Renee Espinoza thought her first strip search at the hands of a California correctional officer guard would be her last. It happened during a visit to Centinela State Prison to see her incarcerated husband.

A few months later it happened again. And then again.

“It was the same process each time. I sign a paper saying it’s ok to search me, they escort me to the same locker room,” Renee said.

Before each search, she filled out the so-called Form 888, a requirement for each visitor who consents to an unclothed search. The first search felt procedural and normal, she recalled. On the second search, she noticed the female officers in the room had mirrors and used a flashlight.

On the third search, the correctional officer was more aggressive. “She was asking me to spread my genitals wider. And I’m just like, ‘there’s nothing in there!’ How much wider do you need me to open? How much lower do you need me to bend? What else do you need me to do?”

Espinoza shared her story last week with other families of state prisoners who are trying to make sense of a proposed change in search policy at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The department, which is facing pressure to stem the flow of drugs and cell phones into prisons, plans to make procedural changes that officials said would be minimal and meant to provide more clarity and consistency about the rights for those being searched.

“The only change these regulations implement is in regard to proposed changes to (the state prison system’s) Form 888, which works to include clarity and consistency with existing language describing the search process and the rights of those being searched. The search process itself will remain unchanged,” wrote Alia Cruz, a spokesperson for the corrections agency, in an email.

But one of the proposed changes in the regulation includes language that suggests correctional officers could have more discretion to perform a strip search. That change would lower the threshold for an officer to request a search from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion.”

“All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip searching anyone they want.”
— Sharon Dolovich, law professor and director of the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program

Advocates are worried it could lead to unnecessarily invasive interactions between prisoners’ loved ones and correctional officers.

“People who run the visits already have a lot of discretion,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor who directs the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program. “All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip searching anyone they want.”

Attorney Eric Sapp of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an Oakland-based organization, met with families last week ahead of a scheduled public comment hearing on the regulation. He called the proposed change unlawful, inconsistent with other regulations, and said it was “concerning” that the department doesn’t explicitly say whether touching is allowed during unclothed searches.

“We do think it’s unreasonable that they want to change and harmonize those regulations by lowering ‘probable cause’ to ‘reasonable suspicion’ rather than doing the exact opposite,” he said, suggesting that the standard should remain at probable cause.

Cruz, the department’s spokesperson, said the proposed regulation is not intended to change the threshold for searches. She said the standards for strip and cavity searches would remain “unchanged” and would continue to be used only after less invasive means.

“Unclothed searches are completely voluntary unless a search warrant is presented. Unclothed searches are used very sparingly, and only when all other contraband interdiction efforts have been exhausted,” said Cruz. “Contraband interdiction efforts to be used before an unclothed search is proposed includes walk-through metal detectors and hand-held metal detectors.”

Declining a search has a consequence for prison visitors. It means they would not get to meet their incarcerated loved ones, which in some cases could waste an hours-long drive to an institution.

Why is the prison search policy coming up now?

California’s corrections agency put forward the proposed policy six months after an Office of Inspector General audit called attention to the flow of contraband into prisons, including during the pandemic when visitor restrictions were in place.

The report found the Department of Corrections had weak contraband prevention efforts in place and ultimately “allowed” the problem to continue. The inspector general urged the department to strengthen oversight of who and what comes into prisons to keep out drugs, including by searching staff more frequently and making more use of narcotic-detecting canines.

California state prisons recorded 1,274 overdoses between March 2019 and February 2020. In the following 12 months — after pandemic restrictions took effect — overdoses declined to 796, according to California Correctional Health Care Services.

Although the number of overdoses went down, the cases revealed that drugs found their way into prisons even when families couldn’t visit. Some avenues included staff, contractors, official visitors and mail.

Between 2021 and 2022, 64 visitors were arrested across all state prisons for attempting to bring in contraband. In the same year, six prison employees and 46 non-visitors were also arrested, according to the department’s Office of Research. The number of visitors arrested are down from 286 in 2018 and 186 in 2019.

