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MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello, and welcome to Free Speech with CR. I'm your host, Molly Blakemore, and I'm joined with my co-host, Dr. Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: Hello, Molly. It's great to be back with you. I'm doing very well on this sunny day and such a wonderful topic today. And I was wondering if our guests could please introduce yourselves.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, I'll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Irene Gonzalez-Herrera. I'm the director of the Multicultural Education Center and the Pride and Dreamer Center. And I'm the Dream Resource Liaison for the district. So that's a little bit about what I do--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: At College of the--

KEITH FLAMER: At College of the Redwoods. Is that where you work?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: OK. Please.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: And my name is Dr. Carmen Elena L'Annunziata. And I work at the Jefferson Center. I'm the immigration program coordinator. And I also work a little bit with True North.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you. Now, may I call you Carmen?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Sure.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you. Carmen, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the work that you are now doing. Exactly what are you doing?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: So the immigration program through Jefferson is basically a new program that we just recently started. And it serves to help the immigrant community, connect them to resources, specifically legal resources. We don't have immigration lawyers here.

So working with Irene here, I've been connecting them to Find Your Ally, which is a free legal resource you can sign up for. Students can. So I sign folks up to become a student, and then sign them up to get free legal services. And we're also working with Immigration Institute of the Bay Area for some more comprehensive immigration services.

And the work that I do with True North is more community-oriented. It's community organizing. So it's working directly with families around the issues that they identify as important, and that they want to work on to create a more safe environment for themselves and their families.

KEITH FLAMER: OK, let's talk a little bit more about your background.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: So, let's see, what do you want to know? I moved to Humboldt County in 2003 and was here for a while doing community work, also with the immigrant community, mostly Spanish-speaking, because that's the largest immigrant community that we have in the area. So I started then.

And in 2013, I decided I wanted to go back to grad school. So I left and I went to the University of Arizona, and got my PhD in gender and women's studies. And my area of focus was on immigration issues.

And this was during the first Trump administration. And at that time, there was a huge surge in family separations and child detention centers that were popping up. And so I wanted to examine that as not just a historical incident, but also looking at it culturally, about how family separations being represented in the media as a form of benevolence or as a form of savior and things like that. So that was the theoretical aspect of that work. But I wanted to come back here and continue to do the more practical work of actually working with people.

KEITH FLAMER: Irene, talk to us about you. What is your background?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: My background, I moved to Humboldt County in 2010 when I was in high school. Prior to that, I lived in Bakersfield. I emigrated from Mexico when I was 9, and I lived in Bakersfield then. And I came in 2004 during the Bush era. And when he--

KEITH FLAMER: Which Bush era? There are two of them.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Junior.

KEITH FLAMER: Junior. OK, gotcha.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And so it was in 2004. Yeah, "W."

KEITH FLAMER: George W.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: So it was in 2004 that I came in undocumented with my siblings. My male siblings got documentation, and so the female siblings didn't. And so there was a process of my mom navigating the legal system to be able to give us status later on years later. So when my dad applied for permanent residency, he only applied for my mom and my brothers, but not the sisters.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Can you tell us why that was the case?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, it was both-- a historical thing of that was just like the traditional thing to do. The male student, or the males of the family come to the US. They send money back to Mexico.

And they're like the head of household. And so it was done in a way that, at the time, it seemed like my dad had that idea that the males of the family were going to help out with the expenses. And the females were not necessarily going to continue on with the family because the tradition was not for females to continue with school.

But when my mom got her permanent residency, and she came with my siblings, basically, she found a way to get us with her. Because she knew the opportunities that we were going to have as females was going to be a big change and something better for us than what she had seen was the pathway for females in our hometown in Mexico. And so traditionally, females in that town only went up to elementary school education.

So for her, continuing beyond elementary school was really important. And that was the only way that she knew we were going to be connected to educational opportunities. And so that was something that she wanted for us, and something that she fought over with my dad in terms of bringing us here and making sure that we females in the family also had opportunities through education and other job opportunities that she wasn't going to have, and that she didn't have. And so it was an investment in us that she made by figuring everything out, and then eventually finding a legal pathway for us to change our status.

