By Miriam Raftery
Photo by Frank Gormlie, San Diego Free Press
March 14, 2018 (San Diego) – In a visit to San Diego on Monday, President Donald Trump toured prototypes of a border wall in Otay Mesa. Hundreds of protesters turned out, San Diego Free Press reports, at the border as well as downtown.
Trump supporters also came to greet the president including rallies by the anti-immigrant organization San Diegans for Secure Borders, a group led by former San Diego Minutemen organizer Jeff Schwilk.
A crowd of about 500 in Otay Mesa carried signs reading “Build bridges not walls” and other anti-administration messages. Protesters including an interfaith coalition of religious leaders objecting to the President’s harsh immigration and deportation policies as well as his plan to build a massive border wall.
The president criticized Governor Jerry Brown for doing a “terrible job” running the state of California, specifically stating “You have sanctuary cities where you have criminals living….” He then accused Oakland’s mayor of tipping off immigrants about an ICE raid and claimed this resulted in many criminals being at large.
Ironically, also yesterday, James Schwab a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE resigned his position over what he called “false” and “misleading” statements made by ICE’s acting director Thomas Homan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions which suggested that hundreds of “criminals” had escaped capture in northern California due to the Oakland mayor’s actions. Schwab said, “To say that 100 percent are dangerous criminals on the street, or that these people weren’t picked up because of the misguided actions of the mayor, is just wrong,” the Washington Post reports.
Regarding the Governor, Trump praised Brown as a “nice guy” but faulted California’s sanctuary state status, which is administration has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn. He also blamed Brown for what the President characterized as high taxes, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Brown responded on Twitter, “Thanks for the shout-out, @realDonaldTrump. But bridges are still better than walls. And California remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the most prosperous state in America. #Facts,” Brown tweeted Tuesday.
Trump was joined at the wall by members of the military and Border Patrol, as well as by Congressman Duncan D. Hunter and his father, the former Congressman.
The President examined the prototypes and reiterated his preference for a see-through wall to allow Border Patrol agents to see what is happening on the Mexican side of the border, actions he says are needed to control drug cartels as well as dissuading undocumented immigrants from entering the U.S.
Meanwhile social media posts by various groups have proposed that the tens of billions of dollars proposed for the wall might be better spent on various other options ranging from rebuilding areas damaged by hurricanes, floods and fires to helping the homeless or raising Social Security benefits.
Comments
The FBI is not a law enforcement agency?
Reagan
But....
Hano, where is your documentation for this broad claim?
I've never heard anything about the SPLC's data being dropped by law enforcement agencies, and it would be virtually impossible to document that "every law enforcement agency in the country" had done so. That sounds like fake news to me.
Document your claim with a link to a credible mainstream news source, or we will delete it since we don't allow defamatory or fake news posts here.
Enough?
None of that supports your claim that law enforcement
no longer relies on the SPLC. Your post sites one of the supposed hate groups itself complaining about this, and a small number of conservative politicians who have complained about the SPLC, which did revise a couple of its listings. The suit you mention has apparently not been resolved. So you're drawing conclusions based on thin and partisan claims, not any sort of objective, nonpartisan analysis let alone ANYTHING from law enforcement. It appears your original claim that every law enforcement agency has stopped relying n the SPLC is false. You haven't even cited a single law enforcement agency that has done so.
Just becuase a couple of individuals or groups may have made it onto a list that was a bit over-broad, and those have been removed apparently by the SPLC, does NOT mean that the fast majority of the groups or inidivudals listed are not hate groups. Many of them have been involved in criminal activities and certainly fomenting hate, be it the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinhead gangs etc. and such information could certainly be valuable to law enforcement, albeit worth taking with a grain of salt in some cases.
He was there....
I found his organization online
and confirmed that San Diegans for Secure Borders, which Schwilk heads up, did hold a pro-Trump rally so added that reference.
Schwilk has been a controversial figure with various libel lawsuits decided against him, police raids of his home over an attack on a migrant camp, etc. The Minuteman group disbanded among controversy including alleged ties to violent actions. His activities are chronicled on the Southern Poverty law Center's hate watch page.
POTUS
The truth hurts
no bashing, just telling the truth about brown and his abusive and extreme policies designed to hurt the citizens and especially children and elderly.
providing sanctuary for criminals is equal to a larry nassar diagnosis
That's it?
Nobody submitted anything to us and I even posted a message on
Facebook asking for info on any pro-Trump rallies.
Not sure what else we can do to get that info. The protesters were all over social media and my mailbox was also full of multiple groups trying to get their messages out; pretty clearly they outnumbered the supporters, but we'd still appreciate photos if anyone was at or took photos of a pro-Trump rally during his visit here this week.