Drug delivery methods have gotten more outlandish. Recently two men were charged for using drones to drop drugs, vape pens, MP3 players and phones into prison yards across seven prison facilities, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Asked to comment on the proposed search changes, Shaun Spillane, a spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office, said there is value in the decision to update policies.

“Although drugs still made it into prisons while visitation was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that the department have an effective search process for people who visit prisons,” Spillane said.

California prison visits as a civil right

The request to update search policies comes in the midst of the Newsom administration’s campaign to make prisons friendlier to families. He signed a law last month that allows prisoners to be housed in facilities closer to where their children under 18 live.

The Newsom administration in 2021 added a third day of weekly visitation at all institutions to make family visits more accessible.

Research shows that maintaining close family ties while incarcerated contributes to positive parole outcomes and lowers the likelihood of recidivism.

But families say that with intimidating visitor policies in place, they will feel less inclined to visit. Others say they would refuse a search in protest, even if it means losing their visit.

“Close connections to loved ones on the outside is the single biggest predictor of success for re-entry, so why wouldn’t the CDCR try to enhance the experience and enhance the ability for people to visit rather than increasingly burden it?” Dolovich, the professor from UCLA, said.

Angel Rice, the wife of a prisoner and advocate at Empowering Women Impacted by Incarceration, said that after COVID-19, the department started giving families more freedom during the holidays.

Now, children and mothers are allowed to make Christmas ornaments and picture frames and decorate gingerbread houses.

“That is a small part of them doing something in a positive manner to make us feel like it’s family,” Rice said. “This is the Department of Rehabilitation. And these little events matter. They make a difference as far as preparing them to come home.”

“Close connections to loved ones on the outside is the biggest predictor of success for re-entry, so why wouldn’t the CDCR try to enhance the experience rather than increasingly burden it?”
— Sharon Dolovich, law professor and director of the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program

The Legislature also has advanced a few bills this year to make family ties with prisoners more accessible.

One, sponsored by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles, would make visitation a civil right for prisoners and restrict the Department of Corrections’ power to deny a person from visiting. Newsom vetoed a version of this bill in 2021, on the basis that he thought the legislation could lead to costly litigation from individuals denied visitation for what may be valid security concerns.

On Wednesday, the department is scheduled to hold a public comment hearing about the new search regulations. Advocates have already proposed alternatives to the visitor policy, including raising the standard for an officer to request strip search, or using non-intrusive technologies instead.

“These proposed changes in particular are unnecessary and dangerous, creating grave potential for abuse and causing undue burdens on visitors,” Sapp wrote in a letter to the department days before the public comment period ends. “We urge that significant changes be made before any regulations in this area are adopted.”

If approved, the department will put in a request for good cause, which would enact the policy immediately.

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

From the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

The Director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has re-opened the recreational razor clam fishery in Humboldt County following a recommendation from state health agencies that consumption of razor clams in the area no longer poses a significant threat for domoic acid exposure.

In April 2023, the razor clam fishery was closed in Humboldt County due to risk of domoic acid exposure. During the closure, state health agencies continued to assess domoic acid levels which consistently exceeded the federal action level for domoic acid of ≥ 20 parts per million (ppm). However, clams collected from Clam Beach, Humboldt County in July 2023 all had domoic acid concentrations lower than this action level.

Domoic acid is a naturally occurring toxin produced by certain types of plankton that can be harmful or even fatal to humans. Domoic acid poisoning in humans may occur within minutes to hours after consumption of affected seafood and can result in signs and symptoms ranging from vomiting and diarrhea to permanent loss of short-term memory (Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning), coma, or death. There is no way to prepare clams that will remove the toxin. Cooking and freezing have no effect.

CDFW reminds clammers that the daily bag limit for razor clams is 20 and the first 20 clams dug must be retained regardless of size or condition. Each person is required to keep a separate container and is not allowed to commingle their clams with another person’s when digging and transporting clams to shore.

For more information, please refer to Section 29.20 Clams General and Section 29.45 for specific razor clam regulations.

For more information on any fishery closure information or health advisories, please visit CDFW’s Ocean Health Advisories website.

To get the latest information on current fishing season closures related to domoic acid, call CDFW’s Domoic Acid Fishery Closure Information Line at (831) 649-2883.

