March 8, 2018 (Sacramento) – The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against California, as well as the state’s governor and attorney general. The suit claims that three specific “sanctuary” laws aimed at protecting some undocumented immigrants are unconstitutional.
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Photo: U.S. Supreme Court, by D.B. King via Wikimedia Commons
Reprinted from Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
February 26, 2018 (San Diego) -- San Diego’s estimated 45,000 Dreamers got a reprieve from possible deportation Monday when the Supreme Court refused to hear a Trump administration challenge.
The program, which allows immigrants brought to America illegally as children to live and work in the country, was terminated by President Trump last year, leaving it up to Congress to pass permanent protections.
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February 14, 2018 (Washington D.C.) – Two federal judges have issued rulings to temporarily protect young immigrants known as “Dreamers” registered with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program.
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February 3, 2018 (San Diego) -- University of California professor Teddy Cruz, an immigrant from Guatemala, has been awarded a $100,000 Vilcek Foundation prize for designs that make cross-border communities more inclusive and equitable.
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Reprinted with permission by Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: President Trump applauds Congress curing his State of the Union speech. Image from White House video
January 30, 2018 (Washington, D.C.) - President Trump doubled down on his offer of a path to citizenship for California’s estimated 500,000 eligible “Dreamers” Tuesday night in his first State of the Union speech.
The plan, which has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, would include a 12-year path to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants brought to America as children in return for “a great wall on the southern border” and an end to both the visa lottery and chain migration.
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January 29, 2018 (San Diego) – Two immigrants protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program have been arrested for involvement in human smuggling in two separate incidents, The U.S. Border Patrol reports.
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January 23, 2018 (Washington D.C.) – Both houses of Congress have approved a short-term spending bill to reopen the federal government, but only until February 8th.
The compromise measure includes six years of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program which had expired at year’s end. But Democrats failed to win Dream Act protection from deportation for young immigrants or Dreamers, settling on a mere promise from Republican Majority Mitch McConnell to address the issue in a separate immigration bill with no guarantee of passage.
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January 19, 2018 (San Diego’s East County) – A new report by humanitarian organizations reveals that Border Patrol agentshave been systemically destroying water bottles left in desert areas for undocumented immigrants in the Arizona desert, condemning people to die of thirst.While its unknown if this is occurring in California, this article in Britain’s The Guardian hit home for me in a visceral way, reminding me of an experience that brought me to tears.
On the 4th of July In 2008, I rode alongwith Border Angels founder Enrique Morones. We discovered sabotage of water bottles his group had left in rugged locations--all slashed open, empty. My article, Dying to Come to America, was published in our very first edition of East County Magazine. Morones vividly described what it is like for people to die of dehydration – hallucinating, throwing off clothes and shoes. We saw the signs of this torment – a woman’s high-heeled shoe cast aside, a man’s crumpled shirt. The heat was triple digits.
I went along to learn about experiences faced by people so desperate to come to America that they rely on water left by benevolent strangers to survive.I learned that coyotes, or human traffickers, often lie to the migrants, telling them it's just a short walk to freedom; some women dressed up to meet their husbands are unaware of the dangers. I choked up, imagining their pain. My story included photos of those slashed water bottles and graves of people--some so very young--who died crossing East County's rugged border mountains in their failed quest to find freedom.
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January 17, 2018 (Washington D.C.) – Leaders of sanctuary cities and states could be arrested and charged with crimes, Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security told Senators in a committee meeting Tuesday.
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Attorney General Becerra helps secure victory for Dreamers as court blocks implementation of Trump Administration’s rescission of DACA until a final decision is reached in the litigation
By Miriam Raftery
January 10, 2018 (Sacramento) – A California court has issued a nationwide injunction to temporarily protect Dreamers, or young people brought here as children of undocumented immigrants, or young people brought here as children of undocumented immigrants, before a Trump administration order forces them to be deported. Trump rolled back DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order issued by Barack Obama.
Congress is grappling with legislation that could permanently protect the Dreamers. Butthe clock is ticking. President Trump has indicated he is open to a bill to protect the Dreamers, but only if it also includes funding for a border wall.While Democrats and some Republicans support protection for dreamers, hard liners in the Republican Party oppose it and its unclear whether Democrats would back billions to build a border wall.
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January 4, 2018 (Sacramento) -- Almost 250 California businesses and children's groups have sent a joint letter to the state's members of Congress, urging them to pass the Dream Act, which would give certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children a work permit and a path to citizenship.
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Social service agencies are required by law to provide disaster-related assistance without asking for information or documents
East County News Service
December 8, 2017 (San Diego) -- As wildfires rage in Southern California this week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of San Diego and Imperial Counties is on alert to protect the rights of fire victims in this region.
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Photo: About 3,000 Nicaraguan legal immigrants will become undocumented by January 2019 unless Congress acts to give them permanent legal status. Photo via Pixabay.
November 8, 2017 (Sacramento) - Latino groups are speaking out against the decision by the Trump administration on Monday to end legal status for some people from Central America who were given temporary protected status over the past two decades.
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Voters overwhelming support a Dream Act and reject more walls, agents and detention beds
East County News Service
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Federal judge rules action violates Constitutional rights of detained immigrants
By Miriam Raftery
October 19, 2017 (San Diego) – A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration has violated the rights of a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant detained in Texas by refusing to allow her to have an abortion. The Trump administration has appealed. “Failure to comply with this order may result in a finding of contempt,” wrote D.C. Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan.
