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Immigration and Family Separation: 9 Facts vs. Fiction

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By Michelle Martin, PhD Cal State Fullerton / Reposted from Facebook

Have you heard that children were separated from their parents under Obama & Clinton? Then, you need a little Facts vs Myths lesson. Michelle Martin, PhD Cal State Fullerton summed up the most important FACTS:

There is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the separating of parents and children at the border. Before responding to a post defending this policy, please do your research…As a professor at a local Cal State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I’ll make it easier for you:

Myth: This is not a new policy and was practiced under Obama and Clinton. – FALSE.

The policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on April 6, 2018. It was the brainchild of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a deterrent for undocumented immigration, approved by Trump, and adopted by Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults were deemed unfit.   [Read more…]

Fear Mongering 101: MS-13 as the New ISIS

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Are you afraid yet? The Central American gang known as La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is everywhere in the news. They have officially replaced Al Qaeda and ISIS as the new poster children for why Americans need to live in fear.

Lately, I’ve seen what I thought were otherwise sane people mouthing government gibberish in social media about this group.

Don’t get me wrong. This gang and gangs, in general, are not nice people. They commit crimes to support their activities and are capable of extreme violence. But the narrative of MS-13 as a reason for more border security or immigrant roundups is severely lacking in substance.   [Read more…]

The ‘Fundamental Decency’ of Japanese Internment | More Video Worth Watching

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Putting a happy face on human misery. We’ve been here before. Remember how this turned out: litigation, legislation—the Civil Liberties Act of 1988—authorizing reparation payments to Japanese Americans who had been interned, eventually totaling nearly 1.6 billion, that began in 1990, with the last payment occurring in February 1999.   [Read more…]

Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border | Video Worth Watching

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Yes, folks, this is still happening. Prepare to have your heart ripped out. ProPublica received an audio recording of children from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility. According to ProPubilca:

The person who made the recording asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. That person gave the audio to Jennifer Harbury, a well-known civil rights attorney who has lived and worked for four decades in the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border with Mexico. Harbury provided it to ProPublica. She said the person who recorded it was a client who “heard the children’s weeping and crying, and was devastated by it.”

The person estimated that the children on the recording are between 4 and 10 years old. It appeared that they had been at the detention center for less than 24 hours, so their distress at having been separated from their parents was still raw. Consulate officials tried to comfort them with snacks and toys. But the children were inconsolable.

The Washington Examiner notes that HHS reports holding around 11,500 children at the moment, but at the current rate of prosecutions and separations, that figure will climb to around 30,000 by August.   [Read more…]

‘We Have No Idea When Or If Mother And Child Will Be Reunited’ | One of the Detention Facilities is Here in El Cajon | More Video Worth Watching

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All In’s Chris Hayes speaks with Rep. Beta O’Rourke (D-TX) who visited several immigration facilities in McAllen, Texas this week and tells Chris Hayes what he saw.

Also, one of the detention facilities for the children is here in El Cajon. Chris Hayes speaks with MSNBC’s Gadi Schwartz reporting from outside the facility.
  [Read more…]

One Woman Who Knew Her Rights Forced Border Patrol Off a Greyhound Bus

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By Mitra Ebadolahi, Border Litigation Project Staff Attorney / ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

On June 7, Tiana Smalls, whose Facebook profile describes her as owner of Fire Flower Beauty Company, was riding a Greyhound bus from Bakersfield, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. As the bus approached an agricultural checkpoint at the Nevada state line, Ms. Smalls said the driver made an unusual announcement: “We are being boarded by Border Patrol. Please be prepared to show your documentation upon request.” 

Ms. Smalls immediately reacted. According to a description she posted on Facebook, she stood up and loudly said, “This is a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. You don’t have to show them *shit*!!!” She then used Google Translate to repeat her message in Spanish, reassuring the Spanish-speaking woman sitting beside her and probably countless other fellow passengers. 

Border Patrol agents boarded the bus and started to ask the passengers for their “documentation.” Ms. Smalls stood up again and shouted, “You have NO RIGHT to ask me for anything! This is harassment and racial profiling! We are not within 100 miles of a border so [these agents] have no legal right or jurisdiction here!”    [Read more…]

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Mothers Didn’t Even Get To Say Bye To Kids | Video Worth Watching

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Another update on the Department of Justice policy of taking children away from their parents when taken into custody at the border: All In’s Chris Hayes speaks with Pramila Jayapal (D-WA7) who reports on her visit with 174 women being held in a Federal prison in Washington state. None of the women had yet even had a “Credible Fear” hearing.   [Read more…]

Third Time’s the Charm for Cheesecake Factory Janitors’ Wage Claims

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Also: Dead Men Don’t Talk in National City, the Dotard and the Billionaire Class, and the Democratic Party’s New Free Speech Zone

Remember the days when corporations in California avoided responsibility for breaking labor laws by blaming contractors, who all-to-often disappeared when investigations were complete?