For the latest consumption warnings, call the California Department of Public Health’s Biotoxin information Line at (510) 412-4643 or toll-free at (800) 553-4133.

A couple of weeks ago, CBS’s venerable news magazine “60 Minutes” paid a visit to the northern English port town of Grimsby, which services the largest offshore wind farm in the world. This morning the segment was posted to YouTube.

The report, by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, features lots of locals in the town, which has fallen on hard times since the decline of its fishing industry, as well as a representative of Ørsted, the Danish company that runs the wind farm operation. Some of the locals grumble that their power bills have not gone down as promised — this is due, at least in part, to the global energy shock that followed the war in Ukraine — but others, including a young woman who has found her career servicing the gigantic offshore devices, revel in the new industry.

It’s pretty easy to see the parallels between the situation in Grimsby and our own, here in the first phases of our own offshore wind development, and especially so in the early flyover shots of the town. Squint a little bit and damned if the town Grimsby doesn’t bear a familiar resemblance to Eureka.

Well worth a watch!

Did you like those big explosions heard all around Humboldt Bay last night at around 10 p.m.? Quickened the pulse, right?

This morning comes word that these booms were due to an artillery shell that someone found in their garden, as one does, earlier in the evening on the 3300 block of H Street in Eureka. 

The Eureka Police Department’s Brittany Powell tells us that her agency closed the roads around the location for a time, then eventually called in the Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad, which transported the thing to the Samoa peninsula and blew it up.

Day in the life.

How many employees at the California State University system were accused of some kind of unwanted sexual conduct in recent years?

Surprisingly, it’s a question no one can answer with confidence even as Cal State, the nation’s largest four-year public university, grapples with the fallout from numerous high-profile cases of sexual harassment and abuse.

A key takeaway from two hard-hitting sets of reports released late last month is that the 23-campus system collects insufficient data.

In one of the reports, the California State Auditor wrote that Cal State lacks “meaningful analysis” to “identify and respond to concerning trends.” The auditor’s report, which was requested by state lawmakers, found that the data on the number of unwanted sexual conduct reports — such as sexual harassment, misconduct, stalking, assault and violence — filed against employees is “unreliable.”

Cozen O’Connor, a law firm the Cal State Chancellor’s Office hired last year to publish more than two dozen reports, wrote that “the current process for collecting data does not result in consistent, reliable data across the system.”

The two sets of reports revealed a huge discrepancy in how many Cal State employees at the 23 campuses were accused of some kind of improper sexual conduct — 1,246 across five years according to the audit and 452 in four academic years according to Cozen.

The reasons for the discrepancy range from imprecise data collection to the addition of new categories of unwanted sexual conduct in the most recent year. Both sets of reports also state campuses don’t use the same software to track improper sexual conduct and don’t log cases the same way.

Buying better software and training more staff to track these reports of unwanted conduct are some of the reasons Cal State estimates it’ll spend $25 million in 2024-25 and unknown sums going forward to adopt all the reports’ recommendations.

“We agree with and will implement the recommendations provided in the audit report, as well as those identified in the Cozen assessment,” wrote Jolene Koester, Cal State’s interim chancellor, to the state auditor.

The importance of good data

Collecting good data is a common watchword of victims’ advocates. Both sets of reports make clear why students and staff will be safer if campuses have a more accurate count of sexual harassment, misconduct, violence, stalking and assault cases.

Complaints against employees can lead to investigations, which may result in additional training, a reprimand or disciplinary action all the way to dismissal for those found to have violated Cal State policy.

But the campuses lack “a sufficient understanding of the volume” of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence, the Cozen systemwide report said. Nor can campuses spot trends in specific locations or academic programs, or even whether a single individual is the source of multiple complaints, the Cozen and audit reports noted. Cozen added that “because the CSU is not tracking data across campuses, an employee who engages in conduct of concern at one CSU university can often seek employment at another CSU without the new university being aware of the misconduct.”