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By Vinny Lavalsiti and Matthew Ochoa, reprinted with permission from The Summit at Grossmont College
Images: property of The Summit and Grossmont College's Graphic design program
October 10, 2017 (El Cajon) -- Martha Amezcua was nine when she came to the United States, and she didn't know a lick of English, creating a hefty language barrier between her and her classmates once she enrolled in school. Her silence, because of the language barrier, led to a lot bullying.
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October 10, 2017 (San Diego) — Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law Senate Bill 54, the “sanctuary state” measure aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants in California. In his signing statement, Brown says, “These are uncertain times for undocumented Californians and their families, and this bill strikes a balance that will protect public safety, while bringing a measure of comfort to those families who are now living in fear every day.”
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Reprinted with permission from Times of San Diego, a San Diego Online News Association member
Photo: Crime scene tape, courtesy FBI
October 1, 2017 (San Diego) - Do headlines on Fox, Breitbart and Drudge about immigrant crime scare you? Do you want to move to safety? Then consider relocating to a big city near the Mexican border.
It turns out that San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso and San Antonio have crime rates well below the average for their size, and the two cities located right on the border have the lowest crime rates of the group.
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September 27, 2017 (San Diego) – Construction of eight border wall prototypes, each costing up to a half million dollars, is now underway in Otay Mesa. After testing of alternative materials and designs built here, President Donald Trump aims to erect a wall along the entire U.S.- Mexico border at a cost of some $60 billion. But it is unclear why San Diego was chosen for the prototypes and many local officials have raised concerns.
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September 20, 2017 (San Diego) – A powerful 7.1 earthquake struck Mexico City yesterday, 32 years to the day that a 1985 quake killed 9,500 people and destroyed 100,000 homes in Mexico City. Since then, the city has made major efforts to improve earthquake safety standards.
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HAVING FUN IN TIJUANA: A Day Tripper’s Guide, by Sam Warren (Bookwarren Publishing, San Diego, California, 2017, 14 pages.)
Book Review by Dennis Moore
September 15, 2017 (Tijuana) - Sam Warren, the founder of SDWriteway, an online magazine in San Diego that has partnered with the East County Magazine, has written the indispensable guide to navigating through Tijuana, Mexico, and enjoying it; Having Fun In Tijuana: A Day Tripper’s Guide.
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State joined by Minnesota, Maryland, and Maine in lawsuit standing up for Dreamers
East County News Service
September 11, 2017 (Sacramento) -- Today, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, joined by the attorneys general for Minnesota, Maryland and Maine, filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative (DACA). The four States filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California arguing that the Trump Administration violated the Constitution and federal laws when it rescinded DACA.
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September 10, 2017 (Tecate) – “The history of humanity is the story of people migrating,” French artist JR posted on his Twitter feed.
Drawing attention to the plight of innocent children denied entry to, or facing expulsion from the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s tough policies, JR erected a 70-foot-tall mural titled Kikito. It depicts a one-year-old boy peeking over the border fence in Tecate, visible from the U.S. side of the border in San Diego’s East County.
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September 11, 2017 (El Cajon) -- Iveth Estrada didn’t know she was an undocumented immigrant until shortly before she enrolled at Cuyamaca College. She didn’t know while growing up with her family in Spring Valley. She didn’t know while competing with the varsity swim and water polo teams at Monte Vista High School.
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Photo: UC President Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security
September 8, 2017 (San Francisco) --The University of California today filed suit in federal court against the Trump administration for wrongly and unconstitutionally violating the rights of the University and its students by rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on “nothing more than unreasoned executive whim.”
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September 8, 2017 (San Diego) – An 8.1 earthquake has struck Mexico off the west coast near Chiapas and Oaxaca overnight, killing at least several dozen people though that count is expected to rise dramatically. The quake, the strongest in a century to hit Mexico, and aftershocks are triggering tsunamis, one measuring 3 foot already and potential of waves up to 10 feet tall, CNN reports: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/08/americas/earthquake-hits-off-the-coast-of-southern-mexico/index.html
Meanwhile Mexico’s east coast is awash in heavy rains and strong winds from Hurricane Katia , a category 1 hurricane off Veracruz. A hurricane warning is in effect for Cabo Rojo to Laguna Verde.
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September 6, 2017 (San Diego) -- After the Trump administration announced repeal of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities across the nation to rally in support of protecting the dreamers, young people brought to the U.S. as children by undocumented parents. Those young people now face deportation under President Trump’s executive order, unless Congress takes action within six months to protect them.
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Updated Sept. 10 to include comments from Rep. Duncan Hunter and candidate Josh Butner.
September 6, 2017 (San Diego) -- President Donald Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has announced he will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that shields young people brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. But he gave Congress six months to pass legislation to change that, leaving an estimated 800,000 “dreamers” in limbo, fearful of being sent back to homelands that some don’t even remember, places where dangers caused many of their families to flee and seek safety in the U.S.
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September 4, 2017 (San Diego) – Homeland Security in Thursday announced four companies chosen to build prototypes of a border wall in the Otay Mesa area in San Diego. President Donald Trump has threatened a government shut down if Congress won’t fund subsequent construction of a wall along most of the international U.S.-Mexico border in an upcoming spending bill.
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September 4, 2017 (El Cajon) -- Hispanic Heritage Month at the two East County colleges is celebrated from mid-September to Nov. 1 with free events that are open to the public.
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