Betty June Nelson (Abraham) Colpitts passed away peacefully on February 5, 2025 after a recent diagnosis of cancer.

Betty was born into a family of Irish and Swedish descent. She was born in her grandmother’s house (Genoa, Nebraska) on November 26, 1930 to John Edward Nelson and Ila Camilla (Gallagher) Nelson. She would later be followed by two brothers, Ronald “Tad” Nelson and Harlow “Wayne” Nelson.

In 1935, the family moved out west to Hilsboro, Oregon following her father’s work as a dairyman. Betty was raised on the farmlands of Oregon surrounded by animals and always a garden. Many of the family’s vacations were spent visiting relatives in Hood River. During a return trip to see her ailing grandmother in Nebraska, a 12 year-old Betty contracted polio. In spite of having been paralyzed from the waist down, she miraculously made a full recovery, without even so much as a limp. After several moves, the family settled in Siletz, Oregon where she graduated in 1949.

Betty would have five of her children on the Oregon coast and two in Northern California where she spent the majority of her life, starting in Maple Creek, California. She enjoyed Halloween potlucks, Christmas programs, eggs hunts and Easter functions at the school her children attended there. In the summer months there were picnics on the sandy banks of the Mad River. These much cherished traditions would continue well after the family moved to Blue Lake.

In 1979, Betty moved with her new love, James “Jim” Colpitts, into their first home together in Arcata. They would spend a total of 22 very happy years together. On May 28, 1990 they were wed in a small ceremony at the Chapel of the Bells, Reno, Nevada,

Betty was the adored mother of seven children: Connie Kaye (David Mather), Deborah “Deb” Ellen (Danny Heldt), Rhonda Lee (Sandy Battilocchi) Rick E. Abraham (Donna), Lila Jean (Jim Snider), Karen Marie (Dwayne Long), And Holly Sue (Dwight Stonebarger).

God’s Garden by Melissa Shreve

God looked around his garden and found an empty place,
He then looked down upon the earth and saw your tired face.
He put his arms around you and lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful, He always takes the best.

He knew that you were suffering,
He knew you were in pain.
He knew that you would never get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rough and the hills were hard to climb.
So he closed your weary eyelids and whispered, ‘Peace be Thine’.

It broke our hearts to lose you, but you didn’t go alone,
For part of us went with you, the day God called you home.

We love you, Mom!

She was the cherished grandmother of eleven: Scott Mather (Joanna), Jason Mather, Tanya Mather (Finance Eric Mueller), Emily Heldt (Rustin Bumgarner), Matthew Heldt (Marissa), Shannon Battilocchi, Jeff Battilocchi (Kristie), Jana White, Kelsey Snider (Jason Nelson), Amy Stone, and Kerissa Stonebarger.

She was the beloved great-grandmother of fifteen: Collin & Lee Mather, Carson, Aliyah, Trent, Bowen “Bo” & Isabella “Bella” Heldt, Elyse Bumgarner, Aleric Stone (Michaela), Stephanie Stone, Kayla & Bristol White, Bailey & Lane Nelson, and Cathan Stonebarger.

Betty’s life can best be expressed in family, cooking & baking, gardening, 94 years of sharing wisdom, followed by holidays, music, as well as watching football (Go Eagles!), figure skating, car racing, and westerns on T.V. She loved going to thrift stores and finding that great buy as well as having yard sales with her girls, and other family events such as much loved campouts.

Over the years, Betty enjoyed trips with destinations like San Francisco where she’d fondly recount seeing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, Fisherman’s Wharf, China Town, The Irish Museum, and a stay in a historic motor lodge. She would visit her brother Ron and his family in Modesto. Later, she would board her first flight, traveling with two daughters to Inola, Oklahoma as her youngest settled into her first new home. She made her way to Idaho, as well, when her son settled there.

Betty’s own home was surrounded by flowers for which she proudly received several awards from the Lazy J Ranch. Betty is fondly remembered there by her caring neighbors, Penny Schwartz, Trelle Osteen and Matthew Torres.

Betty is survived by her seven children, eleven grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her loved husband, Jim Colpitts, grandson Scott Mather, and brothers Tad & Wayne.

