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Pleasanton is hosting a “Families Belong Together” rally this Saturday, joining hundreds of other communities across the nation to do so.
The rally, organized and co-sponsored by a variety of local organizations, is intended to show support for the reunification of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the zero-tolerance policy of the Trump administration.
There will be rallies throughout the Bay Area on Saturday. Locally, Pleasanton’s rally will begin at 1 p.m. at Lions Wayside Park, 4401 First St.
Also in the Tri-Valley, a rally will take place at 11 a.m. at the amphitheater by Dublin’s City Hall, 100 Civic Plaza, and will be attended by U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin).
The local event is co-sponsored by: Organizing for Action East Bay Central Chapter, Muslim Community Center East Bay, CIRCP Coalition, NAMI Tri-Valley, Congregation Beth Emek, Catholic Community of Pleasanton, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Tri-Valley Women’s March Action Group, and Tri-Valley Progressives for Our Revolution.
How funny. Still confused about the difference between “immigrant” and “Illegal Alien”? They aren’t immigrants, nor children or kids…that is
the media families are split up every single day in this country, have been for decades when anyone is incarcerated. But now its OUTRAGE because its illegal aliens?
Personally speaking, this election I vote this for candidates who prioritize citizens over illegal aliens, those who oppose sanctuary cities, amnesty and taxpayer funded in state college tuition discounts for illegals. That means no Democrats and no RINO’s.
When will politicians and people in general figure out that when you reward illegal immigration with jobs, amnesty, drivers licenses,discounts for college tuition, scholarships encourages MORE illegal entry.. Illegal immigration negativity effects our economy from employment to use public services. Just debating this in congress is
costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars….. thank the parents. Another concern is the real “immigrants” who have waited in
line? The “dreamers” don’t care about them, but we as a country should.
People fleeing persecution? or people fleeing for freebies? they don’t stay in Mexico when they reach safety or ask for political asylum in Mexico. Why? because Mexico will give them nothing. So they make the long journey to our border. America is not splitting up families, that
decision is theirs.
Just some of the costs associated with illegal immigration, we will pass this burden on to our children and grand children as has been passed on to us
The cost of educating illegal aliens children is staggering. From K-12 it costs taxpayers $122,000 for EACH illegal alien student. This does not include the billions spent on bilingual education for illegal aliens.
*Currently city, and state officials are appropriating millions of taxpayer dollarsfor legal fees to to file law suits and in defense of illegal aliens being deported and to sue our own Government..
*2012 illegal aliens sent home $62 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our politics.
*30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.Does not include local jails and State Prisons. At $21,000 per year expense per inmate in Federal Prison U do the math.
*$3Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens, I repeat 3 MILLION a DAY to process Illegals in the Criminal justice system.
*$2.2Billion dollars a year is spent on is spent on food assistance programs such as SNAP (food stamps) WIC, & free school lunches.
https://www.fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers
Why no protests for this?
http://www.illegalaliencrimereport.com/
https://theremembranceproject.org/
Huh, so because it costs some money, we should tear children away from their families. Sounds great, lol. Maybe we should have taken some of the trillion dollar tax cut to the richest 1% and spent it to keep some families together instead.
Idrownkittens,
We do this every day with criminals, separating kids from parents, Michelle is highlighting the cost the illegal immigrant piece of this costs, arguably an avoidable expense.
We struggle to view these families as criminals and as such want to treat them differently.
I’m really torn on this, I agree we can’t encourage illegal immigration, and not doing anything does encourage it. At the same time I think this wasn’t and isnt the only approach that could have been taken, and it definitely doesn’t “feel” right. These individuals are knowingly breaking the law and should be punished in an accountable way, but it should remain consistent with our humanitarian values. Even within our criminal system we categorize degrees of “bad”.
Yes it costs money to act humanely. It’s unfortunate, but it’s better than being a monster. Justify it any way you want, but it is plain monstrous to intentionally take children away from their parents for what is at best a misdemeanor. Every president and every congress prior to this one seemed to understand that simple reality.
Michele, if you want to focus on taking care of US citizens over these immigrants on the southern border, then get our government out of Central and South America.
