Melissa Gomez is an enterprise reporter on the State Team who joined the Los Angeles Times in 2018. She reports on a range of news and issues, with a special focus on the Central Valley. She previously covered education and the 2020 presidential campaign at The Times. A native Floridian, she graduated from the University of Florida.
Latest From This Author
Glendale City Council members defended the contract this week, saying the 2007 agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in compliance with state law.
Trump’s revoking of Chinese students’ visas is the latest in a effort to quickly remake higher education in America, a controversial project that has roiled academia.
St. John’s Community Health launched its home visitation program after learning that hundreds of patients were skipping appointments because they’re afraid of getting caught up in federal immigration raids.
The Department of Homeland Security is asking to dismiss its own deportation cases, after which agents arrest immigrants as they leave the courtroom and pursue expedited removals, which require no hearings before a judge.
In Monterey County, growers are building lodging for thousands of guest workers coming in on H-2A visas. Some advocates say it is an injustice for the farmworkers who’ve lived here for years, many in substandard housing.
The faithful in Los Angeles, America’s most Catholic city, were delighted — and a little stunned — to learn a Chicago-born priest with deep roots in Peru had been elected to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Homeland Security officials have said welfare checks aim to ensure that unaccompanied children “are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked.”
Ten students at Occidental College are staging a hunger strike, calling on the college to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel and to shield international students the Trump administration might target for deportation.
A growing number of Southeast Asian immigrants whose deportation orders have been on indefinite hold are being detained, and in some cases, deported after showing up for routine check-ins with immigration authorities.
Like few other places in the U.S., the economy and culture of Los Angeles have been forged by globalization. Merchants across the region last week expressed profound uncertainty over what threats of a looming trade war could do to the economy.