Per Betty’s request, there will be no viewing or services. Her family would like to thank Ayers Family Cremation for serving the community with such grace and care. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the American Cancer Society in the name of Betty Colpitts.

Adrienne Nicole LeRoy was born October 26, 1995 in Fortuna to her parents, Sonja Madsen Armstrong and Brian LeRoy. She passed peacefully, in her sleep, on December 27, 2024, at her home in Redding due to a severe heart condition that she had been courageously battling for over two years.

Adrienne spent her early childhood in Fortuna and her mid-years in Redding, after her mother’s marriage to Brad Armstrong, who was a wonderful stepfather. She moved back to Fortuna at the beginning of her senior year in high school. While growing up in Redding, Adrienne spent many years active in 4-H, raising and showing livestock at the county fair and was President of her 4-H Chapter for one year. Adrienne was also active, as a pitcher, in the Redding Girl’s Softball league for several years and was the No. 1 California pitcher in Girl’s Softball in her division for three years before a shoulder injury forced her to quit. She absolutely loved playing softball. Adrienne graduated from East High School, Fortuna, Class of 2013.

Adrienne especially enjoyed all family gatherings, camping trips with the Madsen side of the family and trips to the Ruth Lake vacation spot with the LeRoy side of the family. She was an amazing fisherwoman and was a daredevil on the tube! Adrienne was an avid reader and read numerous series of novels. She was upbeat and caring, with a great sense of humor. She could always get her dad to laugh.

In 2015, Adrienne moved back to the Redding area and her first child, Sophia LeRoy-Shelton, was born several months later. She worked various jobs in the Redding area while attending The Institute of Technology, where she obtained her CNA, and in 2019, her LVN license. She then worked, as an LVN, in various medical settings. She loved helping people and attending to their medical needs. Her lifelong dream was to become a Registered Nurse, specializing in Pediatrics. Adrienne was about to start back with her schooling after the first of the year when she passed.

In late 2021, Adrienne reconnected with a high school boyfriend, Jimmy “JD” Blankenship, who became the love of her life, and they became engaged on Christmas 2023. They enjoyed over three love filled years and became parents of Isabella in February of 2024. In addition, Jimmy is a loving stepparent to Sophia. They went on many trips together, camping and exploring new places. She will be missed so much by Jimmy and the girls, and by her brother, Beau and sister, Brooklyn, whom she raised after her mother’s stroke and death, and by her brother, Max, whom she adored.

Adrienne was preceded in death by her mother, Sonja Madsen Armstrong; stepfather, Calvin “Brad” Armstrong; grandfathers, Leland Madsen and Dennis Hanson. Adrienne is survived by her father, Brian LeRoy; daughters Sophia LeRoy-Shelton and Isabella Blankenship; fiancé Jimmy “JD” Blankenship; brothers Max LeRoy (Maddie) and Beau Armstrong; sister Brooklyn Armstrong; grandmothers: Pat Madsen and Susan LeRoy; aunts: Tara Madsen Johnson (Sage Foley) and Leslie Thompson (Leonard Rodriguez), uncles: Todd Gaboriault (Deb), Mark Gaboriault and Sequoia (Jeremiah) Anderson (Sarah); cousins: Ross Gaboriault, Nick Gaboriault, Broc Gaboriault, Mallory Phillips, Derek Johnson, Bailey Foley, Travis Freeman, Trystan Lewis, Tanner Baum, Faith Anderson and Lucas Cannafax, along with many other relatives.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, March 29 at 1 p.m. at the Fortuna United Methodist Church with a reception following at the Gene Lucas Center, 3000 Newburg Rd., Fortuna from 2 to 6 p.m. In addition, a Celebration of Life will be held on April 12 at Anderson River Park in Anderson. Her ashes, along with her mother’s and stepfather’s, will be scattered at their beloved Ruth Lake getaway at a later date.

Rest in peace and fly high our sweet A. Gone way too soon. You will be missed always.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Adrienne LeRoy’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

UPDATE, Feb. 13: University spokesperson Aileen Yoo contacted the Outpost this morning to correct the record. On Feb. 5 UPD did, in fact, receive two separate reports regarding flyers found on vehicles parked on campus. One of them is shown in the photo below.