KEITH FLAMER: Irene, is your mother and father still with us?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: They are.

KEITH FLAMER: I bet they're awfully proud of you for getting a master's and PhD program.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes, they are.

KEITH FLAMER: Actually, I tell you that we are very proud of you too.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Thank you. Thank you. Yes, my mom is very proud. And my dad also regrets not having-- or the way that he thought at the time.

And now, looking back on it, he knows that every one of my siblings deserved an equal chance of education, an equal chance of having better opportunities. And so for him, it is a regret that he has, that he wasn't able to give us the opportunity to have permanent status when he applied for my siblings. So that is something that he also is aware and knows that he should have done better.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And you're in a PhD program currently?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Currently, I'm doing a doctorate program through CSU, East Bay in educational leadership and social justice.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Cool.

KEITH FLAMER: So someday you could have my job.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Hopefully. That is the goal. One day--

KEITH FLAMER: That would be fantastic.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I'll be the president.

KEITH FLAMER: That's good.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And when you came over, your brothers were legal, but you were not.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: OK. But did you have to navigate that, or your mom did that for you?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Both. So when we first arrived, we were told that basically, the way that we came in was not an OK way, so for us to not disclose any of that information. If anybody asked where we were from, just not respond. Or if we were to respond, just say we were from Bakersfield.

KEITH FLAMER: Irene, how long ago was this?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: It was in 2004. I was 9. I was in fourth grade. And also at the time, the language barrier, the only people that I could really answer anyways were Spanish-speaking. And so I could answer in Spanish.

Otherwise, I didn't respond to anybody who was talking to me in English, because at the time, the language barrier was also, in a way, a protector of not being able to respond even if I wanted to. And so my siblings, my brothers, had permanent residency status and I didn't. And so it wasn't until I was in my freshman year of high school that my mom was able to change her status. And because we were minors at the time, it was able to happen in a short period of time.

And that is something that a lot of people don't know. There's a level of privilege of even having a parent who does have a legal status versus not having a parent who has a legal status. So my mom being my sponsor, and then having other people co-sponsor with her, it's also another privilege of being able to have family members that also have legal statuses that could be a joint sponsor with my mom. Because there is that financial liability that sponsors basically sign up to take on when they're helping a family member get permanent residency. And so my mom navigated a lot of legal documents and procedures that--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Did she speak English at the time?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: She doesn't. And she didn't.

KEITH FLAMER: But she still does not after--

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: She's not fluent. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: OK.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And so again, even that, of not being able to have an opportunity, she had a third grade education. So it's like she can read, she can write. But not having the opportunity to finish elementary school, of course, already reduced her ability to be able to take other education opportunities even as an adult. So for her, it was important to do whatever it took, talk to the people she needed to.

And so there were a lot of community members that helped her fill out paperwork, that would read letters that would give her referrals to other community organizations to help her fill out the paperwork, and make sure that she kept on point with the due dates and timelines. Because you miss a timeline, you miss a filing period, and you are done. I still don't know how she managed to do all of that.

Also not driving, she would take public transportation. We would catch rides to go to Fresno when we got an immigration appointment. And so she navigated all of that.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It's probably even more difficult now in this environment to do all of that. And some of those things that you were afforded, because your mom was permanent, probably don't apply anymore. I'm not sure, but I imagine that it's harder now.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, I was going to ask that same question.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, rapidly changing landscape of legal stuff. And it's just sometimes-- I mean, it's so difficult, all of the changes and trying to be informed so that you can inform other people is really constant. But we try to stay up to date. I'm always tapping into it and adhere to, hey, what is the most recent stuff. She stays more up to date than I do.

But when I was listening to your story, one of the things that I was thinking about is that nowadays, one of the things that folks are doing is connecting the Rapid Response networks that exist to get rides across counties that maybe aren't sanctuary counties, or where there's ICE presence. So a helpful thing to be able to do is connect people to Rapid Response networks and find out, do you have rides, are you accompanying people to appointments? Because that's some of the things that some of the activist groups out there are doing.