Campuses lack “a sufficient understanding of the volume” of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence.
— Cozen O’Connor’s report

In multiple cases, the auditor’s report flagged issues with campuses that determined employees didn’t violate Cal State policy on unwanted sexual conduct. The auditor’s office wrote that it found “deficiencies that caused us to question the investigative determination about sexual harassment.”

Across U.S. higher education, sexual harassment and assault are rampant. According to a 2019 survey of 33 universities, including three in California, more than 40% of all students reported experiencing a form of sexual harassment since entering college, such as “inappropriate or offensive comments” about their bodies or sexual activities. A quarter of undergraduate women said they were victims of “nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force.”

Competing numbers and data problems

There are multiple reasons why the two sets of numbers of how many employees were accused of unwanted sexual conduct — 1,246 and 452 — are so different.

The first thing to know is that, according to Cozen and the state auditor, neither of their numbers is reliable. But they’re unreliable for different and overlapping reasons, ranging from the types of unwanted sexual conduct Cal State counted to which Cal State documents Cozen and the auditor relied on to finalize their tallies.

One major reason the auditor’s count of 1,246 reports filed against employees is much higher than Cozen’s is because it included more types of unwanted sexual conduct over a longer period of time — 2018 to 2022.

Cozen based its numbers on the official reports campuses submitted to the Cal State’s Chancellor’s Office between 2018-19 and 2021-22. Campuses included the number of reports filed against employees that were limited to several types of unwanted sexual conduct — assault, stalking, misconduct and dating or domestic violence — for the first three academic years in the data set.

Then, in 2021-22, the chancellor’s office began asking campuses for instances of reports against employees — and students — that included two more categories: “sexual exploitation” — a term that refers to sexual coercion, prostitution or recording sexual activity without consent — and a narrower definition of sexual harassment. That narrower definition includes “unwelcome verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” and offering favors in exchange for sexual acts.

The Cozen reports published the same numbers that campuses sent to the chancellor’s office.But campuses also maintained physical and digital files on many other types of reports filed against employees that weren’t reflected in the tallies sent to the chancellor’s office — and by extension — weren’t reflected in Cozen’s figures.

The auditor’s office took a different approach. It reviewed all those physical and digital files and identified cases that alleged sexual assault, stalking, violence, exploitation, sexual harassment, and other unwelcome sexual conduct. It did this for five calendar years.

That’s how the auditor got to a much higher count than the Cozen reports — it just did the additional work of reviewing the raw data.

But even the auditor’s review of digital and physical files didn’t paint the full picture. In some cases, multiple complaints filed against an employee were counted as a single report. Other times, multiple complaints against a single employee were counted as multiple reports. Some campuses had incomplete case files, which may have affected the precision of the auditor’s counts.

“Because of these inconsistencies, we found the data to be unreliable for our purposes,” the auditor wrote.

Importantly, the Cozen and auditor reports had different goals. For example, lawmakers specifically asked the auditor to count how many employees were accused of unwanted sexual conduct. By design, the Cozen reports focused on how Cal State addresses discrimination, harassment, and retaliation according to its own policies and federal rules, wrote the lawyers who shepherded the project, Leslie Gomez and Gina Maisto Smith, in a detailed email response to CalMatters. Cozen produced roughly 1,600 pages of analysis and recommendations for all 23 campuses and the system in the reports, “an arduous task,” Gomez and Smith wrote.

“I think it obviously shows the need for the school to have been collecting this data all along.”
— Shiwali Patel, Director of Justice for Student Survivors and Senior Counsel at the Washington D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center

The latest data from the Cal State campuses also shows how the number of reports against employees can jump when the system tracks more unwanted sexual conduct. Since 2021-22 was the first year that the chancellor’s office sought data from campuses about sexual harassment and exploitation — not just violence, stalking and assault — the number increased in Cozen’s set of reports.

That year there were 255 reports against employees, according to a CalMatters review of Cozen data for all 23 campuses. The year before, Cozen counted 56 reports and about 70 each in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Cozen’s much higher count for 2021-22 is also similar to the auditor’s counts for the 2021 and 2022 calendar years — 193 and 285 reports alleging unwanted sexual conduct by employees, respectively.