Oddly, the vehicles flyered were not Teslas, according to Yoo, who added that and there have been no reports of vandalism associated with Teslas.

“University Police are actively monitoring the situation and are working to identify those responsible for distributing the flyers,” she said via email.”

Arcata Police Sgt. Heidi Grossman tells the Outpost this morning that the department has received no reports of vandalized Tesla.

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Original post:

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Over the past week the Arcata Police Department received four separate reports from local Tesla owners who found threatening notes left on their vehicles.

Arcata Police Sgt. Heidi Grossman told the Outpost that the first report came in on Wednesday, Feb. 5, and three more reports were submitted over the next two days. One Tesla owner reported that he found a note on his car on Friday, Feb. 7 but said it could have been left there on any of the three previous days, since he hadn’t driven his car during that period.

Today, the Outpost received an envelope in the mail with three pages inside. The first page, a note addressed to Lost Coast Output [sic] editors, takes credit for the threats, saying 10 students in Arcata and Seaside (in Monterey County) delivered written warnings to 13 Tesla owners. The note is signed by SANE, Students Against Nazi Extremism. The envelope has no return address.

The other two pages in the envelope contain a manifesto, of sorts, and plan of attack. It calls Tesla CEO Elon Musk “an overt Nazi with a history of fascist, racist, misogynist and criminal behavior” and describes a plan to “inflict physical damage to Tesla-branded vehicles” over the next month or so.

The plan described in the document is to begin vandalizing Teslas on Feb. 12 in Arcata, Rohnert Park, Seaside and Hayward — all cities with California State University campuses. 

The goal of these actions, according to the document, is to “create enough shame to make it onerous for anyone to buy or operate a Tesla-branded vehicle.”

Sgt. Chase Carpenter with Cal Poly Humboldt’s University Police Department said the agency hasn’t received any reports regarding such threatening notes or the Students Against Nazi Extremism. [See update above.]

APD Sgt. Grossman said protecting the community is her agency’s top priority, and anyone with information is asked to contact the department at 707-822-2428.

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UPDATE, 6:30 p.m.: One of the local residents targeted with these notes (theirs was wrapped around a brick and placed on their car) provided a statement to the Outpost. 

“How ironic that this threat is directed at a community that overwhelmingly supports democratic ideals,” the note says, in part.

It later adds, “In lieu of violence may I suggest the perpetrators donate to progressive causes, write postcards to encourage voting, call their political representatives in congress, and support businesses engaged in fair practices. We are not the enemy and neither are our Teslas. In a final note of irony I am of Jewish descent. Nazis indeed.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• The Eureka Burger King Will Be Closed for a Little Bit Due to Sewage Problems, According to Restaurant Inspectors
• BK HAS FALLEN! Eureka Burger King Gets More Bad News, Exactly One Month After it Was First Shut Down For Sewage Probz
• POLL! Let’s Remember the Good Times! What Was Your Favorite Menu Item at Eureka’s Sewage-Cursed Burger King?

###

Megafans of the Bacon Swiss Royal Crispy Chicken™ will no longer have to drive to McKinleyville or Fortuna to get their fix. The Eureka BK is back, baby!

The county’s Division of Environmental Health sends along word that the restaurant’s sewage lateral has been repaired to the city of Eureka’s satisfaction, and so therefore it may once again offer its wares to the public.

Here is that notification, dated today and effective immediately. “Notify our office should any additional problems with sewage disposal occur,” the restaurant inspectors warn.

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Press release from the National Union of Healthcare Workers:

Workers are fighting back against the loss of birthing centers, urgent care centers and rehabilitation centers as Providence, the nation’s fifth largest nonprofit hospital system, also faces labor unrest in Oregon and fallout from a charity care scandal.

More than 2,000 healthcare workers at Providence hospitals and hospices throughout Northern California are holding their first region-wide Day of Action to call attention to severe understaffing and sharp cuts to health services in communities that are dependent on Providence for their medical care. 

For the first time, Providence workers, who include respiratory therapists, medical technicians, nursing assistants and hospice nurses, are teaming up across Northern California on a unified campaign seeking to make Providence provide competitive salaries and benefits so it can restore safe staffing levels and limit Providence’s ability to slash services in the wake of a series of closures.