KEITH FLAMER: Can you talk about that some more for us? I've heard the concept, but I don't know any specifics. And exactly what does that do? And really, how does that triggered.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, what is a rapid response?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: So Rapid Response networks have been popping up all over the country. So Centro Del Pueblo has a Rapid Response Network. And basically, what they do is, if there is a suspected ice presence, then they send out folks who are volunteering with them who've been trained to go and check out that area.

Is there actually one? Was it a rumor? Was it just an unmarked car that looks similar? Because when people are in the panic of this looks like an ICE vehicle, they will start calling all of their family, thinking that they're warning them. So folks break into a panic.

So the Rapid Response Network serves that purpose specifically. But it also can serve other purposes in other counties. Some of them are offering rides to people.

So do the kids need rides to school? Does somebody need a ride to an immigration appointment, things like that, so that folks aren't driving. They're not alone. They have accompaniment so that they feel safer and are safer.

KEITH FLAMER: About a few weeks ago, there was an incident at San Diego Community College, one of those. And ICE took a driver off the street, and the passenger ran to the college campus. And ICE could not cross that boundary.

And of course, there was also the ICE presence, the ICE arrest in Redding last week. And it made me think about the level of fear that has ratcheted up in the last two years and three years. Talk to us, if you could, about the community, and what changes have you seen in the community itself? And how much of that fear is pushing people to do different things?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think this is really important, especially the part about feeling persecuted in schools in particular. So it's really important--

KEITH FLAMER: What level of schools? Could you talk about that?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Any of the schools. Like you just mentioned, a community college where ICE was on campus or near campus. It's really important right now that our schools are putting up signs that designate which areas are public spaces and which areas are private spaces. And this is one of those things--

KEITH FLAMER: Good job, Irene.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, this is one of the things that True North has been working on, working with community members and with law enforcement around some of the new policies that have come up. So AB 49 is the Safe Haven Schools Act. And that one specifically tries to clarify what was already law.

Basically, if law enforcement comes to a school, they need to have a judicial warrant, especially if they're going to enter a space that's a private space. So now more than ever, we need to have those spaces designated so that we can ask for judicial warrants before they can enter the space. And that's any schools and daycare centers, because ICE has been lurking around them in other areas.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So in this community, how big is our immigrant population and how many of them are at risk, would you say? And what is the temperature and how are they feeling?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Scared, definitely.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I get a lot of students who, especially the first year of the second term for Trump, dropped out of classes because they were ready to just self-deport. They were ready to just go on their own terms. There were also a lot of parents who came and asked about support on how they go about addressing issues of bullying and behavior that is not nice for their younger elementary school age children, and how they would handle situations.

And so we're connecting them with advocates, connecting them with resources about how they go about filing a complaint, making sure that there's follow-through with the school administrators, and that they also know their rights as parents and their rights within the school system about how they handle issues and how they talk to administrators about [INAUDIBLE].

KEITH FLAMER: Can you share a story or two, if you're comfortable, that illustrates the bullying in school? I could come up with one. But could you share some of that, so people really understand what's going on in our communities?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, we had a community gathering at HCOE with Centro Del Pueblo, where that was the topic discussed.

KEITH FLAMER: Is this the event from last Thursday?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: It was one that happened--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: This was a while ago-- yeah, I guess there as well. Yeah.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And so youth shared jokes that were being said about, oh, I'm going to call ICE on you, thinking that they're being funny, when again, those are issues that directly impact them personally. And so especially in high school, that was one of the ones that came up-- that in high school, like friends or perceived friends are joking around saying things about, oh, I'm going to call the migra on you. I'm going to call ICE. Look, there's an ICE officer there. And so different types of humor, or prejudice that is masked humor.

Another person shared that their child was also physically harassed by another classmate who was saying, your parents are going to be taken away. You're not going to have parents anymore. And so it's just very hostile behavior and just comments, that again, parents are not feeling like their school is safe. They're not feeling like the school is addressing the issues that are coming up. And because there's no physical aggression, they're not really taking it as a serious matter.

