Yvonne Krumrey

Some immigrants living in Juneau left the United States recently after an email from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told them they had to leave.

But one family who received the email hasn’t left.

A woman, her husband and teenage daughter fled Venezuela in May 2023 and eventually resettled in Juneau with temporary parole status. She spoke to KTOO on the condition of anonymity  because of her unstable immigration status. 

Last month, along with thousands of other people across the country, the family got an email from the Trump Administration saying it was time for them to leave the United States. It said they would be subject to prosecution if they stay. 

After receiving the email, she’s afraid they will all get deported. 

“Really they don’t feel safe at all,” said Gwenna Corvez. She’s a local English language teacher who translated the woman’s answers to KTOO’s questions.

“Their lawyer is telling them to be calm, that there’s a process for all of this. But they see on the news that the government now doesn’t respect the process and that they could be arrested and deported, and that there’s no guarantee that they’ll get to stay,” she translated. 

The woman said they can’t go back to Venezuela. Her family was targeted by the government there because her husband was a member of a union at a metal plant that Venezuelan authorities deem a threat.  

Her lawyer told her the email is unenforceable. Their parole status was canceled by Trump, but they are in the process of applying for other forms of legal status. As long as they are in that process, they shouldn’t qualify for deportation. 

The email was sent to thousands of people who legally entered the U.S. through a mobile app — CPB One. It wasn’t addressed to any specific name, or signed by anyone. Immigration experts say it’s a scare tactic. 

The woman says she did everything right to legally come to the United States, and that’s what makes getting this message so frustrating. 

The family’s journey from Venezuela to Juneau took a year, and they feared for their lives throughout. They crossed the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap, waited for months in Panama, and walked through most of Mexico. They heard stories of other migrants who were killed on the same journey. 

Then, using the CPB One app, they spent five months in Mexico City applying for an appointment to seek asylum in the U.S.

They arrived in Juneau last May. Since then, the woman has worked in housekeeping and her husband in construction. She said through Corvez that the community has been welcoming and supportive.

“It was the best decision that they made,” Corvez translated. “And they knew a group of people who volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul and they treated them like family and took really good care of them and never let them be alone. And she says it’s a very beautiful thing that’s happened here.” 

And those volunteers even helped her teenage daughter adapt to high school in Juneau. She’s making friends, and her mother is relieved. 

“The first day she was, you know, very scared because she didn’t speak any English but then a volunteer from St. Vincent came and helped and now she speaks English relatively well and has really good grades,” Corvez  translated. “Thank God, yes, really good grades now.”

And other families are in limbo, too, according to Corvez. She teaches English to students who belong to immigrant families in Juneau. She also taught the youngest members of another family that got the email – but they decided to leave.  

“They were sitting at their desks just a few days ago, and some of them had to leave,” Corvez said. “And so you have empty desks where these wonderful students were.”

And those empty desks leave other children from immigrant families in fear. 

“Some of the children who are left behind here are other legal immigrants who now wonder if and when the same thing might happen to them, right?” Corvez said. “Young children are paying closer attention to the news than ever before, and they kind of sense the new uncertainty in their lives.”

Part of that uncertainty stems from the way immigration orders are coming from the administration. Between Trump’s sweeping decisions, and judges blocking those orders, it’s hard to know what comes next. 

This is part two of a two-part series about immigration impacts in Juneau. Read part one here. 

Springtime is herring egg season in Southeast Alaska. Usually that means that the region’s largest tribal government would be setting up to deliver tens of thousands of pounds of the traditional food to tribal citizens across the region and beyond. 

But this year, those distributions won’t happen. 

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska announced this week that its annual traditional food distributions were canceled this year. In March, the federal government canceled a funding agreement with the tribe. 

For the last three years, the tribe distributed herring eggs, salmon and black cod to tribal citizens in each of its recognized communities — from villages in Southeast to cities like Anchorage and Seattle. 

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled funding that provided the tribe’s food assistance program. A USDA notice to Tlingit and Haida said that the tribe’s community food distributions “no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate.”

Aaron Angerman is Tlingit and Haida’s food security program manager. He said the community distribution program started in 2022 to promote self-sufficiency, and to reduce reliance on food shipped from the Lower 48.

“Our answer to that, and then our heavy reliance on barge systems and things like that, was to turn back the clock a bit about food sovereignty, which is something that our people have relied on since time immemorial,” he said. 

The tribe planned to use more than $500,000 from the USDA for the distribution. The money was allocated to the tribe in January, but USDA sent Tlingit and Haida a notice in March that said the agreement had been canceled. 

The money was part of a program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Agreement which was intended to encourage local governments to buy from farmers and food producers.

And that aligned with the tribe’s goal to keep more traditional foods that are harvested in Southeast Alaska in the fridges and freezers of tribal members. 

“For us to be able to take a food that was purchased from commercial vendors, to contract those vendors who are tribal citizens, to keep not only that funding within the tribe and the region,” Angerman said. “But also take a food source that was harvested in our area and typically sent overseas to bring that food back to our people and to be shared.”

The herring egg distribution is special for this reason: because of overfishing and exporting of herring and herring roe, the fish now only spawn in very limited areas.