“In Humboldt County, we’re almost entirely dependent on Providence for medical services, but instead of safeguarding that care, Providence is acting like a greedy monopolist,” said Kellie Shaner, a telemetry tech at St. Joseph Hospital Eureka. “Since the pandemic, Providence has closed a local birthing center, rehabilitation center and lab, and we fear more closures are inevitable unless we fight together to keep care and caregivers in our community.” 

WHO/WHAT: Day of Action picket lines authorized by more than 2,000 Providence workers in Northern California, who are members of the National Union of Union of Healthcare Workers.

WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, Feb. 12 outside four hospitals and two hospices in Humboldt, Napa and Sonoma counties.

See Below for a full list of times and locations.

Providence is the nation’s fifth-largest nonprofit hospital system. Based in Washington State, it gained a foothold in Northern California with its 2016 takeover of St. Joseph Health, and now controls nearly two-thirds of the licensed acute care hospital beds in Sonoma and Humboldt counties and 57 percent of the licensed acute care hospital beds in Napa County, including the highest-level trauma centers in all three counties. 

Overall, Providence now owns six hospitals in Northern California, five of which have members represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers: Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Petaluma Valley Hospital, Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa, and Redwood Memorial Hospital and St. Joseph Eureka in Humboldt County. Providence also has two hospices in Sonoma County, both represented by NUHW. 

Providence has $7.8 billion in financial reserves and a $150 million venture capital arm, but it has still laid off workers and sharply reduced available medical services since taking over the Northern California hospitals. Since 2020, Providence has closed its outpatient labs in all three counties, closed birthing centers in Humboldt and Sonoma counties, shuttered the only acute rehab unit in Humboldt County, and closed two urgent care clinics in Sonoma County.
It has also laid off hospice workers in Sonoma County, while increasing caseloads for caregivers so they have less time for patients.

“I remember when we were still St. Joseph, and there was a sincere commitment to doing the right thing for the people in our community,” said Christina Groverman, who has been a nurse in Sonoma County for 27 years, now at Providence Hospice in Petaluma. “Under Providence, it’s all about profit at the expense of patients. We know it’s going to be hard to change Providence’s approach, but all of us see what’s happening, and we’re determined to uphold our commitment to the communities we serve.”

Providence’s quest to maximize profits stretches beyond Northern California and has landed it in the crosshairs of state authorities. In Oregon, nearly 5,000 nurses, represented by the Oregon Nurses Association, have been on strike for a month over concerns about “systemic understaffing.” 

In Washington State, Providence is refunding $21 million in medical bills and erasing $137 million in medical debt to settle charges filed by the Washington State Attorney General’s office that the company sent patients who qualified for charity care to collections. And, in California, then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra rejected a proposed merger between Providence and Adventist hospitals in Northern California citing a ”potential to increase health costs, and potentially limit access and availability of healthcare services.”

To improve staffing levels, reduce turnover and safeguard services, unionized Providence workers in Northern California are fighting to win pay and benefits that are comparable to Providence’s biggest regional competitors, Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health, while also requiring Providence to provide at least five months advanced notice before it closes a service so workers and community members have an opportunity to rally against it. Providence has so far rejected being forced to provide advanced notice of service closures and is proposing annual raises of less than 2 percent for nearly all workers.

Under Providence, salaries have not kept up compared to its Bay Area competitors, resulting in frequent turnover as workers get experience at Providence hospitals only to leave for nearby Sutter and Kaiser facilities.

“Queen of the Valley is my hometown hospital, and I can’t be quiet when I see Napa residents waiting longer for care because we’re understaffed or our equipment is too old and unreliable,” said Gabby Caro, a scheduler in the hospital’s imaging department. “We’re constantly losing caregivers because Providence pays so much less than Sutter and Kaiser, and that means less care for our community.”

Picket Schedule – Wednesday Feb. 12. 

Sonoma County
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
1165 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa
7 to 9 a.m.
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
3 to 6 p.m.

