexual abuse allegations against Chavez are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076859/california-reacts-to-shocking-cesar-chavez-sexual-misconduct-revelations\">reverberating across California\u003c/a> and beyond, fueling a reckoning within farmworker communities while raising concerns among organizers that fallout could weaken already fragile efforts to build worker power, influence policy and protect some of the country’s most vulnerable laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-515109272-scaled-e1773940356467.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1443\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm labor leader Cesar Chavez pickets outside the San Diego-area headquarters of Safeway markets. It was in protest over the arrest of 29 persons at a Delano, California, Safeway. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The allegations that Chavez sexually abused UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and underage girls decades ago unleashed grief and soul-searching among advocates. Across California, labor leaders and elected officials have emphasized that the movement must extend beyond any one individual, even as they grapple with the emotional toll of the revelations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One week after the allegations were made public by the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>, California lawmakers voted unanimously to rename a March 31 holiday on Chavez’s birthday as Farmworker Day, a move intended to shift recognition to the broader workforce rather than a single leader. Community leaders planned to remove Chavez’s likeness from school murals, statues and other public spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many farmworkers, the emotional impact has been disorienting. Some described learning about the allegations through word of mouth, social media or conversations at work, struggling to reconcile admiration for Chavez as an organizer with anger and sadness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to harm us,” UFW member Maria Garcia Hernández said in Spanish, a Tulare County resident.[aside postID=news_12077073 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty2.jpg']The 52-year-old weighed whether the union would lose any influence in Sacramento or the rural communities where it operates, an open question. She worried about encountering antagonism or even aggression when volunteering as a union canvasser in Republican areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could undermine the politicians we support — for whom we go door-to-door for, so they can hold office and represent us,” said Garcia Hernández, a farmworker for more than 30 years. “Now, people won’t want to accept us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reckoning comes as the U.S. Department of Labor issued a rule to make it cheaper for employers to hire seasonal foreign agricultural workers through H-2A visas — a policy the Economic Policy Institute \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/blog/trumps-new-h-2a-wage-rule-will-radically-cut-the-wages-of-all-farmworkers-new-estimates-show-farmworkers-stand-to-lose-4-4-to-5-4-billion-annually-under-dols-updated-adverse-effec/\">estimates\u003c/a> could drive down wages for farmworkers nationwide by more than $4.4 billion annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration has also signaled plans to ramp up deportations in a workforce where about half are undocumented, leaving many vulnerable to exploitation and reluctant to challenge employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a legitimate concern for a lot of folks to wonder what happens now,” said Eladio Bobadilla, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who studies U.S. social movements. “How these particular revelations will impact people on the ground, the ordinary farm workers who are trying to find themselves in a better economic and social position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The historian, who grew up with farmworker parents in Delano, the former UFW headquarters in the 1960s, said there were problems in how Chavez’s leadership was widely remembered and celebrated, even before the new accusations came to light. Chavez ran the union autocratically, purging critics and surrounding himself with loyalists, which weakened a movement that gave him too much power, Bobadilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076930\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076930\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pedestrians walk past César Chávez Elementary School on March 18, 2026, in San Francisco, California. Labor activist César Chávez has been accused in an investigation of sexual abuse of women and minors. \u003ccite>(Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One crack in the movement was Chavez’s hostility toward undocumented immigrants, whom he considered strikebreakers. Under his reign, the UFW harassed, beat and reported undocumented people to immigration authorities in the 1970s, Bobadilla said. His forthcoming book explores nativism debates through the eyes of Latinos. Later, the UFW and Huerta emerged as strong advocates for immigrant rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will be essential to decouple the farm workers’ struggle from this one man,” he said. “How the union and how activists choose to do that, I don’t know, but I think it will be essential to really untangle themselves from this one person, something that should have been done decades ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the 1930s, federal law has excluded agricultural workers from many protections afforded to other workers, including overtime pay and collective bargaining rights. Even in California, which expanded farmworkers’ rights, field crop laborers still often face deep poverty, wage theft by employers and dangerous working conditions, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11897789/california-largely-failed-to-enforce-worker-smoke-protections-under-bidens-new-osha-pick\">wildfire smoke\u003c/a> and extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agricultural workers are \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4657558/#:~:text=Table%20II,13%20times%20the%20risk\">far more likely to die\u003c/a> from heat-related illness than workers in other industries, and the U.S. still lacks federal regulations requiring employers to protect workers from heat hazards.