20 Nov Bay Point Residents Face Immigration Fear as Legal Aid Lags Behind

View of Bay Point going down Willow Pass Road. To the left is First AME Community Church Bay Point. 

Story and photos by Samantha Kennedy

Bay Point has a resilient, close-knit immigrant community, but in more ways than one, the resources they rely on often fall short.

Small but telling signs show it. Outdated flyers warning of immigration “surges.” Hotlines that lead to the wrong county. Resources in English and French in a neighborhood where nearly everyone speaks Spanish.

 

The unincorporated East County community next to Pittsburg has a more than 38.5% immigrant population. About 22.75% of the total population are not citizens, according to the most recently available census data in 2023.

Another sign of resources falling short for immigrants is an inability to get legal help when it matters most.

When facing a new immigration case, those in East Contra Costa have the lowest rate in the county of obtaining legal representation and among the lowest in the Bay Area. A little over 9% of East County immigrants, including those in Bay Point, have representation in the first three months of a case, according to an analysis of cases by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

(Antioch, Pittsburg and Bay Point are grouped together in one data set; Brentwood, Oakley and other unincorporated areas are another. Both have early representation odds of around 9% alone and together. TRAC’s data does appear to house a small portion of Bay Point into the Central Contra Costa data set.)

In West Contra Costa, 35% have representation at that stage, and a little more than 19% in Central Contra Costa.

East Contra Costa has at least 3,386 pending immigration cases, according to the most recent data from TRAC in August. Odds of representation for all pending cases jump to a little over 50%, similar to but still lower than West Contra Costa.

There are a few reasons for low representation at earlier stages, according to TRAC.

“First, it may take longer than 90 days to find an attorney. However, there is a second and even more important reason,” the organization writes in explaining the data. “Cases involving unrepresented individuals get decided much more quickly and drop out of the backlog.”

Stand Together Contra Costa, which was initially funded by the county in 2017 to provide rapid-response legal deportation defense services and a hotline to report suspected ICE activity, did not respond to requests for comment. But director Ali Saidi told El Tímpano that the response to the Trump administration’s canceled “surge” in Bay Area immigration enforcement was proof of a “healthy” response system.

“The negative side of it is there aren’t enough resources,” Saidi said. “We need more legal capacity. People are still having to face these systems, often without the benefit of being able to talk to a lawyer before they make a decision.”

Limited Access in East County

Eleonore Zwinger, East Bay regional directing attorney at the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area and partner with Stand Together, said she believes the institute’s Brentwood office is the only immigration legal provider that has a physical location in East County.

“We are there, and we are consistently serving a great number of people in East Contra Costa County,” Zwinger said. “We have been busy.”

Zwinger said an attorney from the program provides removal defense consultations once a month. Attorneys with the Brentwood office also participate in the Attorney of the Day program at the Concord Immigration Court, which provides free representation to those facing removal.

>>>ICE Arrests at Concord Courthouse Spark Protests and Canceled Hearings<<<

District 3 Supervisor Diane Burgis said that the county has provided consistent and ongoing funding for Stand Together’s operations. Funding has, according to data provided by Burgis, increased every year since fiscal year 2020-21.

“We are supporting our community to the best of our ability by being as responsive as possible to their needs, despite our limited resources,” Burgis said in a statement.

This year, funding is the highest it has ever been for the program. At $3.94 million, the program staffs more than 17.9 full-time employees. More than 14 of those are from the Public Defenders’ Office, data shows.

Cecilia Pérez-Mejía, lead organizer with Rising Juntos, said she felt there was “a lot of access to legal resources and support,” pointing to Stand Together’s hotline.

“They’re there, and they’re open; they’re serving a lot of community,” said Pérez-Mejía.

Rising Juntos partners with Stand Together to offer rapid response verification to reports of ICE activity, which includes dispelling rumors of alleged sightings. Misinformation, she said, is happening regarding ICE reports because of residents being in “panic mode.”

Even resources meant to support immigrants sometimes spread misinformation, including flyers that are out of date, written in a language few residents speak, or listing a rapid-response hotline for San Mateo County, more than 70 miles away.