Petaluma Valley Hospital
400 N McDowell Blvd., Petaluma
7 to 9 am. 11 to 1 p.m. 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Hospice of Petaluma
416 Payran St., Petaluma
7 to 9 a.m.

Memorial Hospice - Santa Rosa
439 College Ave., Santa Rosa
7 to 9 a.m.
4:30 to 6 p.m.

Napa County
Queen of the Valley Medical Center
1000 Trancas St., Napa
6:30 to 8:30 a.m.
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
3:30 to 6 p.m.

Humboldt County
St. Joseph Hospital - Eureka
2700 Dolbeer St., Eureka
3 to 6 p.m.

Ed. note: On Friday, a series of tweets from Wikileaks took aim at Internews, the nonprofit media development agency once based in Arcata. (It still has offices and some employees here.) The tweets come as the Trump Administration dismantles the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Internews’ principal funder.

The tweets spoke of half a billion federal dollars “funneled through” Internews. Coming, as they did, under the Wikileaks brand, they were understood as secret revelations liberated from the deep state. Some local people who had never heard of Internews demanded answers.

In fact, though, there was really nothing of substance in the Wikileaks dump that wasn’t already public knowledge. Here’s a North Coast Journal story from 22 years ago that basically laid out Internews’ whole history and explored the quandaries of the company using federal funding for its work.

But these recent media flurries prompted Kay Elewski, a former Internews staffer, to write down some memories of working for the company. She was kind enough to share them with the Outpost.

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Goodbye To All That
By Kay Elewski

I read in The New York Times that Elon Musk called USAID “corrupt and criminal.” The USAID employees I encountered during my time with Internews Network, the Arcata-based NGO recipient of hefty USAID grants, were multilingual, helpful, dedicated, ambitious. I attended their trainings, shared cocktails and romantic secrets, sought their professional advice, filed reports in a timely manner, and got leads to new assignments.

Internews’ mission when I joined in the mid-nineties was to support and launch independent news media in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and other fledgling democracies around the globe. One of the early program offices was based in Kyiv. USAID invested heavily in these activities.

Internews provided equipment and training to nascent radio and television stations setting up news programming that was not government sponsored and controlled. Small media outlets popped up across Central Asia. I visited news programming projects in Almaty, Kazakhstan and in Bishkek, in the Kyrgyz Republic.

It was a privilege and a responsibility to visit the local offices. NGO employees represented an up close and personal America to citizens of places where Americans had not previously been admitted. We brought equipment and trainers and helped set up facilities for news stations to broadcast local reporting. We schooled local staff on the accounting systems for USAID fund use reporting and imported an American business model for team development. News programming evolved to cover the environment, culture, education, economic issues, health and women.

Although USAID funds were grants, the use of these funds required both narrative reports and financial statements. The names of regional officials, lawyers, journalists, fixers and other individuals who assisted us were included in the reports. Program by program, USAID essentially created a global directory, listing individuals, their professions, their contact information.

At the local level, we were genuinely curious about each other’s lives. We shared our histories, problem solving, support, friendship and sometimes deep revelations during the late talking drinking nights that were never paid for on USAID contract dollars. Exactly.

At some point the Internews leadership’s desire to launch programs in Latin America led one of my colleagues who read an article by John Lee Anderson in The New Yorker to send him an email, describe the work we did and ask if he could direct her to journalists in the region. Anderson responded that while she might have other intentions, he never felt as certain as he did when reading her email, that he was being fished by a spook, and stated he did not want to be contacted by her again. Ever.

When I texted her recently, my former colleague wrote: “That was a conversation I will never forget.” At the time, we were both shocked. Spies? CIA ops? Us?

But what was USAID doing around the world, making friends and saving lives? In the big picture, no one I know would consider the US government a benevolent entity. Internews was surely a soft ops, changing hearts and minds, bringing Central Asian teams to DC and California meetings. Of course, corruption lurked. And like all stressed performers under pressure, USAID contractors and employees made mistakes. Funds were misspent on local scams. I’m not calling anyone out. We’re past that.