And so a lot of parents feel a sense of distrust from the school, a sense of, there's really nothing I can do to take care of my child. Like, I'm already dealing and navigating the issue of letting them know that, yeah, it could happen. And so they're navigating, trying to keep their children safe and not panicky, not anxious. But at the same time, they're having tough conversations about, if this does happen, this is how we are going to handle this as a family.

KEITH FLAMER: Are you saying so the parents are having to have a plan in case--

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, and something that True North is working on with families is having emergency plans. And so again, the same way that we have emergency plans for tsunamis and other natural disasters, now families have the Red Folders, which is a resource that Humboldt First Five--

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: First five Humboldt

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: First Five Humboldt has provided families. And they provide--

KEITH FLAMER: So First Five, those are really young kids that we're dealing with here.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And so parents with toddlers, babies are having to think ahead, just like any emergency, who they're going to have as the emergency caregiver if something were to happen, the names of the doctors and everything that a caregiver might need in case they do have to take an emergency caregiving role. And so they're having to coordinate with family members to make sure that there is a plan in place so that they're just not a caught off-guard. And yeah, they can keep a plan.

KEITH FLAMER: Carmen, can you talk about that emergency plan?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, absolutely. So was it in January or October? It was October that AB 495 passed. And this was a law that changed a little bit how caregiver affidavits-- it expanded who could count as an alternate caregiver for families in the event of a separation.

So families can be separated for medical reasons, incarceration. And of course, abduction or immigration detention can be another way that families are separated. And so this new policy was passed specifically to offer more protection to families to try to get their plans in order in case of something like that.

And one of the things that True North has been working on is, we're trying to work with the schools to get these plans in order so that the schools can have them filed. They can know who the alternate caregivers are. And we're helping parents start really thinking about this, because when you're asking someone to be an alternate caregiver, what are the kinds of questions you want them to consider? It's things like medical stuff, but also things like, are they on a sports team? Can they have a continuity of care that doesn't disrupt their entire lives?

And there's other things to consider as well. If families are separated and parents are abducted, what about the house, what about the car? So it can be an incredibly destabilizing type of situation. So having some sort of plan in order helps them maybe reduce the risk, and also reduce some level of the stress that this is causing.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So what is the immigrant population? Is it-- do we know around?

KEITH FLAMER: Or do you want to share?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, there's no official numbers in terms of how that gets documented. Even the census is not a pretty good metric of knowing how many people are in the county. And especially with the fear of deportation and the fear of the government having your address, there's a lot of underreporting that is happening.

A lot of immigrant community members also are not seeking medical, dental, emergency-related services because of the fear of having the government have your information. And so the immigrant community that I work with is pretty large. I know at events and other gatherings that we have, a lot of community members do show up. Especially when they know that it's a trusting organization, they're more willing to show up. But there's also been a scaling back of attendance and events and programming because of the fear that, if they show up to that event, and ICE or some other immigration-related enforcement shows up, they could be targeted.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Have we seen a decline in students attending at CR? Because I would think that you would see an uptick in people coming to use your services and to get help. But then also, the fear would keep them away from even enrolling in school or showing up anywhere where [INAUDIBLE].

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I would say it's been more on the decline, because in the past, it was very easy for me to convince people to enroll. But now I'm having to-- and again, it's the issue of I can't promise 100% safety either. So they're always having that little doubt, even if it's 1% doubt.

We hopefully will not ever get subpoenaed, and there won't ever be a need for us to disclose any immigration-related data and names. But that's something that we can't guarantee, because we can't guarantee that students have that little doubt, that what if it does happen, that they don't seek out resources, and they don't apply to the college, just because they do think we are going to share, or that somehow, they're going to hack our system and they're going to get that information. And so again, it's a fear that is justified, and also a fear that can be a little unjustified if they don't know how the internal systems work of how we protect data.

KEITH FLAMER: I'm a student of history. And I studied European history. I cannot help but see the parallels between what we're seeing today and what was seen in Germany, and even in the United States, in the '30s and '40s.

