No, The Muslim Travel Ban Does Not Only Affect 109

From Politico's Morning Edition

CONFUSION DEEPENS OVER TRUMP'S TRAVEL BAN: "Uncertainty about President Donald Trump's "extreme vetting" policies continued to roil travelers, airlines and foreign governments Monday, as U.S. immigration officials made decisions on the fly about how to apply the directives - despite White House attempts to downplay the fallout," POLITICO's Ted Hesson and Jennifer Scholtes report. 

Three days in, "lawyers were still struggling to reach clients being questioned at U.S. ports of entry," they write. "Meanwhile, customs agents were handling entries for green-card holders on a case-by-case basis, and European governments were giving conflicting instructions to people with dual nationalities - both topics on which the Trump administration had sent decidedly mixed signals." More for Pros here.

NO, THE TRAVEL BAN DOESN'T AFFECT ONLY 109: The Trump administration is beguiled by the number 109. Trump mentioned it in a tweet Monday morning ("Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held"), then Sean Spicer repeated it at the daily press briefing ("Remember we're talking about a universe of 109 people. There were 325,000 people that came into this country over a 24-hour period from another country. 109 of them were stopped for additional screening").

But the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler says the 109 figure is "rather dubious." Federal officials haven't responded to requests for updates on the number of people detained in airports, Kessler notes, and even if they did, that number wouldn't tell the whole story. It omits, for example, the 348 people who weren't permitted to board their planes from the time the executive order was signed through 6 p.m. Sunday. Nor does it include a reported 200 to 250 people who made it onto the plane but were not permitted U.S. entry once their planes landed.

The total universe of visa holders from the seven majority-Muslim countries targeted by the order who could be affected, Kessler writes, numbers more like 90,000. "According to State Department statistics, that's how many people received either nonimmigrant or immigrant visas from the seven affected countries in fiscal year 2015 ... . it serves as a usable proxy for the likely universe of people affected by Trump's travel ban," Kessler writes. More from the Post here.

MALDEF STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ACTION ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

January 25, 2017

Los Angeles, CA - MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz.

"These are alt-right, dog-whistle executive directives, with great long-term cost to the soul and safety of our nation. However, our communities will not be cowed by irresponsible rhetoric couched in terms of executive authority.

Donald Trump's border Wall Mahal threatens to bankrupt the nation's treasury just as Trump bankrupted his own businesses in the past through overblown construction projects. Because today's order only commences planning, Congress has the opportunity to prevent the profligate use of federal resources to construct this monument to waste and excess.

Aggressive interior enforcement is an abject failure, delivering tremendous upheaval and harm to families, schools, and workplaces. The economic disruption to critical industries, such as agriculture, from such efforts render these executive orders a direct and undiluted threat to United States national security. There are serious constitutional questions about the enforcement proposals, and untoward activity will elicit court challenge. Reviving the thoroughly discredited and misnamed ‘Secure Communities' program, which actually undermined both security and community, will not make America great again. And no amount of lipstick – through alternative facts or otherwise – will transform the pig of a program that the administration seeks to embrace.

Finally, threatening cities and communities that value the contributions of immigrants and that recognize the injustice in current immigration laws and practices does nothing but undermine public safety and foster division in our nation. Any order that promises to take monies from immigrant-protective cities is an impotent effort to overreach executive authority. Once again, the Congress can and should block this attempt to impinge on federalism and to undermine successful communities."

If Trump Deports the Undocumented- Who Will Feed the Nation?

UFW: If Trump deports most U.S. farm workers, who will feed the Nation —or guests at Trump hotels and golf courses?

United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez issued the following statement from the union’s Keene, Calif. headquarters in response to executive orders announced today by the Trump administration aimed at keeping his central campaign promise to begin deporting many of the 11 million undocumented residents in the United States:

U.S. Department of Labor surveys show the majority of U.S. farm workers are undocumented: https://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report9/chapter1.cfm The United Farm Workers’ anecdotal experience in California and other states where we are active shows the percentage of undocumented workers is even higher.