After a decade, the distant travel lost meaning for me. The big directory was no longer a comfortable concept. Questions about being part of a team that imported a practice of independent fair and balanced news media in the face of rising cable news opinion journalism in the US whined in the back of my thoughts like a vampire mosquito. One long night alone in my Novotel hotel room after visiting the Nyarube massacre site — a small Catholic church where 1,500 Tutsi sought refuge, but were trapped and slaughtered—I watched lightning lash the mountains outside my window and knew I was in the wrong place.

A few months later, back in California, I resigned.

Shedding USAID causes me no grief, but the dismantling of an agency staffed by dedicated personnel around the world aiming to deliver assistance deserves respectful management. Back in the day, USAID and NGOs attracted individuals seeking adventure, community and most of all peaceful relations with other nations. Maybe that no longer matters.

President Donald Trump returned to office last month with a major show of force on immigration, issuing numerous orders and directives to dramatically crack down on enforcement.

They’ve sparked glee from his supporters, condemnation from his opponents, fear from immigrant communities amid nationwide raids — and also plenty of false alarms.

The flurry of new policies — some pushing long-held legal boundaries — are part of a “shock and awe” strategy meant to amplify the promises of a military-assisted mass deportation, experts said. Among the administration’s goals is for fearful immigrants to “voluntarily depart.”

“The big issue is this basically full-court press (from the administration) on immigration enforcement and the fear it’s generated,” said UC Davis immigration law professor Kevin Johnson. “(The fear) probably is the biggest impact of all.”

The uncertainty over immigrants’ futures has led communities to question whether workers should continue to show up to businesses, children to school and patients to doctors’ offices — and whether there will be economic disruptions and school funding consequences as a result.

Many immigrants are staying home. Others have little choice but to continue their routines.

In Kern County, an immigrant citrus picker who spoke on the condition that her name not be used because she fears deportation said like many of her coworkers, she stayed home for a day in the wake of a Border Patrol operation last month — conducted before Trump took office — that seemed to target farmworkers.

But she has bills to pay, so she’s continued going to work and sending her child to daycare. Rumors of immigration authority sightings have also continued to spread, including one that prompted the contractor she works for to keep her crew in the orange grove at the end of a recent workday. The contractor didn’t release them to go home until checking that the roads were clear, she said.

“Everybody goes out with fear,” she said. “But one has needs. And my needs are bigger than the fear.”

Trump’s actions have the potential to drastically remake the immigration landscape. Here’s what’s changed so far and how California is responding.

Targeting birthright citizenship

One of Trump’s first-day executive orders sought to end the century-plus-old practice of granting citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil even if their parents are undocumented. Courts have affirmed the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship since 1898, in the case of a San Francisco man whose parents were from China.

Two federal judges, responding to separate lawsuits, quickly halted the order.

A third lawsuit, brought by 18 states including California and the city of San Francisco, was heard in a Massachusetts federal court last Friday. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office says the executive order would strip citizenship rights from about 24,500 children who are born in California each year.

Expanding ICE’s reach

The administration has directed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand use of a process called “expedited removal”: deportations that are allowed to bypass immigration courts, where a judge would normally decide the merit of allowing someone to stay in the country. In the past, immigrants without legal status and who do not make an asylum claim can be placed in this process if they’re arrested within 14 days of entering the country, and within 100 miles of the border.

That already covered most of California. The new order expands the process to the entire country, and to immigrants arrested within two years of entering.

“That could have a huge effect” on the number of people authorities can arrest and put in the fast-tracked deportation process far from the border, said UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham.

Immigration courts have a longstanding backlog that in late 2024 rose to 3.5 million cases.

Other Trump actions could also dramatically increase those cases:

• He revoked a policy prohibiting agents from making arrests in “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals;
• And he signed the Laken Riley Act, a GOP bill that had some Democratic support, directing ICE to detain and deport immigrants who are charged — not just convicted — with certain crimes.

Experts say much of how this is carried out still depends on how much Congress is willing to allow ICE to spend. The agency, which operates on about $9 billion a year, estimates it needs $27 billion to carry out the Laken Riley Act, NPR has reported.

The reach of ICE’s recent activity is also unclear. The agency in the last week of January posted daily arrest numbers on the social media platform X, showing nationwide an average of about 800 arrests a day. That’s far higher than daily arrests during the Biden administration, which averaged about 300 in 2024, according to ICE.

