The signing of Trump’s Executive Actions, and the ensuing protests in cities and airports throughout the country, have led San Diego’s migrant community to seek tangible support from Mayor Kevin Faulconer. Although the community saw the mayor’s lack of support of the Trump campaign as a good thing, many say his silence and inaction are hurting the more than 170,000 undocumented people estimated to be living in the region.
More than 30 San Diego NGOs are coming together to ask San Diego’s public officials to show their solidarity with the people they serve by designating San Diego as a sanctuary and standing against the President’s Executive Orders.
Leaders of the Latino and Islamic communities shared that they are getting the same message as Washington’s from their Mayor in San Diego, and they see no decisive action against the low-profile raids and deportations taking place throughout California, a situation that has thousands of people already in a state of fear.
“If the Mayor is truly with the Latino and immigrant community, as he likes to say, then he needs to declare San Diego as a sanctuary city. He can’t just say he supports them with no results to be seen; they need to designate the city as a sanctuary, as Governor Brown has already done in California, as the Mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco have done,” said Border Angels founder Enrique Morones.
“We want [the Mayor] to do the right thing, to stand strong and firm, and we will all be supporting him,” shared Imam Taha Hassane, Director of the Islamic Center in San Diego.
On February 14, dozens of residents went to City Hall to demand for these actions to be taken decisively and demand that Councilmembers vote in favor of sending their support to Washington State in their decision against the Executive Order to ban refugees and all people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the U.S.
“We believe that San Diego is a very important city in the U.S., a border city, the largest [border city], and we have many immigrant communities, who our duty is to make our voice be heard in favor of these refugees, of immigrants, and we are demanding for our public officials to take this important step,” added Hassane.
David Alvarez was one of the Councilmembers who showed his support by voting in favor of immigrants, stating that the President’s actions only hurt the well-being and economy of families. The final result, after a closed session, yielded a passing 8-1 vote, with Councilmember Scott Sherman as the sole opposition, for San Diego to join other cities in the U.S. against the travel ban.