Angerman said his team is working to get more secure funding. But there’s a lot of other work they are doing to further the understanding and use of traditional foods in the meantime.

“We need to work with elders and those with traditional ecological knowledge to see why and where and how we harvested previously,” he said. “Then to not only do that, but to teach people how to harvest themselves, how to process that food, how to put up or prepare that food.” 

Because, he said, if a salmon ends up on someone’s doorstep, and they don’t know how to process it, that isn’t food sovereignty.

Angerman said Tlingit and Haida was able to purchase enough herring eggs to bring to some of their tribally-run and federally-funded Head Start preschool classrooms this year, so the youngest tribal citizens can still learn about the importance of traditional food and land stewardship. 

And some distributions in Washington and Oregon will still happen, according to the tribe’s release. The local tribal council in Seattle used different funding sources to set aside money for distributions to reach elders outside of Alaska. 

Listen:

Fourteen members of Carolou’s family moved to Juneau after fleeing unrest in Haiti. 

“My country is not doing well right now,” she said.

Carolou has protected status in the United States, but is using an old family nickname in this story because that protection ends in August.  

Immigrants and refugees across the country are getting emails from the Trump Administration that say they have to leave the United States or face prosecution. 

“Do not attempt to remain in the United States,” the email Carolou’s family received reads. “The federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.” 

She said her family was heartbroken when some of them got the email.

Carolou has a sister who already lives in Canada, so seven members of the family went quickly to join her – including her sister and daughter.

“They just left because they can’t stay, they are scared,” she said. “And we are separate again.” 

They arrived in Juneau just last year, so their immigration status is not as secure as other members of the family.

Many immigrants in Juneau have a couple of different forms of temporary legal status, which make it easier for people fleeing violence and instability to get to the United States compared to the sometimes more than a decade-long process to gain refugee status.

Carolou has temporary residency and works as a paraeducator. She has been in Juneau for more than a decade. She and her family members have built lives here. 

This same email has gone out to tens of thousands of people who legally entered the U.S. through a mobile app — CPB One. During the Biden administration, this app was how immigrants were able to make appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to seek asylum at legal points of entry instead of crossing the border illegally.

President Donald Trump has pledged to not only end some of these temporary statuses, but revoke them before they expire. 

Margaret Stock is an immigration attorney in Anchorage. She said she’s seen the email, and she doesn’t think it’s legally enforceable. 

“The messages do not appear to actually have any legal force of law, and they don’t, you know, there’s no such thing as an email message ordering you to leave the country that’s legally effective,” she said. “You have to have a deportation order from a judge.”

Stock said it’s not even clear if the people who received the email are actually on immigration enforcement’s radar. The emails weren’t addressed to any names. 

She said she thinks it was meant to scare people into leaving, which aligns with the Trump administration’s goal to remove immigrants from the United States.

But she said forcing immigrants to leave Alaska is especially damaging to the state’s economy — like Carolou, many work in fields that are understaffed. 

“We have huge shortages in the health care industry and teaching profession and assisted living facilities, service workers, the tourism industry,” she said. “You know, there’s, like, actually no sector of the economy right now I think that has enough workers in Alaska that I can think of.”

Carolou’s son helped her apply for permanent residency, but she said it was rejected because of a missed signature on one of the forms. She plans to try again. 

Carolou’s temporary status has usually been extended for immigrants from countries where instability remains a risk to its citizens’ health and safety. But Trump has vowed to end that status for Haitians, even though the dangers there haven’t gone away. As of right now, she would have to leave in August. 

Organized crime runs Haiti, and according to Human Rights Watch, it’s only getting worse. So Carolou says she can’t go back.

“In Haiti I will be murdered. I will be murdered if I go there,” she said. “They will kill me. And this government is still the same. Nothing’s changed. Nothing. It could be suicide if I go to Haiti.” 

Carolou says she likes Juneau, but it’s hard to see her family leave. Before they were reunited in Juneau, she missed being able to hug them.

“As a mother, I suffer,” she said.

Now, she misses her daughter again, but doesn’t want to leave her job as a paraeducator – and the responsibility of care for her aging parents.

This is part one of a two-part series about immigration impacts in Juneau. Read part two here. 

This is Lingít Word of the Week. Each week, we feature a Lingít word voiced by master speakers. Lingít has been spoken throughout present-day Southeast Alaska and parts of Canada for over 10,000 years.

Gunalchéesh to X̱’unei Lance Twitchell, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation and the University of Alaska Southeast for sharing the recorded audio for this series.

This week’s word is x̱alak’ách’, or porcupine. Listen to the audio below to learn how to say x̱alak’ách’.

The following transcript is meant to help illustrate the words and sentences. 

Keiyishí Bessie Cooley: X̱alak’ách’. 

That means porcupine.

Here are some sentences:

Keiyishí Bessie Cooley: X̱alakʼáchʼ kagéináx̱ yaa gagútch.

Porcupines walk down slowly.

Keihéenák’w John Martin: A x̱oo.aa haa atx̱aayíx̱ sitee wé x̱alakʼáchʼ.

Itʼs food for some of us, the porcupine. 