What's the way out of this? What's the answer. Where's the light at the end of this tunnel? And I can't find it. What do you tell people? What's next? How do we fix this?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Vote.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Voting is important. Voting is important. Not everyone can vote.

KEITH FLAMER: Exactly.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: I mean, I want to say, organize, organize, get organized. There's power in numbers. We've always known that there's power in numbers and in taking action and working with allies. There are folks who are more protected.

And so True North, we're working with the immigrant community. But we're also a really diverse coalition, so we have a lot of allies. And so there is important roles for everyone in that kind of work. It's not just putting the most vulnerable people forward, but having allies really step in.

KEITH FLAMER: Carmen, explain that for me, because I'm trying to figure out what an ally is. And what role do allies have in this day and age? What do allies do? What do you rely on them to do?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, if you think about it from an organizing context where you're organizing with vulnerable communities, like the immigrant community, allies are folks who are not closest to the pain. They're not the ones who are experiencing the issues. So the folks that we've been working with, the immigrant community, they're the ones who are pushing the issues forward. These are the things that are affecting our lives right now.

And the allies are folks who aren't experiencing that, but who are saying, hey, we want to help. We want to be part of the solution. We want to do things.

So allies will help broker relationships, for example. We're trying to work with different schools in the county-- who has a relationship with who? Can we get some parents to go? But can we also get those relationship brokers to attend these meetings and help build power in the community?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And I was going to say, they have less risk. But then, you see in Minnesota, though, that allies were murdered for standing up.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Absolutely.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And all the horrific things that happened in Minnesota. I also want to shed some light on how wonderful that ally network was, that they were able to really get ICE out at the end.

KEITH FLAMER: After a couple people were murdered.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: --terrible things happened. But who knows how long it would have gone on if it weren't for the protests and the people that stood up and got them out.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah. I can understand that piece. I'm going back to the story that you both told about the-- I can't say jokes, because they're not. They're hurtful.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: It's harassment.

KEITH FLAMER: It's harassment at the lowest ages. We're talking about our grade schoolers. How do we make that safe, that environment-- not physically safe. That's important, but intellectually safe, socially safe, so a student is not getting off the bus or out of the car, fearful that they won't get home.

So how do we reinforce the safety for our youngest folks? I know that that's a big question. A pause is awfully good.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Well, I don't want to take up too much space.

KEITH FLAMER: No, please.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: But one of the things that I keep thinking about is just the example that a lot of kids are getting from adults. What is the atmosphere? What are they seeing on the news? What are adults in their lives talking about? There's an uptick in this kind of racist rhetoric about who belongs here and about immigrant communities taking over-- the "Great Replacement" or whatever it is that they're calling it.

KEITH FLAMER: The what? I'm sorry?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: The "Great Replacement" theory.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Immigrants are replacing white people.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah that we're going to replace, the white community here and take over the United States. And this isn't new. This is regurgitated.

KEITH FLAMER: Well, this has been around since the 1700s with Native Americans.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Oh, yeah. Absolutely

KEITH FLAMER: 1800s with Jim Crow.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: There's family separation. Indigenous children were abducted, enslaved children were abducted from their parents. This is not new.

KEITH FLAMER: Not new. At all.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: This is a regurgitation of something that has been ongoing. So when you talk about what can we do to change the situation, that is a very hard question. But I do think that there is a lot of influence that's coming from adults.

And when you see an atmosphere of permissiveness in the news from our elected officials, unfortunately, they're the ones who are spouting this stuff, and it's trickling down into our families. And so then kids are replicating it. There was an incident-- I think they talked about it at that event with HCOE, where a child dressed up as an ICE agent.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Oh, yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: No.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, so when you get that kind of stuff, it's just reminiscent of--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Just on a regular day and went into school?

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: It was during Halloween, I think. Yeah, so somebody thought that was OK. There was an adult in that kid's life who thought that was all right.

KEITH FLAMER: It's like when I was a kid on Halloween, they would put on blackface and think that was just fine, not knowing how hurtful it is to people who are actually Black.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Right.