“I think it obviously shows the need for the school to have been collecting this data all along,” said Shiwali Patel, who leads policy and litigation on gender-based harassment at the Washington D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center.

More reports of mistreatment likely

The Biden administration is expected to finalize changes to the federal law governing not just unwanted sexual conduct, but also gender-based discrimination. The predicted changes will expand the allegations colleges must respond to — which may increase the number of reports schools will eventually publish.

Gomez and Smith said that Cal State should compile annual reports that include all those data points.

The Biden rules will be the fifth major change since 2011 to federal rules about how colleges should handle violence and discrimination complaints on their campuses. The shifting rules amount to a legalistic whiplash for higher education that is also compounded by evolving state rules, including in California.

The Cozen report notes this constant change is taxing on schools, which must quickly adapt and hire or train more staff knowledgeable in the intricacies of discrimination and harassment prevention policies and enforcement.

In an official statement, Cal State said its count of complaints against employees included violence and assault — and not harassment or exploitation — because federal guidance in 2011 and 2013 emphasized those types of unwanted sexual conduct and not others.

Adding harassment and exploitation to the data collection in 2021-22 “was important to better understanding the frequency and nature of sexual harassment reports, and due to sexual exploitation being newly added to the CSU Nondiscrimination Policy,” wrote Amy Bentley-Smith, spokesperson for the Cal State Chancellor’s Office, in an email to CalMatters.

She provided other possible reasons for an increase in reports that year. One is that students and staff returned to campus as the pandemic subsided. Another is the set of high-profile cases of unwanted sexual conduct at Cal State that prompted more people to come forward with their own complaints.

If Cozen’s “recommendations are implemented with fidelity, we expect that campuses will have more effective practices and systems, and therefore, more reliable data,” wrote the Cozen lawyers to CalMatters.

But better data can only capture what’s reported.

“When we see more numbers reported, that’s actually a good sign” because it shows more “victims feel comfortable coming forward.”
— Shiwali Patel, Director of Justice for Student Survivor at the Washington D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center

At colleges and universities, “most incidents are not reported,” Patel said. And too often she hears of schools refusing to investigate a student’s or employee’s unwanted sexual conduct complaint. Or campuses might punish alleged victims because they violated school policy, such as drinking, disregarding the harassment or assault complaint.

A culture of intimidation may also prevent victims from filing complaints, especially if the alleged suspect holds considerable sway in a niche academic discipline. That’s according to Maha Ibrahim, a senior attorney who represents people alleging harassment, assault and gender-based discrimination at California-based Equal Opportunity Advocates.

If a student or employee is being abused by someone “who has power in that small space,” then the student or employee can lose their ability to complete their research, Ibrahim said. “We see that kind of reticence and under-reporting a lot.”

Paradoxically, Patel thinks “when we see more numbers reported, that’s actually a good sign,” because it shows more “victims feel comfortable coming forward.” It also means the school may take the steps to educate or discipline someone who’s harming students or staff, she added.

Both the Cozen and audit reports proposed dozens of recommendations, including better data collection. The auditor wrote that Cal State’s central office should collect and analyze unwanted sexual conduct reports from all campuses no later than July 2024. The point is to “identify any concerning patterns or trends, such as those involving repeat subjects, particular academic departments, or specific student or employee populations,” the auditor wrote.

But other data overhauls may take more time. The audit said Cal State should require every campus to use the same software to track unwanted sexual conduct and ensure all campuses are logging the cases the same way. The auditor states that should be done by July 2026.

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

TIJUANA – María Guadalupe Cruz has been trying every day since January to get on the Biden administration’s electronic waitlist, so she could seek asylum in the United States for her and her family.

The 32-year-old mother left Honduras in 2021 with her husband and two children after local gangs tried charging a “war tax” on her home that she couldn’t pay, she said.

Organized criminal gangs fighting for territory near San Pedro Sula, the northern city where Cruz’s family lived, have progressed from extorting protection money from businesses to collecting it from households, she said.

“I told them I couldn’t pay, so they gave me 24 hours to abandon the country,” she recently told CalMatters, at the Tijuana shelter where her family lives in a tent. “And they said if we ever came back, they’d kill us all.”