 

Despite numerous alleged ICE sightings in Bay Point and Pittsburg, a combination of confirmations from the agency, its records, and family accounts shows that ICE made at least 10 arrests in October.

Two of those individuals were deported, at least one decided to self-deport, and another is still in detention over a month after being arrested, according to ICE records.

Vallejo resident Víctor Alejandro Aguiniga Gómez was arrested in Bay Point and detained by ICE in a targeted enforcement, ICE told The Pulse. The agency also confirmed the arrest of family members in Pittsburg in what a friend called “a sudden raid.”

A spokesperson said the latter arrests, which included a recent Pittsburg Unified School District graduate, were reportedly part of a criminal investigation and referred The Pulse to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. That office said it could not confirm or deny the information and declined to comment. A GoFundMe set up by a friend to raise money for legal fees disputed that account.

>>>Immigrants’ Rights in the Face of Increased ICE Enforcement: What You Need to Know<<<

If a PUSD student or staff member were arrested by ICE, the teachers’ union would help them get legal representation.

Pittsburg Education Association President Celia Medina-Owens said the union has established legal systems that it would connect with if one of those individuals were arrested by ICE. A majority of Bay Point students go to school in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, but some go to PUSD.

The districts have also hosted immigration resource fairs for families, including three from PUSD and at least one in Mt. Diablo.

There have been no immigration enforcement actions on PUSD campuses, but the district has plans and protocols in place should those actions happen.

>>>Contra Costa School Districts Respond to Concerns Over Trump Immigration Policies<<<

Medina-Owens, Pérez-Mejía, and Angela Jackson, a resident of the Shore Acres neighborhood in Bay Point, have seen how reports of ICE activity have changed the communities.

“It’s not much of a community now that the fear has been put into everybody,” Jackson said. “There’s a lot less activity, people aren’t going outside as much or gathering.”

One of PUSD’s immigration resource fairs faced backlash, according to Medina-Owens. The latest, following the raids in Los Angeles, saw a drop in attendance.

>>>I Went Back to L.A. After the ICE Raids. One of My Favorite Areas Felt Like a Ghost Town<<<

PUSD students, more than 65% of whom are Latino, were not completely deterred at the beginning of this year. In January, well over 100 students went from Pittsburg High School to City Hall in a march that mirrored similar ones across the nation protesting the increased immigration enforcement Trump said he planned to enact.

“We’re definitely not a community celebrating or welcoming ICE. They’re not wanted here,” said Jackson, who hopes local law enforcement agencies are not helping ICE in any way.

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, which has jurisdiction over Bay Point, says it does not arrest undocumented immigrants solely based on their immigration status or participate in “ICE sweeps and mass deportation efforts.” But Sheriff David Livingston has faced criticism for his refusal to completely cut cooperation with ICE, which is allowed under state law.

Looking Ahead

Pittsburg officials did not respond to a request to talk about what supports the city already has in place for immigrants in general, but created a webpage dedicated to resources for immigrants back in 2019. Known as the Digital Office for New Americans, the page offers information to promote immigration resources. One of those locations for legal services, the Immigration Institute’s Brentwood office, is located in East County.

Contra Costa supervisors approved a three-year $5 million pilot immigrant services center back in April to support, among other things, legal services, educational and financial resources, and safety net services. The county plans to have a central hub and satellite locations as part of the plan.

Burgis said she has been working with community members, organizations and officials to figure out how to protect residents.

“Contra Costa County is working to continue supporting our community by assisting people with the county services they need and expect, in ways that ensure those services are not interrupted by existing and potential disruptions,” she said in a statement.

District 5 Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston, who represents Bay Point, Pittsburg and part of Antioch, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

In West Contra Costa, Richmond devoted $1 million to support immigrant legal services earlier in the year. According to the Bay Area News Group, the county also allocated $500,000 in financial support.

But for residents like Jackson, she doesn’t know what local officials should do.

“I feel like it’s kind of out of the local government’s hands at this point because it’s a federal thing,” she said.

Contra Costa’s Rapid Response number is (925) 900-5151.