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ACLU Criticizes Board of Supervisors’ Decision to Support the Trump Lawsuit Against California

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Edward Sifuentes / American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties

On Tuesday, April 17, a majority of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors decided to support the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the State of California. The lawsuit, filed by the Department of Justice, targets three California statutes, including the California Values Act that serves to keep state and local law enforcement agencies out of the business of mass detentions and mass deportations.

Supervisors Gaspar, Horn and Jacob voted to file an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit at the “first available opportunity” (most likely on appeal). Supervisor Cox voted against the proposal. Supervisor Roberts was absent from today’s meeting, but issued a statement last week urging his colleagues to “stay out of this issue.”

The following is the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties’ response to today’s action:   [Read more…]

A Review of ‘Last Days in Ocean Beach’ by Jim Miller; Coping With the End of the World As We Know It

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Last Days in Ocean Beach by Jim Miller – Book Release Event Friday, April 20, 7-9pm at the Ocean Beach Green Center

Editor’s Note: We’re giving Jim Miller’s column a week off to celebrate the publication of his new book.

By Ian Duckles

Jim Miller’s new book Last Days in Ocean Beach (City Works Press, 2018), explores the question of how to live one’s life in the face of looming catastrophic climate change. The novel, like life, is challenging, depressing, hopeful, sad, and filled with moments of incredible beauty and incredible tragedy and is highly recommended.
  [Read more…]

Second Annual March for Science Set for Saturday, April 14 at Waterfront Park

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By Robert Cooper, Ph.D. / March for Science

On April 14, San Diego’s science supporters will once again join the region’s world-leading scientists in the second annual March For Science! This unique and free event will take place at Waterfront Park, 1600 Pacific Hwy at 10 AM and is aimed at all audiences. It promises something for anyone who likes science, with educational speakers, a family-friendly science expo, and a march full of creative signs and costumes.

The March For Science movement began last year when online groups of science supporters went unexpectedly viral, around America and across the world. It has become both the largest popular movement supporting scientifically-backed policy in history and a unique opportunity for the public and scientists to connect face-to-face.

Around 15,000 San Diegans joined the event in 2017, as America’s Finest City played a leading role among the million people who came out in hundreds of cities around the world, including all 7 continents!   [Read more…]

The Homeless Hoarder’s Hunger Book | National Poetry Month

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By Lyn Lloyd-Smith

The Homeless Hoarder’s Hunger Book

Into the coffee shops of idle eyes
She hikes her threads of tat-torn cloth
And residue of mildew breath.
She deftly drags a bulging pram,
Brimming with her rubbish child
Of cradled, cherished, bloated bags,
And crumpled faces off the road,
Her precious offspring
From the moon-blown streets.
  [Read more…]

Fifteen Years Later: Remembering the Invasion Of Baghdad | Readers Write

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By Kilian Colin

On April 9, 2003, I woke up to the sounds of bombs.

My bed was shaking and my sister, who was sleeping in the bed next to me, was awake crying and shaking in her bed. It was like an earthquake with very scary sounds. Shards of glass from the windows covered my bed. My parents ran into the room. My father said let’s go downstairs.

We lived in a 1-bedroom apartment on the second floor. We went downstairs and knocked on our neighbor’s door. He neighbor opened the door and let us inside his apartment without saying a word. He was clad only in underwear and held a copy of Quran in his hand. His name was Abo-Allaa.   [Read more…]

Former UFCW Employees Urge Local Democratic Party to Stand With Women

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By Rosy Miner, Isaura Garcia, Odett McAdams, and Debbie Principe

We are former employees who worked under Mickey Kasparian, President of UFCW Local 135. For more than a year, we have stood with our sisters: Sandy Naranjo, Isabel Vasquez, Anabel Arauz, and more recently Melody Godinez, who all filed lawsuits with serious claims involving our former boss.

We have firsthand knowledge of what it is like to work for Kasparian, and we have volunteered for several Democratic candidates over the years.

Our Party has failed us in its handling of – or refusal to handle – him.   [Read more…]

Helter Swelter | National Poetry Month

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By Amy Fan

San Diego Free Press continues its National Poetry Month coverage with the poem Helter Swelter by Oakland based writer and film maker Amy Fan.   [Read more…]

Paper Bag | National Poetry Month

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By Igor Goldkind

I am a paper bag, I am.
I’m not the smart one,
I’m not the successful one
I’m not the tall one who always won and
Then died.
I am a paper bag.
I’m only as good as what I can carry.

I am a paper bag,
I’m not plastic, not I.   [Read more…]

What Poems Do | National Poetry Month

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By Sonia Gutiérrez

Let me tell you what poems do.
With letters hanging
from their chipped beaks
and sharp talons,
poems with their immense wings
fly over tempestuous oceans,
where an eye of a hurricane
awaits them—swallows
and spits them out.

Because some poems,
I must confess,
are difficult to chew.   [Read more…]

La Mesa City Council Adopts Strong Climate Action Plan

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SD350 Volunteers learn what grassroots organizing can accomplish

By Angela Deegan / SanDiego350

On March 13, the City Council of La Mesa unanimously adopted a strong Climate Action Plan (CAP), with a goal of 100 percent clean energy. This victory came after three years of persistent advocacy and organizing efforts by SanDiego350 La Mesa volunteers and allied organizations.

The SanDiego350 La Mesa CAP campaign began with our attendance at a meeting of the Environmental Sustainability Commission in early 2015. This was where the first draft of the Plan was released. Along with Climate Action Campaign, we identified numerous deficiencies in the Plan — it lacked a goal of 100 percent clean energy and didn’t identify Community Choice Energy (CCE) as a strategy. In addition, the time frame of 2020 was too short, too many measures were identified as voluntary, and, for the most part, the plan was not enforceable.   [Read more…]

ACLU: Greyhound Must Stop Giving Border Patrol Permission to Conduct Bus Raids

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Greyhound buses, once a symbol of travel on America’s vast highways, have become rolling traps where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents routinely board to unlawfully interrogate, detain and arrest passengers.

The agents, with the agreement of Greyhound, stage surprise boardings without warrants to question riders about their citizenship and travel plans. In many cases, all too reminiscent of police states, the agents demand to see a passenger’s “documents.”

The warrantless raids, which saw a rapid increase in the past year, are not only a blatant disregard of passengers’ constitutional rights, they are also clearly driven by racial profiling.   [Read more…]

Rapid Response Network Needed More Than Ever After Recent ICE Arrests

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By Edward Sifuentes

While much of the local media’s attention was focused on President Trump’s March 13 visit to the border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa, a team of ICE agents deployed throughout Escondido early the same morning and arrested 22 people.

The agents were allegedly targeting people who had deportation orders, but they also picked up undocumented immigrants who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. In ICE jargon, those arrests are known as “collaterals.”

Later in the week, ICE announced the three-day operation netted a total 115 people, including seven in Imperial County. Most of them – 65 – had no criminal convictions.   [Read more…]

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