KEITH FLAMER: So I understand that.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: I think that's also why the language thing is important too, like calling it "abductions" rather than "arrests," because they are getting abducted. They're getting just taken off the street. And often, there's no record of where they're taking them. And there's no paper trail.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: There's no accountability. There's no paper trail.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: There's no criminal charges. They're just gone. So I know that in Minnesota, there were a lot of people just following ICE agents around to document when people were abducted off the street, so that at least there was some sort of record that this person was taken. And you could follow up on where they were taken. But I don't think people understand the extent of the just disappearance and how damaging that is to a family, but also how illegal it really is.

KEITH FLAMER: There was a gentleman who was recently arrested. I've known him for several years. Matter of fact, we used to go to Cal Courts together, et cetera.

We'd talk every morning at 5:15 AM. And I usually don't talk a lot at 5:15 AM, but he was just wonderful. I know he and his wife.

He was arrested from Eureka maybe a month ago. And then he went to back to Mexico. He was deported to Mexico. And his wife went with him, and his children stayed here.

He's been here for 25 years. That story breaks my heart, because he was going someplace. Actually, they were in Arizona, I think, going on a trip. And he was taken.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And that's what people don't know either, is how difficult it is to change a status. People think like, oh, they need to do it the right way. There is no right way for a lot of people. You have to--

KEITH FLAMER: Talk a little bit about that, Irene, what do you mean it's not a right way for a lot of people? What does that mean?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: It means that currently, our laws are very limited. There's limitations on the country that you are from by year. There's a specific number by country.

KEITH FLAMER: You have to walk me through that part [INAUDIBLE].

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Mexico, China, India, and I forgot the other country-- the Philippines, have a limited number of visas per year, per category. So you get top priority if your spouse or parent is a US citizen, second priority if they're a permanent resident, and so on. So the lower you are on the ranking, the longer it takes.

You take that, and then you add on the piece a lot of people don't have a family member that can do a petition. A lot of people have to do the 10-year ban. So even if you do get through the application process, if you entered the United States after 2000, you cannot legally adjust your status within the US, unless you came in through a lawful entry, which could have been an expired visa.

It could have been some other type of visa that you overstayed. You extended your period of time. Student visas, a couple other visas, are common ones. And so again, for a lot of people, not only do you have to know the type of visa that you came in. You have to know if this is a family petition, you have to have the right country that you're coming from, because if it's one of the countries that have a limited number of visas, now you are having to fight with a few thousand people.

And even just Mexico, as an example, it's a 20-year backlog. They're reviewing applications for 2005. And so again, anybody who applied in 2005 are barely getting the notice that they might have a visa. And then you go through the process of visa issuing. And then depending on the paperwork, if your medical history and if your legal history is good, up to date, then you get issued the visa.

If there's something-- which people often have tuberculosis, or a false positive for tuberculosis, then you get denied the visa because of medical reasons. And so again, even that, it's a classist and also an ableist like law system where people with certain disabilities also are not able to adjust their status. And so again, you put everything into context.

And very, very few people are actually able to adjust their status, and they're able to adjust it in a period of time that is actually doable for anybody to live a life. You cannot live a life knowing that you're going to get something until 20 years from now. And so a lot of people-- again, the financial burden, navigating the system, not being eligible for a visa, even if you do everything right, is one of the biggest barriers to actually adjusting a status.

And again, the laws are very strict, very limited. They have certain cut-off dates. And so if you miss a date on any of those categories, you just cannot adjust at all.

And so for a lot of people that say, you just have to do it the right way? Well, the right way is not doable for a lot of people. And so we can't just say that people have to do it "the right way" when there isn't a right way. The laws have not changed in years. So for anybody to really say that there is a lawful pathway, there is not a lawful pathway.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And then people are showing up for their court cases and being abducted.

KEITH FLAMER: Abducted, yeah. I'll start using that word because it's more accurate.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, my uncle was one of them. He went for his immigration appointment.

KEITH FLAMER: Irene, say that again. I'm sorry.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: One of my uncles was deported that way. He went to an immigration appointment. And it was maybe five years ago.