An investigation initiated by San Diego’s Employee Rights Center, a nonprofit that assists low-wage workers without union representation, led to a ruling by the  Labor Commissioner’s Office holding the Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Southern California and its janitorial subcontractors liable for $4.57 million in minimum wages, overtime, liquidated damages, waiting time penalties, and meal and rest period premiums.   [Read more…]

A Vote for Summer Stephan and Sheriff Bill Gore Is an Endorsement of Police Brutality

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By R. Zamora / La Voz Es Fuerza

On July 5, 2017, Christopher Villanueva, a San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy fired 16 hollow-point bullets at my unarmed cousin, Jonathon Coronel. According to the medical examiner’s report, he had 22 gunshot wounds on his very slim body. Hollow point bullets expand upon entering the tissue and cause more pain. Jonathon was tortured to death. He was willing to comply with the law.

There were 155 officer-involved shootings from 2005-2015 in San Diego and they have all been deemed justified by the District Attorney’s office.

The witness at the scene of his murder stated that Jonathon was already on the ground surrendered and shirtless to prove he was unarmed. However, even that blatant form of compliance did not stop Deputy Villanueva from executing him in such a monstrous way. I cried every single day since his death and, alongside his family and other victims’ families of police brutality, demanded justice for his murder.

As if finding out that a loved one was brutally slaughtered to death wasn’t painful enough, the villainization of his character and condoning of that violence by Interim District Attorney Summer Stephans added salt to our wounds. In March 2018, eight months after his murder, Summer Stephans held a press conference regarding Jonathon’s case and ruled the Deputy’s violence justified.   [Read more…]

Interim District Attorney Summer Stephan Did Nothing When I Was Assaulted By White Supremacists

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My name is William Johnson. I’m an activist here in San Diego and have been a regular at protests since 2011. I go out to march, rally, protest, and demonstrate, because I care deeply about fighting for the civil and human rights of all people, and against institutional poverty, environmental degradation, and militarism. Nowhere in our greater San Diego/Tijuana Metropolitan area are these issues more intersectional than at our border.

This has drawn me to protest there many times, most recently to protest Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he announced his policy to separate all migrant children from their parents, to which I called him “evil”. (And he announced this policy at Friendship Park of all places… The nerve of that man! But I digress…) To many people’s amazement, I walked away from this protest like I do 99% of the protests I attend; unscathed.

This was not the case on December 9th of last year, where I, and some of my friends and allies, were attacked by a group of well-known San Diego-based white supremacists.   [Read more…]

San Diego Disabled Homeless Who Live in RVs Will Have Their Say in Court – Some Day

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A class-action suit against the City of San Diego by a group of disabled homeless challenging the enforcement of parking laws that prevent homeless people from living and sleeping in recreational vehicles is winding its way through Federal court.

The suit was filed in November 2017 by 9 homeless men and women who say they have no other housing option except to live in their RVs – which forces them to park overnight in city parks or streets. Their disabilities make them unable to afford rent and that homeless shelters are unsuitable for the disabled.

Their lawsuit demands that the city immediately stop citing disabled people under its long-standing vehicle habitation ordinance and its relatively new RV ordinance. The RV ordinance, enforced by the city in 2014, prohibits such vehicles from parking on any San Diego city street or in any public parking lot between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The suit was written by attorneys from the Sacramento-based nonprofit group Disability Rights California.   [Read more…]

San Diego County’s Continuing War on Marijuana

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Today in Spring Valley – an unincorporated community of San Diego County – sheriff deputies raided an unlicensed marijuana dispensary on Troy Street. This effort demonstrates that the war against pot continues in this area of California.

Twenty-two years after the voters of California legalized medical cannabis and a year and half after voters over the state voted to legalize recreational marijuana, the County of San Diego pushes on against the will of the people, cracking down on pot shops.

The current crop of County supervisors voted in March 2017 to prohibit any marijuana operations in the unincorporated areas of the County and phase out existing ones.   [Read more…]

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