So if today’s executive orders from Donald Trump signal the beginning of fulfilling his oft-repeated campaign pledge to deport the undocumented, then who is going to feed America? Who is going to feed the guests at Trump hotels and golf courses? Who is going to feed Donald Trump?

Trump Signs Executive Orders for Arrest of Immigrants and Exclusion of Refugees

“

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

”

Rev. Martin Niemoller, after surviving a Nazi concentration camp.

California vs Trump- Border Wall

Great interview.  Becerra will stand up to Trump

http://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/ag-becerra-i-will-find-ways-to-stop-trump-s-wall-864449091541

Xavier Becerra

Activists Oppose Trump's Executive Orders

County Supervisor Phil Serna 

"In a display of solidarity, leaders representing a broad spectrum of Sacramento’s faith and political communities rallied Thursday against President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders expanding the identification and deportation of undocumented immigrants." Jan. 25, 2017. 

From the CAIR Facebook page.  The news conference is on their Facebook page.

City Councilman Eric Guerra speaking.

Leaders and activists spoke directly opposing the executive orders threatening the Muslim and immigrant communities, saying “An injury to one is an injury to all.”  

Duane Campbell, Dolores Delgado-Campbell

It Can Happen Here

It Can Happen Here



The rise of right wing nationalism.

Trump's Border Wall is Stupid

As announced on January 25, 2017, Donald Trump plans to build a border wall at a cost of at least $16,000,000,000, more likely $25 billion.

Rather than building a wall that will not work, we could build 375 schools in the U.S., or 93 average size hospitals.

For every 10 miles of wall built, we could have 30 schools.  For every 50 miles, we could have 4-5 hospitals.

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/01/26/mexico-trump-nafta

We should be clear. The California economy is deeply integrated with Mexico. Building a wall will produce substantial  economic hardships.

And, Mexico will respond. They will not be passive. For example, they could reduce their substantial assistance to the U.S. in limiting undocumented border crossings.

Border Wall Protest - Today

Sacramento Emergency Protest Tomorrow #NoBanNoWall The moment we've been bracing for is here. Multiple news outlets are reporting that President Trump will sign an executive order tomorrow, restricting entry to the US from majority Muslim countries. Another executive order was signed today, attacking our undocumented neighbors with an expanded border wall. As a city of immigrants, we cannot stay silent in the face of such hate. We ask you to gather tomorrow (Thursday), to show President Trump that all Sacramentans stand with our Muslim and Latino neighbors. Together, we will form a beacon of light against the coming darkness. WHAT: Sacramento Emergency Protest WHEN: Thursday, January 26, 5 p.m WHERE: Sidewalk in front of Federal Building, 5th and I St (501 I St) Facebook Event Page Please share widely and bring your signs and banners!

Trump Begins Border Wall

Will hire 5,000 additional border patrol.
Will end catch and release policy.
Says he will crack down on sanctuary cities. 

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an order on Wednesday to start building a border wall with Mexico and was planning to indefinitely block Syrian refugees from entering the United States and to institute a temporary halt on all refugees from the rest of the world.

The refugee policies are part of an executive order he is expected to issue as soon as Thursday, according to an eight-page document, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The order would require tougher vetting of foreigners fleeing persecution and place a month long ban on allowing any person into the United States from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen. Refugee admissions would be halted for 120 days while a review of screening procedures is completed. When it resumes, the program would be far smaller, with the total number of refugees resettled in the United States this year more than halved, to 50,000 from 110,000.

The Identity Politics Red Herring @alternet

The Identity Politics Red Herring @alternet: It is about civil rights and social justice.

We will defend every man, woman, and child !

Choosing Democracy: We will defend every man, woman, and child !: California Gov. Edmund G Brown Jr.  Jan. 24, 2017 First, in California, immigrants are an integral part of who we are and what we’ve becom...