Migrants wait in line to receive toiletry items at Moviemiento Juventud 2000 in Tijuana, Mexico on July 26, 2023. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

The family had traveled along the northern border of Mexico, trying to find an access point where they could legally approach the United States to seek asylum.

Now it’s up to technology. The Biden Administration requires asylum seekers to seek asylum appointments through its CBP One smartphone app.

But so far Cruz, like thousands of others, has been unable to get an appointment through the Customs and Border Protection’s app using her cell phone. Mexican and U.S. authorities are blocking people without appointments from even approaching land ports of entry, contributing to increased risks at the Mexico-California border.

“I don’t want to try to throw ourselves across the (border) because I know it’s a crime,” she said. “Even though migration isn’t a crime, I just want to do everything legally. We just want to follow the rules — whatever they are — because if we don’t, and they send us back to Honduras, we’ll be killed.”

Legal challenges to asylum rules

What exactly those rules are seems to become less clear every day, she said.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled in July that the Biden administration cannot restrict how individuals apply for asylum, even by requiring them to use an app.

The Biden Administration has appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to block U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar’s decision. The administration indicated it plans to fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

The legal challenge could disrupt what had been a downward trend in the number of unauthorized border crossings at U.S. border cities, Biden administration officials warn. That outcome could substantially impact California, where many migrants arrive hoping to find more humane treatment than at other places along the 2,000-mile stretch of border.

“We just want to follow the rules — whatever they are — because if we don’t, and they send us back to Honduras, we’ll be killed.”
María Guadalupe Cruz, asylum seeker

In Texas last week, two migrants drowned near Eagle Pass, where the state has installed razor wire and floating buoy barriers in the Rio Grande to deter migrants. Although the Texas Department of Public Safety denies either migrant died from getting entangled in the barriers, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blasted the Texas governor, calling the buoy system a ‘death trap.’

“No good person would do this,” said López Obrador at a recent news briefing in Mexico City.

California seen as safer

By contrast, California officials tout the state’s more welcoming and humane border. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has declined to comment on the federal asylum ruling or on California’s specific plans should the court’s stay be lifted, allowing more asylum seekers entry.

Maria Guadalupe Cruz, a Honduran migrant staying at Movimiento Juventud 2000, tries to login to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection One Mobile Application on July 26, 2023. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

The officials have said California has helped 423,000 people since April 2021, with “temporary services and travel coordination,” and spent $1.3 billion since 2019, helping the federal government provide humanitarian services to new arrivals at the border.

“While the federal government is responsible for immigration policy and processing, California has served as a model of partnership for a safe and welcoming border, undertaking humanitarian efforts in border communities,” wrote Scott Murray, deputy director for public affairs and outreach programs for the California Department of Social Services, in a statement.

California has long been home to the largest number of immigrants in the United States. According to the American Immigration Council, they make up more than a quarter of the state’s population and a third of its labor force, and they contribute $124.3 billion a year in taxes.

The Golden State has worked around limits in federal law that bar many immigrants — those with and without legal status — from social programs. That has meant building its own, state-funded programs. But California still struggles to protect its most vulnerable citizens from such issues as wage theft and substandard housing.

The judge’s order lifting Biden’s asylum rule requiring migrants to use the app was set to take effect this week, though the federal government received a stay while it argues its case to a higher court.

A right to request asylum

In addition to requiring migrants to use the app, the Biden rule, known as the “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways,” blocks those who attempt to enter the country between designated ports of entry.

Federal law says anyone fleeing persecution may request asylum once they get a foot on U.S. soil, no matter how they got there — whether they used an app first or not, the judge said. The Immigration and Naturalization Act passed by Congress in 1965 spells that out further, saying any immigrant who has arrived in the U.S. may apply for asylum “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.”

The Biden administration argues its rule — put in place when COVID restrictions known as Title 42 ended — encourages legal pathways for immigration. The administration notes there has since been a dramatic drop in unauthorized border crossings.

“The bottom line … is that no policy that endangers lives, tramples on due process and unlawfully denies some people the right to seek asylum can be considered a success.”
Eleanor Acer, director of refugee protection at Human Rights First

Advocates say the policy amounts to an asylum ban that is harmful and not working.

