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Local Organizations Call On San Diego City Council To Sign Amicus Brief in Muslim Ban Lawsuit

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ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

We, the undersigned civil society and business organizations, urge the San Diego City Council to join the City of Chicago in filing an amicus curiae brief in State of Washington vs. Donald Trump to denounce the U.S. Government’s suspension of refugee admissions and its unconstitutional ban on admissions of citizens of seven Muslim- majority countries. The executive order that established these policies violates fundamental principles of human rights and bedrock tenets of Constitutional law; and it betrays our values as a nation of immigrants and as San Diegans. Its implementation has had cruel and arbitrary consequences for many people fleeing persecution or seeking to enter the United States to reunite with family, receive medical treatment, or pursue professional and educational opportunities.   [Read more…]

Resistance Efforts Turn Towards City Council Over Trump Travel Ban

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On Tuesday, February 14, the San Diego City Council will vote on whether to join the Washington State lawsuit challenging the Trump Travel Ban. Local activists are being asked to support this effort by contacting City Council members and attending a hearing on the matter.

Although a unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary restraining order preventing enforcement of a ban on travel from some Muslim-majority nations, the suit challenging the executive order continues to move forward.

One year ago the very idea of San Diego joining this lawsuit would not have been considered. The election of Mara Elliott as City Attorney has changed the political landscape.   [Read more…]

Privilege and the Wall

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By Ben Allen

Privilege and the Wall

After a long day at school, after dropping the ball on a Chicano Lit essay,
I watched the Frampton-Santa Cruz weigh in, watched those tiny men threateningly flex their muscles,
and I decided to go for a run.
I ran down Utah, past the boxing gym that was under construction and being repainted from white
to something less gaudy, and I watched the fighters skipping rope through the window in the wall,
before I continued on my end of day run, my privilege.
  [Read more…]

Dueling Downtown Protests Set as Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Escalates

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Guadalupe García de Rayos was taken into custody by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Phoenix during a routine check-in with the agency on Wednesday.

Seven people were arrested as dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the office in an effort to stop several vans and a bus from leaving. The mother of two was photographed attempting to communicate with her children from inside one of the vehicles, which are used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona’s border with Mexico for deportation.

Observers fear this could be the beginning of a nationwide crackdown, targeting as many as 8 million people.   [Read more…]

Law and Disorder at U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

In Stephen King’s novel Under the Dome, the used car salesman/second selectman of Chester’s Mill, Maine, a guy called Big Jim Rennie, had to turn to local bullies to form his police force. For those unfamiliar with the novel, the people of Chester’s Mill woke one morning to find themselves under an impermeable dome and cut off from the outside world. Published in 2009, many took the power-hungry blowhard Big Jim to be a stand-in for Dick Cheney. But it doesn’t take much re-focusing to visualize the character as a Donald Trump or perhaps a Steve Bannon, if you can ignore the rampant incompetence and only focus on the takeover.

Donald Trump, however, will not have to rely on local bullies to make up his enforcement unit. He already has at his disposal some of the most troubled law enforcement agencies in the United States, not the least of which is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a behemoth agency that is supposed to make us think we are safer with it than without it.   [Read more…]

Immigrants Enrich San Diego and the Nation

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Imagine you have had a good life with a stable job and family. Then, imagine that your life turns upside down, be it from war, religious persecution, or social unrest, and you have to start from scratch in a new country with a different language, culture, even alphabet! Welcome to the world of many of my adult ESL [English as a Second Language] students. Despite all that they have gone and continue to go through, they are very grateful to be here

Some people fear the unknown and are suspicious of newcomers, so I’d like to give you a glimpse of my world. I have been both an adult and community college ESL teacher at SDCE Mid-City Center and Grossmont College for over 30 years. I have worked with people from all over the world and their resilience never ceases to amaze me. In one class, I can have students ranging in age from 18 to 65 and from different socioeconomic and academic backgrounds, but they all have a mutual goal. They want to learn English and forge a better life for themselves and their children. For the most part, it is not easy.   [Read more…]

Gold Mountain Sisters

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By Grace Yee / Women’s Museum of California

I grew up in New Zealand, the southernmost white settler post on the Pacific Rim – a place known by my forebears as the “New Gold Mountain” 新金山.

In the 1860s, my great-great-grandfather left his home in Toi Shan 台山 county in Kwangtung (now Guangdong) Province, South China to work on the North American railroads. He died in 1874, when the ship he was returning home in was ambushed by pirates in Hong Kong harbour.

His eldest son, my great-grandfather, unable to enter the United States due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, ventured to New Zealand in 1884, where he established a laundry business in the capital city of Wellington. His only son, my grandfather, founded a bank, a whisky distillery, a grocery business and a pharmacy, and raised a family of five sons, of whom my father was the third. I treasure this family history, for it affirms my Chinese New Zealand origins, but I have long wondered why my foremothers don’t feature in this narrative.   [Read more…]

ACLU Files Demands for Documents on Trump’s Muslim Ban

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Press release provided by Edward Sifuentes / ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of San Diego & Imperial Counties filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today with its local U.S. Customs and Border Protection office to expose how Trump administration officials are interpreting and executing the president’s Muslim ban, acting in violation of federal courts that ordered a stay on the ban’s implementation.

The filing today is part of a coordinated effort from 50 ACLU affiliates, which filed 18 FOIAs with CBP field offices and its headquarters spanning over 55 international airports across the country.   [Read more…]

Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Anti-Semitic Acts Impact San Diego

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San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer made a statement on Tuesday indicating his disapproval of the executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries where President Donald Trump’s companies do not have investments.

Though milder in tone than statements by mayors in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle (some of whom have actually joined protests), Faulconer’s statement does recognize that individuals affected by the order are essential parts of the community.

In making the statement, Faulconer sidestepped a potentially thorny confrontation with supporters of an online petition who were using his silence to promote the idea of San Diego declaring itself a sanctuary city.   [Read more…]

Honor Our Promise: US Vets Ask Trump to Rescind Executive Order

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Center for American Progress Action Fund

Coming off the heels of President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order barring refugees and others from seven predominantly Muslim countries entry into the United States, more than 200 military veterans released a letter on Monday, denouncing the president’s order.

The letter is signed by many of the Truman National Security Project members and veterans and a growing list of other Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard veterans. Addressed to President Trump, the letter urges him to honor America’s promise and rescind the order.

In a press call hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Truman National Security Project, military veterans, former diplomats, and refugee policy experts discussed President Trump’s immigration order and its impacts on refugees and interpreters who serve on the frontlines with American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.   [Read more…]

Trump’s Long Shadow Falls on San Diego Immigrants, Refugees, Muslims

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From City Heights Town Hall to Airport Protest

“Tell me what democracy looks like!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

The chant ran up and down the whole length of Terminal 2 of San Diego’s Lindbergh Airport, up and down the opposite side of the terminal and could be heard on the second floor walkway. Three lines of cars ran between the two and those cars honked their horns while passengers waved flags and held signs outside of the windows.

An estimated 2,000 of us put our bodies on the public sidewalks of the airport to protest the fear and chaos engendered by Trump’s recent executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim countries.   [Read more…]

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