What Trump Can and Can't Do To Immigrants

WHAT TRUMP CAN AND CAN'T DO TO IMMIGRANTS
By David Bacon 
Dollars and Sense | January/February 2017
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2017/0117bacon.html


People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. 
—Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” 1852


While the government officials developing and enforcing U.S. immigration policy will change on January 20, the economic system in which they make that policy will not. As fear sweeps through immigrant communities in the United States, understanding that system helps us anticipate what a Trump administration can and can’t do in regard to immigrants, and what immigrants themselves can do about it. 

Over the terms of the last three presidents, the most visible and threatening aspect of immigration policy has been the drastic increase in enforcement. President Bill Clinton presented anti-immigrant bills as compromises, and presided over the first big increase in border enforcement. George W. Bush used soft rhetoric, but sent immigration agents in military-style uniforms, carrying AK-47s, into workplaces to arrest workers, while threatening to fire millions for not having papers. Under President Barack Obama, a new requirement mandated filling 34,000 beds in detention centers every night. The detention system mushroomed, and over 2 million people were deported. 

Enforcement, however, doesn’t exist for its own sake. It plays a role in a larger system that serves capitalist economic interests by supplying a labor force employers require. High levels of enforcement also ensure the profits of companies that manage detention and enforcement, who lobby for deportations as hard as Boeing lobbies for the military budget. 

Immigrant labor is more vital to many industries than it’s ever been before. Immigrants have always made up most of the country’s farm workers in the West and Southwest. Today, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 57% of the country’s entire agricultural workforce is undocumented. But the list of other industries dependent on immigrant labor is long—meatpacking, some construction trades, building services, healthcare, restaurant and retail service, and more.

Protest in front of Oakland City Hall against the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.  - All photos © David Bacon 


During the election campaign, candidate Donald Trump pledged in his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again” to “begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country” on his first day in office. In speeches, he further promised to eventually force all undocumented people (estimated at 11 million) to leave. 

Trump's Racist Model For Mass Deportations

Resisting the Trump Administration: Tasks for the Left

Resisting the Trump Administration: Tasks for the Left

Trump Will Begin Anti Immigrant Campaign Immediately

Brian Bennett
 of the Los Angeles Times. Jan.19, 2017.

Aides are clearing the way for President-elect Donald Trump to take the first steps toward transforming the immigration system as soon as he takes office Friday, fulfilling a major campaign pledge while deepening the fears of immigration advocates about what’s to come.

Gone will be the temporary protections of the final Obama years for people in the country illegally. In their place, say immigration advocates and people familiar with his plans, expect to see images on the evening news of workplace raids as Trump sends a message that he is wasting no time on his promised crackdown.

In addition to the high-profile raids, those people said in interviews, Trump will also widen the range of people singled out for deportation, focusing on those with criminal convictions, and he could move immediately to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the U.S.

He may also limit who can come into the country as a security measure, making good on a sweeping vow to stop immigrants “from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.”

Marcha

Voices Of Hope And Worry In Sacramento | NBC Nightly News

DACA Student, Teacher,

Hearing Began Today on Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education

The more we learn, the more we are certain that Betsy DeVos is bad for public schools and for kids.

When De Vos has to choose between quality schools and “the free market,” she chooses “the free market” of privatized choice every time. The best interests of children take a back seat.

And we know the DeVos endgame–shut down our neighborhood public schools, and replace them with a patchwork of charters, private schools and online learning.

We can’t let that happen and we need your help. Present and future generations of children are depending on us to act now.  We now know that some Senators have grave doubts. It is our job to make those doubts grow into active resistance to DeVos. Our senators are in district offices from 12/17 – 1/2.

Here are our three toolkits to help you do your part.

Toolkit 1. Call your senators’ offices. The toolkit with numbers and a phone script can be found here. It includes a link to phone numbers.

Toolkit 2. Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. You can find a model here.