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Peter Leon

@peterleonsf

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Reporter/Editor @americancommunitymedia & proud member of the @volcanokimchi family.

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After losing Temporary Protected Status, Samir, a Venezuelan musician in San Francisco, saw the life he had built unravel. His jobs, health insurance and valid identification disappeared, leaving him dependent on friends and facing an uncertain future.

Now, the city’s expanding surveillance network deepens his anxiety. He describes it as a “digital pipeline for deportations” and warns that unchecked government power to monitor immigrants threatens everyone. “You end up feeling like a criminal without having done anything wrong.”

Full story | https://americancommunitymedia.org/immigration/a-former-tps-holder-navigates-san-franciscos-matrix-of-surveillance-cameras/

#TPS #ImmigrantStories #Surveillance #SanFrancisco #ImmigrantRights by @peterleonsf

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a day ago

ACoM’s 2026 Impact Report highlights how its network of ethnic media partners reached more than 65 million people through local reporting, news briefings, reporting fellowships, community partnerships and advocacy to strengthen the community journalism sector nationwide.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for the full report.

#localjournalism #ethnicmedia #communitymedia #impactreport #americancommunitymedia by @peterleonsf

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10 days ago

Seven people were transferred from Butte County’s jail to ICE between Jan. 1 and Sept. 24, exceeding the six taken into federal custody in all of 2025. The increase reflects heightened immigration enforcement under the second Trump administration.

Sheriff Kory Honea says the shift has been more dramatic than during Trump’s first term. He also worries that diverting FBI agents to immigration enforcement could leave other federal crimes uninvestigated and stretch law enforcement resources too thin.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for the full story.

#ButteCounty #ImmigrationEnforcement #ICE #ChicoSol #AmericanCommunityMedia by @peterleonsf

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13 days ago

A year after an immigration raid at Georgia’s Hyundai-LG battery plant construction site, more than 300 South Korean workers are seeking damages from the U.S. government.

Their administrative claims name nine federal agencies. One engineer described eight days of fear and humiliation, saying he later reentered the U.S. with the same passport and visa without problems.

The raid detained 475 workers and sparked diplomatic negotiations. Now, attorneys say the workers want accountability, an apology and their reputations restored. A Colombian worker has separately filed a claim alleging violent treatment by ICE officers.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for the full story.

#WorkersRights #ImmigrantRights #HyundaiRaid #SouthKorea #AmericanCommunityMedia by @peterleonsf

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15 days ago

María was on her way to look for work in Oxnard’s strawberry fields when ICE agents stopped her friend’s car. When she questioned his arrest, she says agents handcuffed her, too.

The Indigenous Mixtec farmworker and single mother of four U.S.-born children feared she would never see them again. Hours later, agents released her with an ankle monitor and required immigration check-ins.

Her account reveals the fear facing immigrant families as enforcement reaches into everyday life. Community advocates are helping her seek legal assistance while organizing neighborhood networks to respond to arrests.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for the full story by @araceli_martinez_ortega.

#ImmigrantRights #IndigenousCommunities #Farmworkers #Oxnard #ICE by @peterleonsf

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16 days ago

Alishaw Enike Brice learned beadwork from her mother at age ten. Today, she sells handcrafted jewelry across California, using her work to support herself and celebrate a Native identity that neither her tribe nor the federal government officially recognizes.

Without an enrollment number, Brice is shut out of cultural programs, health care, education and other services. Advocates warn that removing race and ethnicity questions from the 2030 Census could deepen the erasure of Native communities already routinely undercounted.

Still, Brice keeps the traditions alive, teaching beadwork and ceremony to her children and grandchildren while rebuilding her life and pursuing a degree in social work.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for more.

#NativeAmerican #NativeIdentity #IndigenousVoices #Census2030 #CulturalPreservation by @peterleonsf

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17 days ago

A Yemeni asylum seeker who came to the United States eight years ago now faces an indefinite wait, uncertain employment and possible deportation after the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Yemen.