And because he had a DUI when he was younger, that was still on his record. And so he got deported, and his wife followed. And again, the oldest cousin had to take on the guardianship of the younger siblings. And so again, for somebody to be 18, and just literally take on the responsibility of other high school and middle school-age children--

KEITH FLAMER: They're still kids.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: And so again, literally, the physical and mental stress that she dealt with, till this day, she has a really hard time just being separated from her family. And then having to navigate going to university herself and working, and also taking care of her siblings, and trying to take them to visit the parents so that they can still maintain a relationship, it's a lot of emotional, financial responsibility to give somebody who that wasn't their role. And it was a role that just became imposed on them.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So when we're talking about getting deported, it sounds, when we're talking about it, they get arrested or they get taken. And then they just go back to their country. But that's not actually what's happening. Right now, people are spending so much time in these detention centers that you could liken to some other kinds of centers that we've used in the past.

And so is this new? Is this policy new where we see these long stays in these detention centers? And why are people having to stay in these centers for so long and not go back to their home countries, or get shipped out to countries they never lived in?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I know what I've seen, like reports from NPR and other news outlets, the conflict of interest of private prison systems with detention centers.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Follow the money.

KEITH FLAMER: Sorry. Carmen, say that again.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Follow the money.

KEITH FLAMER: Of course.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes. And so a lot of prison systems are also owners of the detention centers. And they're set up in a similar way where--

KEITH FLAMER: That's why you said follow-- OK, got it.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: They're just not being detained. They're being charged. And they're able to earn money to have basic needs met if they work a certain number of hours, if they do a certain type of labor within the detention centers.

And so it incentivizes having people be released when you get free labor, or labor that seems like you are paying people $1 or $2 for however many hours. But you're doing it in a legal way because or immigration and/or the law enforcement system is allowing you to do it. So why not get the free labor when you can get it through a legal system that has been created through our government?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah, I was just listening to a report that the only two sectors in America that are actually doing well economically are AI and privatized prisons because of the detention centers.

KEITH FLAMER: This is almost like sharecropping back in the Jim Crow era. This is what it reminds me of. Now, do you have a list of all these detention centers? Do you know where they're located?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Not--

KEITH FLAMER: It's OK if you don't want to answer the question.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: On the top of my head, I'm thinking-- OK, not on the top of my head. But yeah, there's a lot of them. There are a lot of them.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: A lot of them in California too. And some of them have connections to farms, where again--

KEITH FLAMER: Farms, OK. You mean--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: What kind of labor are they doing? I did not know this.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: They're doing agricultural farm labor. They're doing-- yeah, they're basically subsidizing areas where the labor shortage has become such a big issue that they're using--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Which they would be doing outside of prison also.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: Except you have to pay them a lot more.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Then you'd have to pay them more, which is not a lot more. It's still--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh my gosh, this is sharecropping, even in 2026.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh my gosh. I don't think people know that.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: No. I did not know that.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh. OK, going back to my original question, I'm struggling for the light at the end of the tunnel. You guys haven't helped me find one yet in this conversation.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I know for me, something that keeps my work and that keeps me grounded is knowing what I can do within my line of work and within my community. And so whether that's showing up in offering somebody a ride to Sacramento for an appointment, whether it's providing translation or interpretation, whether it's filling out the paperwork-- especially for the students that are getting their service with our immigration attorneys, sending their packets, faxing information, emailing with the attorneys, following up, doing all that it takes to really move the case forward. Because there's only so few students that are able to get immigration adjustment. Out of the 60 appointments between 2022-- and 2025 was when I asked for the last numbers, 10 students have been able and have a chance of adjusting their status.

KEITH FLAMER: 10 out of how many?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: 60. And so again, it's almost nothing. But 10 people have the potential to change their lives and change the lives of their family members, their siblings, their parents, their children. And so to me, what matters is being able to make a small little change in somebody's life. And again, it doesn't just impact them, but it impacts generations.