Wake up!
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-how-us-foreign-policy-in-central-america-created-the-child-border-crisis/
Can we add IRS to the list of organizations were protesting and getting rid of? Pretty sure that Democrats and Republicans would both unite if we can combine the activities yo abolish ice and irs.
WWJD?
This focus on illegal aliens is noise by the Democrats because they have nothing else to run on against a President who has been very successful. This ‘so-called’ outrage is misplaced and dubious, and has been created to make and keep people angry for the November elections. This is a disingenuous attempt to misdirect and confuse the uninformed voter.
Where is the outrage for American homelessness, American veterans living on the fringes, black-on-black homicides that plague the largest cities of our country (all run by Democrats), the overwhelming number of abortions (over 321,000 a year, a large number of blacks as victims), the exorbitant and rising costs of welfare, medical, enforcement, education, and housing to maintain the large numbers of illegals coming across our boarders? Where is the support for ‘Angle Moms’ plight and pain?
You all cry for the separation of families, but you don’t understand the dynamics or the reasoning behind it. You all cry for the separation of families, but you expressed no outrage when Obama did it, and did it more inhumanly. I am so tired of the pathetic lack of those who scream the loudest, but don’t even know, or are aware, or just lack the ability to search and read the facts. Watching CNN, MSNBC, or Late-Night TV isn’t where you will find the truth.
@BobB
I knew that was coming. You liberals are all alike and very easy to read. Practicing up on your ‘Rules For Radicals’ I see. When a liberal can’t debate and get their way they always result to the labels: bigot, racist, islamophobic, homophobic, and more.
Oh and by the way genius, Trunp already signed an Executive Order keeping them together.
Kind of amusing how Donald Trump took an issue which could have been deftly handled with a little bit of tact and diplomacy and, in his characteristic style of dealing with problems, set the issue aflame with his ham-handed, tone-deaf, inflammatory rhetoric. This is a guy who, when he sees a fire, reaches not for a fire extinguisher but for a can of gasoline.
Smart. And with easily predictable results.
Once upon a family from Guatemala traveled to the American Consulate, applied for immigration papers to the United States, paid a small fee, went home, studied English & American History.
A few years later they boarded an airplane, arrived in Los Angeles, together as a family, became American citizens and lived happily ever after.
Th end
Michele,
Thank you for your post. I cannot believe the ignorance here and how people do not understand the impact illegal aliens have, especially in this state. My family are immigrants, came here the legal way, and are disgusted with the left wing lunacy. Many of our immigrant friends/families are looking to flee this state because they have worked hard to make their way and are angry about supporting all those who have not come here legally. This is not about separating children from families.
Bob, take a look at what’s happening in Europe, specifically Germany. They are letting everyone in and it’s destroying the country.
Illegals are supporting us?? Laughable….
We don’t need to change the laws, we need to follow them.
I agree with Michele. In fact, the complete lack of respect for the rule of law in the US is shameful. Do you know how many US citizens are killed every year by people speeding? Over 3000 US citizens EVERY SINGLE year! These are innocent men, women and children, mostly US citizens, that are being killed on our roads by people breaking the law. And what do we do to these people, we slap them with a small fine and let them go about their business?
Do you know how much it costs our society to care for all the people killed or injured by speeders not to mention the cost to chase and ticket speeders? It probably amounts to well over $2 billion annually. Something needs to be done. We clearly need to make the penalty for speeding higher. If you are caught speeding, you need to be locked up on the spot. That’s the only way we are going to stop speeders, who are probably all liberals who think speeding should not be a criminal offense.
It’s quite clear the Trump Administration neither had, nor has, any intention of reuniting migrant children who were taken from parents seeking asylum. In President Trump’s America, for an immigration MISDEMEANOR, like jaywalking, DHS willfully and without thought of consequence, takes children from their parent(s), incarcerates and prosecutes the parents in FEDERAL (not Immigration) courts, changes their children’s status to “unaccompanied”, and turns the children over to HHS for “refugee resettlement”. HHS then ships babies, toddlers, young children and teenagers, under cover of night, to unknown locations across the country, all without complete and appropriate documentation linking each and every child with their parent. It’s a given that some?, many? parents will never see their children again. In President Trump’s America, “We cannot allow these people to invade our Country”, so we punish the men and women seeking asylum by taking their children.