They say the drop in numbers is artificial, because Title 42 led to a significant increase in “repeat” crossings by migrants who were sent back across the border only to attempt crossings multiple times a day.

Besides, advocates say, regardless of whether the app policy is working or not, it’s illegal.

“The bottom line … is that no policy that endangers lives, tramples on due process and unlawfully denies some people the right to seek asylum can be considered a success,” said Eleanor Acer, director of refugee protection at Human Rights First, a New-York based international human rights organization.

Desperate and in danger

Christina Asencio, also a director at Human Rights First, said increasingly unsafe and inhumane conditions in Mexico are making people desperate while waiting for an app appointment. Many are attempting irregular crossings.

Asencio said in the two months since Biden’s rule took effect, her team of researchers has spoken to a Venezuelan family who was kidnaped and tortured in Reynosa by members of an organized criminal group, a Honduran woman who was raped while sleeping in her tent in the encampment in Matamoros and a Central American man who was kidnapped and tortured.

She said she also met asylum seekers who “would tie cable wires around themselves and their children for fear that while they were sleeping, their children would be abducted from them.”

The federal judge agreed that families may not be safe waiting in Mexico. “The record suggests that migrants waiting in Mexico are at serious risk of violence,” wrote Tigar.

David Pérez Tejada Padilla, regional Baja California delegate for Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, issued a warning in July to migrants in Baja California to not to be fooled by smugglers who may later abandon them in extreme heat, pointing to several recent life-threatening incidents.

“The best, fastest and safest thing to do is to process your asylum application to the United States through the CBP One application, through which they authorize 12,000 entries per month from Baja California,” said Pérez Tejada.

Risks of crossing

Pérez Tejeda said approximately 10,000 migrants arrive each month in Baja California, south of San Diego and Imperial counties. They come from 46 different countries, although the majority come from Mexico and Latin America.

He said U.S. border authorities process through the app about 370 asylum seekers a day in Tijuana and 70 in Mexicali, totaling approximately 3,080 people processed weekly, he said.

“We want more people to get across safely and orderly, instead of doing it by irregular ways through the desert, rivers and mountains, risking their lives with high temperatures,” he said.

The delegate highlighted a few incidents in July when migrants’ lives were endangered by smugglers encouraging people to cross into the United States without CBP One appointments.

In one incident a 9-year-old girl got separated from her family in the Tijuana river canal at night. Her family was trying to cross illegally with about 60 people. Border Patrol agents found her unharmed the next day in Imperial Beach. Authorities said she was being reunited with her family.

“We want more people to get across safely and orderly, instead of doing it by irregular ways through the desert, rivers and mountains, risking their lives.”
— David Pérez Tejada Padilla, regional Baja California delegate for Mexico’s National Institute of Migration

Another incident involved a 14-hour rescue in La Rumorosa, a mountainous area with steep ravines between Mexicali and Tecate. Five people, including a 4-year-old child, were severely dehydrated by the time they were pulled out of a ravine by Grupos Beta, the rescue arm of Mexico’s federal migration agency, Pérez Tejeda said.

He added that Mexican border authorities also found 17 migrants from south Mexico who were apparently tricked into getting into a fake Customs and Border Patrol truck in Mexicali, south of Calexico in Imperial County. The truck was painted with green CBP logos and had a false US government license plate, he said.

Choosing to stay or go

Pérez Tejeda said authorities on both sides of the border are concerned about migrants getting stuck in car trunks in higher than normal temperatures, as they attempt to cross the border undetected.

The choice to wait or to try to cross isn’t always so easy, said José María García Lara, director of the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana.

“The coordination is good between the United States and Mexico on these agreements to bring order,” he said, “but unfortunately, they forgot the human side, and the humanitarian side of the people who come here to the border with problems of insecurity. And they should be a little more sensitive and understand that these communities need help.”

José María García Lara, founder and director of Movimiento Juventud 2000, in his office on July 26, 2023. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

The family that got separated from the 9-year-old girl had waited at the shelter for more than a month before deciding they could no longer stay put in Tijuana, he said.