Kooshdáakʼu Bill Fawcett: Alʼóon kḵwagóot x̱alakʼáchʼg̱áa.

I am going to go hunting for porcupine. 

Ḵaakal.áat Florence Marks Sheakley: Chʼáakw dus.éeyin yá x̱alakʼáchʼch haa atx̱aayíx̱ sitéeyin.

A long time ago people would cook it; porcupine used to be our food.

Kaxwaan Éesh George Davis: X̱alak’ách’ ashaawax̱ích.

They clubbed the porcupine.

You can hear each installment of Lingít Word of the Week on the radio throughout the week. 

Additional language resources:

Find biographies for the master speakers included in this lesson here.

Learn more about why we use Lingít instead of Tlingit here.

Watch a video introducing Lingít sounds here.

Juneau’s firefighters union sent out a statement Thursday warning residents that emergency response times may be delayed due to major staffing concerns.

Logan Balstad is the local Juneau Career Firefighters union president. He said this is the most understaffed Capital City Fire Rescue has been in his more than a decade with the department.

“We’re expecting that there will be more calls where you have to wait for a piece of apparatus to respond to your emergency because it’s tied up doing something else,” he said.

This warning comes as the union negotiates wages with the City and Borough of Juneau. According to wage information KTOO received earlier this year before negotiations started, some positions start at $20 per hour. That’s lower than the pay for most similar positions in the Pacific Northwest.

For years, Juneau firefighters have been working increasing hours — often mandatory overtime — to accommodate demand. That’s on top of 56-hour work weeks.

Earlier this year, union members said the lack of competitive pay means firefighters leave as the department struggles to hire replacements. Currently, the department said there are six vacancies, two injured responders, and one staff member on military leave.

“When we work overtime, we’re working 48 hour shifts,” Balstad said. “And when you start doing that repeatedly – doing 48 hours on, 24 hours off, 48 hours on – that can be really hard on the responders and their families, and you know, it’s detrimental in the long run.”

Balstad said the emergency call volume always surges in the summer. Juneau has three ambulances, but the department only has enough staff to operate two. If the department was staffed to ideal levels, they would be able to operate all three during the summer cruise rush.

He said delays mean that medical emergencies lose precious time.

“If we have a cardiac arrest, every minute you go without CPR your chances of return of circulation, of living through this experience, diminishes about 10% and I think we’re about nine minutes on average for our CPR response time,” he said. “So we’re really hoping that members of the public are out there doing good CPR.”

Balstad said it helps if residents know CPR and how to identify the signs of a heart attack or stroke when ambulances are delayed.

In 2024, the department also responded to 18 structure fires. But none of their responses had enough staff to meet the National Fire Protection Association’s standard for minimum number of staff responding.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of ambulances in Juneau. 

There have been more than a dozen political protests at the Alaska State Capitol since President Donald Trump took office in January.

But members of an anti-abortion group called Alaskans for Life who gathered on Thursday said they didn’t have specific demands for legislators. Instead, they took to the steps of the Capitol to spread awareness for their cause.

A group of 30 people prayed while huddling under a tent in the driving wind and rain.

They were up against more than the weather. Throughout the rally, individuals walking and driving past yelled their dissent with boos and chants of “my body my choice.”

Attendees like Jane Villant said they want to lead the conversation around abortion with care.

“Well, it’s all about saving the babies,” she said. “You know that young women that find themselves – or older women that find themselves – pregnant, that there’s options out there.”

The rally came as access to abortion has been limited nationally and locally – though the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the state constitution’s privacy clause protects abortion rights. Still, lawmakers have attempted annually to limit abortion access, most recently during the current legislative session.

Abortion rights dissolved nationally in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established abortion rights federally.

Juneau’s Planned Parenthood clinic closed last year, limiting access to abortion care locally, though patients can still receive abortion care remotely. The Trump administration continues to target federal funding for reproductive care.

In a speech at the rally, Priscilla Hurley said she was protesting against abortions because she felt pressure from partners and her parents to have the procedure when she was a young woman.

“So I go into the hospital pregnant. I come out not pregnant. And I went back to college,” she said. “I was just like, ‘Yes, I’ll comply.’ But there was nobody that talked about it.”

Hurley pointed to the right to choose, and said she didn’t get that choice. It’s a line of argument also used by abortion rights advocates.

Many protesters said that abortion clinics don’t give pregnant women the complete picture of their options, or the potential for trauma from abortions.

Rose O’Hara-Holley, the Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said in an email, “We trust Alaskans to make the best decisions for themselves and their families, based on facts, science, and compassion, not fear or misinformation.”

In a study of 1,000 women who sought abortions, more than 95% of those who chose to have abortions reported that it was the right decision for them when interviewed over the next five years.

For the most part, speakers and attendees avoided talking about politics. Tiffany Bean said she didn’t have any requests for legislators in the Capitol building they were gathered in front of.

“I don’t think I am familiar enough with any bills or anything like that that they have on the table right now,” Bean said. “I appreciate them. I would like them to know that I pray for them on a regular basis.”

Bean said she just wants people to approach this issue with more openness and less divisiveness.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misrepresented the timeline of a study of women who sought abortions.