At this point in time we don’t know how many of the more than 11,500+ minors who have so far been designated by the government as “unaccompanied” actually came to the US without a parent. Credibility is not this Administration’s strong suit. I believe this crisis, just like the death toll in Puerto Rico, has been severely under-reported by Trump Administration officials. *Breaking news*, as of today, HHS will no longer disclose how many children . . . babies, toddlers, young children and teenagers . . . they have detained, transported, and incarcerated. In President Trump’s America, child trafficking is government sanctioned.
The internment camps, non- and for-profit facilities, and so-called “tender-age” shelters in which the children are being detained have, for the most part, been closed to inspection – even from the Red Cross. While the government has provided a video of teenage boys (an attempt I believe to conflate their incarceration with fear-mongering about an “invasion” and capture of MS13 gang members), there continues to be little known about the incarceration situation for babies, very young children, and girls. The only thing we *do* know is the emotional toll on children who have been forcibly separated from their parent(s) and incarcerated in facilities with personnel who are not allowed to comfort them is terrible and permanent. We *don’t* know what the physical toll is on these incarcerated children, how they’re being treated and cared for, because, for the most part, their living facilities are black sites. In President Trump’s America, thousands of children have been disappeared.
It’s not an accident that President Trump has chosen the most vulnerable for prosecution and punishment as he splits with democratic leaders around the world, withdraws the US from the UN Human Rights Council, and moves even closer to leaders like Kim, Xi and Putin whose human rights violations are infamous.
Boy oh boy, can’t we be against illegal immigration AND against tearing small children from their parents? Or is that not allowed anymore, and we are required to support arresting children on the spot or else we are actively supporting the destruction of this country by scary aliens?
I’m sick of the extremism. Let’s be reasonable, and moral.
Lock them up.
Thanks PP. This is the problem I’ve been having recently with the political client. It should be unarguably true that we have a right to require amnesty seekers to go through a process and not just help themselves. But people use that observation to state that we should then punish or torture those who violate the process. One does not follow from the other. We do not execute speeders. And we don’t arrest them and their children for weeks or months.
We have to do something to inform people who—for good or bad reasons—have gotten used to running across the border. In the past, the border patrol has always wanted to dissuade those people, mostly because they can die of thirst and are often victims of human trafficking by coyotes. But we didn’t do enough to shut down the flow.
But the solution to shutting down the flow isn’t to arrest them and throw them in tent cities. It isn’t also to release them into the US with a court date. We could have simply paid Mexico to keep them for a while in hotels until they are processed or deported from Mexico too. Many people don’t realize that we have always done something like that, and that we pay Mexico to let FBI and the DEA to operate there. We could have done the same for immigration.
We didn’t. We instead wanted to torture children emotionally for sport.
Trump is enforcing the law. Don’t like the law, petition your congressman and ask him/her to change it.
They won’t do it because 1. some donors benefit from this. It is big business to house illegal immigrants, look at the numbers and 2. democrats (and some republicans) want to use this as political leverage.
And did you notice that when the Democrats were imploring Trump to create and sign an executive order recinding the policy that right after Trump did so, not ONE prominent democrat praised his action? They (and Trump) know that the order will be rejected by a judge, just like when Obama tried this, because it goes against THE LAW.
So to sum up, Trump is enforcing a law that has been on the books for close to 2 decades, but only NOW do the democrats (and republicans) make a big fuss. Bill Clinton, George Bush, Obama started and maintained this law and only now speak out??
Congress can do something, they choose to do nothing.
I hate hypocrisy.
“It should be unarguably true that we have a right to require amnesty seekers to go through a process and not just help themselves.”
It is true and there is a process: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-united-states
“But people use that observation to state that we should then punish or torture those who violate the process.”
You original observation is demonstrably false as my link demonstrates, but lets address you premise that there is an effort to “punish and torture” those who violate the process. Yes, people are punished by breaking the law, but where is someone getting “tortured”? Please post a credible link.