The Cruz family at the Tijuana shelter, and dozens of other families from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela and Haiti are still waiting in tents at the border. García Lara said with legal rulings constantly changing the rules, families have a hard time understanding what they’re supposed to do.

Chelsea Sachau, managing attorney at Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, agrees.

“If you think that it is hard and you struggle to understand asylum laws … imagine how overwhelmed and heartbroken you would feel if your life depended on understanding it, if your child’s life depended on you understanding a system that’s been designed for you to fail at every step along the way.” she said.

Cruz says she and her family plan to continue waiting, hoping to cross legally.

“If we have to keep waiting, well, we’ll just have to keep waiting,” she said.

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

She was a shining light to all that knew and loved her….

She is now shining from above to light the way for all of us down here.

Bettie Mae (Praus) Marcum-Albright peacefully passed away on July 6, 2023, at the age of 91, with her family by her side.

Born on June 20, 1932, in Dickinson, North Dakota to Agnes and Clemens Praus, Bettie was the middle sibling to two brothers, Robert and Raymond - both of whom she loved dearly. Her early years took her from North Dakota to Montana, eventually landing in Springfield, Oregon for high school. Upon graduating, she met the love of her life, Richard Lee Marcum (our father), and they made their home in Eugene, Oregon.

Bettie held a special place in her heart for her younger brother’s wife Glenda, who was like a sister to her for life.

Bettie and “Dick” (Richard) journeyed through several homes over the years and during that time, they welcomed two children into the world, a son, Douglas, and a daughter, Susan. By 1962, they finally set down roots in Eureka (Humboldt County), where they lived out their lives.

Full of life, love, and laughter, our mother Bettie made our childhood fun and exciting. When we were young, she took up a job at Humboldt State College (yes, it was just a college then) working in the bookstore. We often remember her coming home from work excited with a new story to tell us. She created many friendships there that she cherished throughout her life.

Mom left Humboldt State University (it had become a university by then) around 1972, moving on to work at the College of the Redwoods’ bookstore. Her friend circle widened at CR. A few years later, she returned to HSU and began working in procurement, where (guess what?) she made even more new and cherished friends!

Sadly, during this time, our father Dick fell ill with cancer. After a brave two-year battle, he passed away in 1984. They were married for 32 memorable years. His passing greatly affected Mom. Knowing Mom was not one to be alone, he had assured her before passing that he would “find someone” for her.

A few months after Dad’s passing, Mom met Don Albright through some mutual friends. They hit it off and shared a blissful marriage of 23 years, until Don’s passing. Their time together was filled with adventures—trips, annual escapades to Palm Springs, cruises, dances—and of course, they cherished the friends they made along the way. It truly was a “match made in heaven.”

Don was the grandfather that Bettie’s granddaughters grew up with. Don had 3 children, and our families quickly blended, enjoying several years of fun and friendship. Don’s grandson Jason, his wife Jackie, and their three wonderful boys were always close to Mom and our family. Don was a wonderful man and very loved by us all.

Mom started facing health issues as she aged, leading to her decision to move to Timber Ridge in McKinleyville in October of 2022.

With her health declining, she moved to Renaissance, at Timber Ridge, where she spent her final months. And guess what? She made many more friends who cared about her as much as she cared about them.

Mom touched so many lives that it would fill an entire book to list everyone that was special to her. Please rest assured that she loved each of you and that you have a special place in her heart.

Bettie was preceded in death by her parents, brothers, both husbands, and several friends and relatives. She is survived by her children (Doug and Sue), and their spouses, her grandchildren (Vanessa and Amber) and their spouses, her three great-grandchildren, her “sister” Glenda Praus, and numerous nieces, nephews, and friends, all of whom she loved fiercely. Father Thomas Diaz was another special person in her life who she regarded as a second son.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the team at Timber Ridge, Renaissance, and Hospice for their care and support. We truly don’t know what we would have done without you – we know that Mom loved you all.

A celebration of life will be held in September at the Eureka Elks Lodge. It’s challenging to reach everyone she touched, so please email sueringwald@yahoo.com for more information.