KEITH FLAMER: I'm wondering, and I'm not sure how to voice this question, but let me try. And I should know this, but I don't. What is it that the college can do to better support that community, number 2 or 1a of a question? Carmen, what can the college do to set up a Rapid Response Network at the college level.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I would say connecting. It's important to connect with the existing Rapid Response Network, with Centro Del Pueblo, because they're the ones who have a group of volunteers who are helping them manage the phone lines and go out to the spots where supposedly ICE was seen to verify. So connecting with them, making sure that staff knows what the number is. Do you know the number off by heart?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: 200-1881?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: We're so terrible. We need to know the number by heart.

KEITH FLAMER: So what is this number that you're forgetting.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: So that's the Rapid Response number. That's the number that you call if you think that there is ICE activity in town. And so those are the folks that you would call so that they can go out and verify. And that's what they do.

So knowing that number, making sure that faculty knows that number. And I think it's really important for faculty, staff, and administrators to know what are the laws, what's the landscape, how can they protect their students by making sure that they know the laws. For example-- and we already talked about this, the signage in the schools. Do folks know how to verify a judicial warrant from an administrative warrant? Because those are two different things.

KEITH FLAMER: They are two different things.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Yeah, and so folks need to know how to verify judicial warrants. And that's not something that you can just look at one time and be like, oh, I know how to do this now. Sometimes it takes time to actually review it and know, how do I actually tell? What are the details that need to be on there. And so making sure that folks are trained in that, I think, would be helpful in protecting students.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And don't you have a training coming up?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: I do. I have a couple trainings coming up. One of the things that we are offering this semester is also a certification with President's Alliance and First Gen Empower, which are two organizations. We're part of the network for president's alliance, so we are sponsoring 50 spots of students, staff, and faculty to get certified on how to better support the immigrant community. And so that provides a piece of law related to education, ways to communicate with students and provide information about resources that are in the institution.

But then another piece that we're doing is a training for emergency preparedness with First Five Humboldt. And so that usually also provides information on how to review a judicial warrant. And then also, the know your rights piece-- especially on a college campus, what rights do you have, and how do we protect you and support you when you're on campus?

And then outside of campus, the community organizations and networks that we have available that, again, you can make reports if you think there's ice presence. We have a good connection with Centro Del Pueblo and True North. So if there is anything that's going on in the community, they let me know. And then I communicate. Now we have a procedure with our police department that we will notify students that [INAUDIBLE].

KEITH FLAMER: The CR police department?

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, the CR police department.

KEITH FLAMER: What I would like to challenge you with, even though you offer these great trainings, I'm ashamed to say I've never been there, which I'm very sorry for. I think that it would be very good to have you or your team come and train the senior administrators, because I'm pretty sure some of us have never seen a warrant and cannot tell the difference. So it would be very good if I can get my senior staff and their support people, their executive assistants, come in for a training with just them. It would be very, very helpful.

IRENE GONZALEZ-HERRERA: Yeah, and I think that's the level of support that makes the most difference, because when administrators see and provide the support and they have the knowledge, the other people who are also working in the front-facing roles also know that they can take ownership of being part of the solution and knowing what resources are available, and how to navigate. And also getting the support from administrators really make a difference in attending--

KEITH FLAMER: I agree. I think it's very, very important that we start [INAUDIBLE].

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: Another part of that too is, I think it's important-- we haven't done this yet. Well, True North has done a little bit of it, but training allies to also know how to protect themselves. We saw in Minnesota what happened to folks. Training folks how to de-escalate situations, or at least try to de-escalate situations, so that's another piece. We have a sense of security here in Humboldt because we're behind the Redwood Curtain.

KEITH FLAMER: So far we do.

CARMEN ELENA L'ANNUNZIATA: So far, yeah. We feel like we're a little bit more protected. But I think that can be a false sense of security. And it's always important to prepare.

We talk about preparedness when we talk about earthquakes or tsunamis. So we should talk about preparedness when we're talking about the presence of ICE in our communities. And that's not just immigrant families that should be prepared.

But also, everybody else should be prepared. How do you act? What can you do, so that you are also safe, so that you're also helping in that situation.

KEITH FLAMER: And you say that you have not done this training before.