News & Commentary
On Immigration, a Ray of Fairness Shines Bright in California
In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, President-Elect Donald J. Trump said that he planned to deport some three million immigrants—allegedly all “criminal immigrants.” Many people, myself included, were alarmed to hear this. The details of these new mass-deportation policies remain unclear, although some reports have surfaced that the policies would include anyone who has ever been arrested, even if the person was later found innocent or the charges were eventually dropped.
But California is moving in the opposite direction and instead undertaking efforts to make things fairer for immigrant and Muslim communities. Due process, the idea that everyone deserves fair treatment by our government whenever any of their civil liberties are at stake, is a cornerstone of our democracy and one of the most cherished American values.
And at bottom, that is what these three bills are all about: fairness. It is about how we treat other human beings and about bringing some semblance of fairness into an inherently unfair immigration system.
Because the fact is that our immigration system is deeply flawed and outdated, and relies on an equally flawed and biased criminal justice system as its deportation pipeline. Many of the people with arrests or convictions have been subjected to racial profiling and discrimination.
Take for example the California Gang Database (CalGang). For years, community members and advocates alike denounced CalGang as an error-prone database that lacks transparency and accountability, and relies on racial profiling and discrimination. This year, a state audit confirmed what many of us have been saying all along when it revealed that 42 children younger than one year had been erroneously included in the database. Yet we know that the federa
San Diego ACLU Seeks Public Records Related to ECPD Officer’s Shooting of Alfred Olango
SAN DIEGO, CA – In response to community concerns about the conduct of law enforcement leading up to and in the aftermath of the killing of Alfred Olango, the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties sent public record requests to the County of San Diego and the City of El Cajon seeking information concerning policies and protocol for interacting with people experiencing mental health crises, and also El Cajon Police Department policies and protocol for responding to public protest.
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