[aside postID=news_12077059 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260319-CESAR-CHAVEZ-STREET-MD-01-KQED.jpg']Today, most of the nation’s 2.2 million farmworkers are not unionized. The UFW counts about 10,000 members in California, Oregon, Washington and New York, a fraction of the roughly 60,000 in its heyday during the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond organizing, the UFW helped build a broader civil rights movement that trained generations of community activists, said Oliver Rosales, a historian at Bakersfield College in Delano. At its peak in the 1960s, the Delano grape boycott drew participation from an estimated 14 to 17 million Americans, reflecting the nationwide impact of the farmworker movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like the heart and soul of the Mexican-American civil rights movement,” Rosales said. “The farm worker movement ultimately, despite its long-run failures to organize farm workers within the union, inspired activism all across and well beyond the fields. That, to me, is its ultimate legacy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The UFW continues to fight well-resourced grower associations, sometimes successfully, said Daniel Costa, who directs immigration policy at the Economic Policy Institute and co-authored the H-2A wage rule analysis. The UFW helped beat a similar pay-cut policy during the first Trump administration, he added, which helped hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are punching above their weight for sure,” Costa said. “They’ve been able to leverage the attention that they’ve gotten over the years to really make a big impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teresa Romero, the first female UFW President, said she’s still grappling with the ramifications of the exposé about Chavez by \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> reporters, who signaled more women may come forward with additional accusations. The union is reviewing training and policies for its 55 staffers, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11941675\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11941675\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teresa Romero, President of the United Farm Workers union, speaks to marchers in Walnut Grove, Calif., before setting out on Day 22 of a 24-day “March for the Governor’s Signature” on Aug. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But controversy or not, politicians who support farmworkers understand their plight remains dire, she said, and just as important as it was three decades ago, when Chavez died. Strong opposition to the union is part of its history, she noted, just like the allegations against Chavez now are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never depended on growers appreciating their workforce and treating them with respect and dignity and paying them fairly. That’s why we exist,” Romero said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union continues to organize workers and push for labor protections, including collective bargaining rights and safeguards against extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California replacing a holiday bearing Chavez’s name with one honoring farmworkers, Romero said the focus must stay on those still laboring in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It saddens me to know what happened with our founder, but it hasn’t changed my commitment or my understanding of who I serve, and that is farmworkers,” Romero said. “I don’t serve our history or Cesar Chavez.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Reading about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/cesar-chavez\">Cesar Chavez\u003c/a> inspired Rosalinda Guillen to organize strawberry pickers in Salinas with the union he co-founded, the United Farm Workers, in the 1990s, after the late labor leader had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as California has renamed Cesar Chavez Day — observed annually on March 31 — as Farmworkers Day — and begins \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077059/san-francisco-fought-to-name-a-major-street-after-cesar-chavez-will-it-be-renamed-again\">reconsidering how it honors\u003c/a> the civil rights icon, advocates like Guillen are confronting a deeper question: What happens to the farmworker movement when its most recognizable figure becomes a source of pain and controversy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guillen, 74, is worried the shattering of Chavez’s image by rape allegations \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077073/cesar-chavez-was-a-hero-to-farmworkers-now-they-confront-the-pain-of-alleged-abuse\">could demoralize organizers\u003c/a> and provide ammunition to agricultural corporations opposing raising wages for some of the nation’s lowest-paid laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Organizing for the rights of farmworkers anywhere in this country is one of the heaviest lifts that there is,” said Guillen, a former berry picker herself who \u003ca href=\"https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/guillen.htm\">helped reach\u003c/a> Washington state’s first union contract covering agricultural workers at a large winery in 1995.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any type of benefit that we fight for or organize for, the pushback from the industry is just huge,” she said. “There’s such a huge power imbalance that everything matters for us as we continue to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newly surfaced sexual abuse allegations against Chavez are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076859/california-reacts-to-shocking-cesar-chavez-sexual-misconduct-revelations\">reverberating across California\u003c/a> and beyond, fueling a reckoning within farmworker communities while raising concerns among organizers that fallout could weaken already fragile efforts to build worker power, influence policy and protect some of the country’s most vulnerable laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-515109272-scaled-e1773940356467.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1443\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm labor leader Cesar Chavez pickets outside the San Diego-area headquarters of Safeway markets. It was in protest over the arrest of 29 persons at a Delano, California, Safeway. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The allegations that Chavez sexually abused UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and underage girls decades ago unleashed grief and soul-searching among advocates. Across California, labor leaders and elected officials have emphasized that the movement must extend beyond any one individual, even as they grapple with the emotional toll of the revelations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One week after the allegations were made public by the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>, California lawmakers voted unanimously to rename a March 31 holiday on Chavez’s birthday as Farmworker Day, a move intended to shift recognition to the broader workforce rather than a single leader. Community leaders planned to remove Chavez’s likeness from school murals, statues and other public spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many farmworkers, the emotional impact has been disorienting. Some described learning about the allegations through word of mouth, social media or conversations at work, struggling to reconcile admiration for Chavez as an organizer with anger and sadness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to harm us,” UFW member Maria Garcia Hernández said in Spanish, a Tulare County resident.