As conflict intensifies in Yemen, returning home could be dangerous. Yet remaining in the United States offers little security. Her story reflects the limbo facing asylum seekers caught between a strained immigration system and violence abroad.

Tap the link in our bio, @americancommunitymedia, for more.

#Yemen #AsylumSeekers #TPS #Immigration #RefugeeRights by @peterleonsf

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17 days ago

At least three times a week, Guillermo Torres visits immigrants at the Adelanto Detention Facility. The visits, intended to bring hope and comfort, have been a lifeline for many and, for some, a means to secure their freedom.

“We don’t go to preach or convert anyone, we go to offer our presence,” Torres tells ACoM in a recent interview. “Many of the immigrants [being held] never have visits because either their families don’t have legal status or they don’t live in the country.”

Since 2011, Torres has served as director of programs for the Los Angeles-based grassroots organization, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). Within the community, he’s won respect for his tireless work helping immigrants detained at Adelanto.

“Whenever we visit, we tell them they are not alone, and we ask them how we can walk with them for their liberation from a place this horrible,” says Torres. “I’ve never seen such cruelty,” he adds, describing the facility as a “place of evil.”

Read more at the link in our bio.

#Adelanto #ICE #immigrantrights by @peterleonsf

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24 days ago

San Francisco celebrated El Grito on September 15, honoring both Mexico’s independence and Hispanic Heritage Month.

As part of the ceremony, a replica of Mexico City’s Angel of Independence was erected in front of San Francisco City Hall.

For Veronica Escamez, director of the community based organization @Casa_Circulo_Cultural, the statue’s presence was a message to the community: “you are here, you are part of this city, and your culture also belongs to this space.”

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

#ElGrito #HispanicHeritageMonth #SanFrancisco by @peterleonsf

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a month ago

Two parades filed down Franklin Street — one for children and one marking the start of the school year — while elsewhere people showed off their dogs and cars. And of course, demonstrators held sarcastic signs ridiculing Trump in the weekly noontime protest on the corner of Main and Laurel.

Fort Bragg’s radical tradition is still alive today. It is a working-class town, and as its history would dictate, a community where respect for that is still a strong common bond.

Read the full story at the link in our bio.

#FortBragg #LaborDay #workingclass by @peterleonsf

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a month ago

When a farmworker spends their day bent over harvesting food but can’t afford to feed their own family, that should send alarm bells ringing that our system is in need of serious repair.

But that’s the reality for far too many families in the Eastern Coachella Valley, where rates of food insecurity far surpass the national average.

In 2023 Solangel Cruz, who spent years working the surrounding date palm groves here, began a food distribution network that today reaches more than 400 families each week. And the network is expanding to other cities in and around the Coachella Valley.

“More than a team, we are like a family, because we are always united, and one person’s needs affect the others as well,” said Cruz. “We always look for solutions so that we can help one another and move forward, both as individuals in the community and as a team.”

Read the full story by @roxsy_lin at the link in our bio.

#foodinsecurity #CoachellaValley #farmworkers by @peterleonsf

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a month ago

A mural in Berkeley, California depicting immigrants and refugees braving the open sea was vandalized earlier this month.

Mokhtar Paki @mokhtarpaki who painted the mural, describes it as his “love letter to Berkeley.” An immigrant himself, Paki left Iran as a political refugee in 1983, later settling in Berkeley and gaining U.S. citizenship.

According to the artist, the mural’s desecration — with white paint splattered across the image — is an attack on all immigrants.

But Paki is using the incident to bring attention to the plight of immigrant communities across the country. Working alongside two other muralists — Massoud Salamat and O’Brien Thiele — to restore the painting, Paki discussed its origin and meaning with photojournalist David Bacon.

Read the story at the link in our bio.

#Mural #Immigrants by @peterleonsf

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