THE RESPONSE OF SOME STATES AND CITIES TO TRUMP'S MACABRE MASS DEPORTATION PLAN

THE GOOD IN LOS ANGELES

Los Angeles in California, the city with the largest number of undocumented Latino immigrants in the United States, on Tuesday unanimously approved through the city council an order in favor of declaring Los Angeles a sanctuary city to protect immigrants just like other cities in the United States that have already made similar decisions. Something they had already done years before when Trump first took office.

The ordinance was approved after several demonstrations of thousands of pro-immigrant people shouting in front of the city hall “what do we want? Sanctuaries, when do we want it? Now.”

The idea is that Los Angeles authorities will not cooperate with the deportation of immigrants in most circumstances by not giving out information on the immigration status of people in Los Angeles, nor allow police to detain immigrants solely because of their immigration status. City Council Member Paul Krekorian said the measure addresses “the need to ensure that our immigrant community here in Los Angeles understands that we understand their fear.”

Other cities such as Santa Clara, Berkeley and San Francisco in California have already passed similar programs, and we will be asking that the City of Grand Rapids, which in previous years had a similar program, also demonstrate its commitment to advocate for immigrants especially with the new Mayor David LaGrand who is a pro-justice advocate.

We will continue to talk about the development of these measures and what we can do here in Grand Rapids and other nearby areas to protect immigrants. There are several lawsuits from previous years that mention cities, counties and states that may have laws that prohibit the community from cooperating with immigration laws, which are federal, and that support ICE in most circumstances with very limited exceptions. In the coming weeks we will be talking about how the community can help with this.

THE BAD IN TEXAS

On the other hand we have the bad in the state of Texas with its super anti-immigrant Governor Abbott who is offering to give land to Trump and ICE near the Mexican border for his mass deportation program, apparently the state of Texas is giving away over 500 acres to build the facilities where the president and his ICE allies can plan and carry out their promised mass deportations, including the installation of immigration detention and processing centers.

This is yet another example of how Governor Abbott is using his state power to do harm to immigrants, the area of land he offered to Trump is near the Rio Grande Valley which is a stretch of about a mile and a half near the border. We must do everything we can to prevent Abbott and the governors of the other states, including border states, from using state land and resources to support the deportation of immigrants.

Also Trump has said he will make a national emergency declaration of invasion to use military forces. We know that groups of lawyers including myself and organizations like the ACLU and AILA will do everything we can, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, to stop these abuses. Trump wants to use a law from the 18th century used to protect or detain people who collaborated in the war against the independence of the United States by supporting England, now against immigrants who only come in search of a better life to seek asylum which is obviously not the same situation and we hope the courts understand this.

We ask all undocumented immigrants or who have undocumented family or friends not to panic soon we will be presenting some forums and giving information on how you can prepare.

We are here and we are not leaving!