Hours before Griselda Reyes Basurto attended a conference on strengthening ties between local community organizations, immigration agents turned up across from her office in Oxnard where they detained several people.
The experience was further proof of the crisis California communities are now facing, and the critical need for the kinds of services organizations like hers provide.
“This morning somebody from my team called me to tell me they were detaining people. I think it started around 5:30 a.m.,” said Reyes, an organizer with the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) in Oxnard. “I told them to stay safe and, if necessary, not to go to the office.”
Reyes was among dozens of civic leaders, activists and volunteers who took part in the California Connects convening in Oxnard, a largely immigrant community along California’s Central Coast an hour north of Los Angeles.
The Oct. 29 event is part of a series of similar convenings across California organized by the state’s Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications (OCPSC), created by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 to better support the work of Community Based Organizations like MICOP.
MICOP is a central hub of support for Indigenous communities in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties and runs as many as 18 programs that to date have served more than 35,000 people in industries ranging from agriculture, to construction, and car washing, among others.
Reyes says cuts to the federal budget under the Trump Administration have forced MICOP to curtail services, including helping clients enroll in MediCal (California’s version of Medicaid), a time-consuming process especially for those whose native language is one of the several Indigenous languages spoken by local communities in and around Oxnard.
She adds that ongoing immigration enforcement operations in the area have heightened fears in the community, and that the need for accurate and reliable information has never been more critical.
“We recently had a case where the parents were deported and the children were placed in the custody of the authorities,” Reyes explained. “We have a program that provides support to minors without their parents.”
For Reyes, the California Connects convening was an important opportunity to learn and share resources with other CBOs.
“We’re sharing educational materials, ideas, and networking opportunities to be connected and provide more effective assistance,” Reyes said.
Aubrie Fong is executive director of OCPSC.
“One of the goals of the event is to connect with at least one organization, make a plan, schedule a meeting, find common ground for collaboration, and meet again within the next seven to ten days,” Fong explained. “California Connects in Oxnard is an opportunity to connect and find different ways to serve the communities of the Central Coast.”
Fong emphasized that the California Connects meeting in Oxnard is a sign that as the government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, continued, denying critical services to communities in need, “The state of California is demonstrating today in Oxnard that it stands with the communities that need it most.”
Fong’s office recently released the California Community Resource Guide, a comprehensive listing of state services and support programs, with practical guidance for CBOs on how to find and apply for state grants.
The shutdown officially ended Nov. 12, though officials say services, including SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) benefits, will take some time before returning to normal. President Trump had frozen SNAP payments during the month-long shutdown, forcing millions of families to scramble for ways to put food on their tables.
Luz Sotelo is a youth advocate with the Empower Watsonville Youth Leadership Program. Like Reyes, she attended the convening in Oxnard to learn about available resources, and to network.
“We’re here to learn, to find out what other organizations are doing in other counties, and to return with contacts that will help us continue strengthening the work we do with young people and the community,” said Sotelo.
Watsonville, some 300 miles north of Oxnard in Santa Cruz County, is a largely agricultural community, where more than 80% of the population is Latino and where residents confront many of the same issues, including rising fears over raids by immigration agents.
According to Sotelo, her program has had to pivot to supporting residents afraid to go out on to the streets, including partnering with local food banks to run deliveries to families in need. She adds there is also a growing demand in her community for services in Mixtec, one of the main languages spoken in Oxnard.
As for the distance between Watsonville and Oxnard, she says it is important for programs like hers to venture beyond their own communities, to learn about how other organizations are delivering the services their communities need, and to bring those lessons home.
“It’s not just about saying, ‘We don’t have funds, we don’t have people, or the capacity to do something,'” said the young leader. “But what if we connect with an organization that does have the capacity and the funds to do it and see how we can join forces to work together?”
The California Connects tour began October 8 in San Francisco, with subsequent stops in Los Angeles (Oct. 15), Anaheim (Oct. 16), Sacramento (Oct. 21), Riverside (Oct. 23), and Oxnard (Oct. 29). The final convenings are scheduled for San Diego on November 5 and Fresno on November 18.