But it’s not clear how many people have been held in detention, released with immigration court cases pending, or deported: ICE spokesperson Richard Beam said those figures aren’t available, nor was a state-by-state breakdown.

The agency also would not provide figures of how many of those arrested have the criminal convictions the administration says it’s targeting. An NBC News report in late January found for one of the days, nearly half of those arrested were nonviolent offenders or had no criminal record.

Cancelling legal immigration paths

In addition to targeting immigrants without legal status, Trump is revoking pathways for immigrants to arrive legally, often on humanitarian grounds.

Trump suspended refugee admissions in one Day-One order. In other actions, he’s gone after the temporary legal statuses of immigrants whom the Biden administration allowed to enter. Trump’s administration has called those statuses another way to allow illegal immigration under the guise of government support.

For example, his Homeland Security department canceled the temporary status of about 300,000 Venezuelans that had allowed them protections from deportation and work permits. That status, intended to protect people from tumultuous home countries, expires in April, and another 250,000 protected Venezuelans’ status expires in September.

The administration also is preparing, according to the New York Times, to strip the temporary legal status of immigrants from four countries (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti) that the Biden administration had allowed to enter — and gain work permits — if they found American sponsors, as a way to curb illegal border crossings.

Similarly, on Day One, Trump ended a Biden-era program allowing migrants at the border to schedule appointments to be temporarily allowed into the U.S. with work permits while they wait for immigration cases to be decided.

Because many of those immigrants are newer arrivals, Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute said, they’re particularly likely to be put in the fast-tracked deportation process.

Trying to secure local cooperation

The administration is again trying to overturn local and state sanctuary laws, meaning we’re likely to see a return to the California-versus-federal showdown from the first Trump administration on how much the state can be required to help immigration agents.

Those fights, Arulanantham said, “really are fundamental to balance of power between the federal government and states with respect to how immigration enforcement plays out on the ground.”

From the arresting immigration agents to the detention bed space to the judges considering whether to order deportations, the Trump administration doesn’t have nearly the capacity to carry out the level of crackdown he vows.

So his orders seek to sign on more local police as partners in the effort. The administration is also suing Chicago and Cook County over their non-cooperation policies, accusing the cities of “thwarting” enforcement, and has threatened to prosecute local officials who fail to cooperate with immigration agents.

On her first day as attorney general, Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to once again pause grants for sanctuary cities and states. That could include California, which in 2017 passed a law barring police and sheriffs from arresting or detaining immigrants on behalf of federal agents.

In the previous iteration of this standoff, California won in court when the federal government tried to withhold funding. On Friday, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties renewed the fight, suing Trump over his latest threats.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday said he hadn’t seen any interruptions to grants yet, but “if that happens, we will sue.”

California conservative sheriffs are now in an odd position between a blue state and a red federal administration. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, in a video Thursday, sought to quell fears and “misinformation” among constituents that his agency was involved in immigration enforcement. Yet in the same video, he said he hoped to assist ICE “within the confines of the sanctuary state laws” with arresting undocumented immigrants who are being held in his jails.

California’s response

The Legislature this week passed $50 million in a special session Gov. Gavin Newsom called to help “Trump-proof” the state — $25 million for the state Department of Justice to sue the federal administration on a variety of matters including immigration, and $25 million toward legal aid to represent immigrants in deportation proceedings.

Democratic lawmakers have introduced a series of bills seeking to discourage the presence of immigration authorities near or at schools.

Newsom has scaled back his own criticisms of the president in recent weeks as he seeks to secure federal wildfire aid.

Bonta has continued to push back with a series of press statements encouraging immigrants to know their rights, and advising school employees they don’t have to assist immigration agents in apprehending immigrant students.

California notched some big wins in court opposing many policies during the last Trump administration, including halting the Muslim ban and Trump’s efforts to undo temporary legal status for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

But Bush-Joseph noted the Supreme Court in 2023 limited the states’ powers to challenge presidential immigration policies when Texas and other red states tried to sue Biden.

“The inverse can be true under the Trump administration if blue states try to bring lawsuits,” Bush-Joseph said.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.