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The 52-year-old weighed whether the union would lose any influence in Sacramento or the rural communities where it operates, an open question. She worried about encountering antagonism or even aggression when volunteering as a union canvasser in Republican areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could undermine the politicians we support — for whom we go door-to-door for, so they can hold office and represent us,” said Garcia Hernández, a farmworker for more than 30 years. “Now, people won’t want to accept us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reckoning comes as the U.S. Department of Labor issued a rule to make it cheaper for employers to hire seasonal foreign agricultural workers through H-2A visas — a policy the Economic Policy Institute \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/blog/trumps-new-h-2a-wage-rule-will-radically-cut-the-wages-of-all-farmworkers-new-estimates-show-farmworkers-stand-to-lose-4-4-to-5-4-billion-annually-under-dols-updated-adverse-effec/\">estimates\u003c/a> could drive down wages for farmworkers nationwide by more than $4.4 billion annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration has also signaled plans to ramp up deportations in a workforce where about half are undocumented, leaving many vulnerable to exploitation and reluctant to challenge employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a legitimate concern for a lot of folks to wonder what happens now,” said Eladio Bobadilla, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who studies U.S. social movements. “How these particular revelations will impact people on the ground, the ordinary farm workers who are trying to find themselves in a better economic and social position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The historian, who grew up with farmworker parents in Delano, the former UFW headquarters in the 1960s, said there were problems in how Chavez’s leadership was widely remembered and celebrated, even before the new accusations came to light. Chavez ran the union autocratically, purging critics and surrounding himself with loyalists, which weakened a movement that gave him too much power, Bobadilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076930\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076930\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/CesarChavezGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pedestrians walk past César Chávez Elementary School on March 18, 2026, in San Francisco, California. Labor activist César Chávez has been accused in an investigation of sexual abuse of women and minors. \u003ccite>(Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One crack in the movement was Chavez’s hostility toward undocumented immigrants, whom he considered strikebreakers. Under his reign, the UFW harassed, beat and reported undocumented people to immigration authorities in the 1970s, Bobadilla said. His forthcoming book explores nativism debates through the eyes of Latinos. Later, the UFW and Huerta emerged as strong advocates for immigrant rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will be essential to decouple the farm workers’ struggle from this one man,” he said. “How the union and how activists choose to do that, I don’t know, but I think it will be essential to really untangle themselves from this one person, something that should have been done decades ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the 1930s, federal law has excluded agricultural workers from many protections afforded to other workers, including overtime pay and collective bargaining rights. Even in California, which expanded farmworkers’ rights, field crop laborers still often face deep poverty, wage theft by employers and dangerous working conditions, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11897789/california-largely-failed-to-enforce-worker-smoke-protections-under-bidens-new-osha-pick\">wildfire smoke\u003c/a> and extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agricultural workers are \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4657558/#:~:text=Table%20II,13%20times%20the%20risk\">far more likely to die\u003c/a> from heat-related illness than workers in other industries, and the U.S. still lacks federal regulations requiring employers to protect workers from heat hazards.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Today, most of the nation’s 2.2 million farmworkers are not unionized. The UFW counts about 10,000 members in California, Oregon, Washington and New York, a fraction of the roughly 60,000 in its heyday during the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond organizing, the UFW helped build a broader civil rights movement that trained generations of community activists, said Oliver Rosales, a historian at Bakersfield College in Delano. At its peak in the 1960s, the Delano grape boycott drew participation from an estimated 14 to 17 million Americans, reflecting the nationwide impact of the farmworker movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like the heart and soul of the Mexican-American civil rights movement,” Rosales said. “The farm worker movement ultimately, despite its long-run failures to organize farm workers within the union, inspired activism all across and well beyond the fields. That, to me, is its ultimate legacy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The UFW continues to fight well-resourced grower associations, sometimes successfully, said Daniel Costa, who directs immigration policy at the Economic Policy Institute and co-authored the H-2A wage rule analysis. The UFW helped beat a similar pay-cut policy during the first Trump administration, he added, which helped hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are punching above their weight for sure,” Costa said. “They’ve been able to leverage the attention that they’ve gotten over the years to really make a big impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teresa Romero, the first female UFW President, said she’s still grappling with the ramifications of the exposé about Chavez by \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> reporters, who signaled more women may come forward with additional accusations. The union is reviewing training and policies for its 55 staffers, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11941675\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11941675\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/02/RS58208_075_KQED_UnitedFarmWorkersMarch_08242022-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teresa Romero, President of the United Farm Workers union, speaks to marchers in Walnut Grove, Calif., before setting out on Day 22 of a 24-day “March for the Governor’s Signature” on Aug. 24, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But controversy or not, politicians who support farmworkers understand their plight remains dire, she said, and just as important as it was three decades ago, when Chavez died. Strong opposition to the union is part of its history, she noted, just like the allegations against Chavez now are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never depended on growers appreciating their workforce and treating them with respect and dignity and paying them fairly. That’s why we exist,” Romero said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union continues to organize workers and push for labor protections, including collective bargaining rights and safeguards against extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California replacing a holiday bearing Chavez’s name with one honoring farmworkers, Romero said the focus must stay on those still laboring in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It saddens me to know what happened with our founder, but it hasn’t changed my commitment or my understanding of who I serve, and that is farmworkers,” Romero said. “I don’t serve our history or Cesar Chavez.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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}
},
"baycurious": {
"id": "baycurious",
"title": "Bay Curious",
"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious",
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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