And lets be very clear about family separation. 1. nobody gets to bring their children to jail 2. when the Obama administration changed the policy through executive order, the numbers of kids crossing the border with “parents” substantially increased. The problem with this was that ICE could not confirm that a substantial number of those families could be confirmed as being related.
So what do you do, keep them together anyway?
“We do not execute speeders. And we don’t arrest them and their children for weeks or months.”
Who’s executing illegal immigrants? Hyperbole much? Why not just post the pros/cons of each and lets decided which is more harmful?
“We have to do something to inform people who—for good or bad reasons—have gotten used to running across the border.”
Why? You seem to indicate that you are for open borders in everything you’ve written up to this point. Otherwise, are illegal immigrants so stupid that they don’t know they are doing something illegal?
“In the past, the border patrol has always wanted to dissuade those people, mostly because they can die of thirst and are often victims of human trafficking by coyotes. But we didn’t do enough to shut down the flow.”
It wasn’t just Border Control, the vast majority of the US citizenry have been wanting strict border control for years now and what have our politicians and big business done about it? NOTHING! You all wonder how you got Trump? THIS is how you got him!
“But the solution to shutting down the flow isn’t to arrest them and throw them in tent cities. It isn’t also to release them into the US with a court date. We could have simply paid Mexico to keep them for a while in hotels until they are processed or deported from Mexico too.”
So the solution is, instead of subsidizing them within our borders, we should subsidize them within THEIR borders?
I got a better idea, how about we build a great big, beautiful wall. Then we can let them follow LEGAL process to be citizens and save our taxpayers the expense of funding welfare for an international underclass, hmmm?
LOL…I just had to laugh at that one…
“We instead wanted to torture children emotionally for sport.”
You sure do consider everything a “sport”. Politics is a sport, now the US “torture” children as a sport. Evidence of this claim, please?
Always fun (because its a sport, of course).
Dan
Rest assured, everyone, that if there is an intelligent, wise, and mature way of dealing with this problem, then Donald Trump will find a way of doing just the opposite.
Doug,
Way to go off topic.
Care to tell us why you think any of his specific policy moves have been bad for America?
Details please.
Ironically, Donald Trump is unifying the country – but not in the way that he and his supporters had thought.
Kathleen,
Your links are a perfect example of purposeful immigration. Early US immigration was welcomed due to the need to have a population that could settle and build a “new” country.
Recent immigration from Asia is warranted due to high tech and STEM-related growth.
In each of these cases, progress can be tracked in relation to the need for labor. Outcomes are concrete.
When you compare what Asian immigrants contribute and take out of the system, there is a vast difference with immigrants from Latin America who take out substantially more. This is indisputable and is THE main issue with those of us favoring a more systematic approach to regulating who comes.
Keep arguing for open borders. An argument, by the way, that I hear no reason for advocating other than saying it is the “humane” thing to do.
It’s a losing argument as is clearly displayed in recent polls.
Sorry…the humane thing to do is take care of the legal citizenry first, build the wall, THEN start talking about changing the immigration law.
Hansen Curious (and everyone else for that matter) –
Would you also ask your neighbors if they are checking the status of the immigrants they hire to mow their lawns and clean their houses? Do you check if you hire these workers?
I check for the workers I hire – everyone should do the same.
I don’t know the numbers, but I would guess we would all be surprised at the large number of people hired who do not have the legal right to work here….or maybe not for those who choose to hire illegals to get cheap labor.
It’s not just big companies that don’t follow the law.
Hansen Curious,
You’re conflating two different scenarios.
I agree with you. Corporations (or really any business) that knowingly hire illegal immigrants should be heavily penalized and shut down until they can comply with THE LAW., and that is exactly what ICE is doing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/20/ice-arrests-nearly-150-meat-plant-workers-in-latest-immigration-raid-in-ohio/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.930fe407a7c0
The above is the most recent.
My continuing question on this issue is what would any of us do were we not already safe in the US? How far would you go to protect your family? I, personally, would break any law to keep mine safe—to give them a life of opportunity. We need to address how to help rather than punish. You don’t drown in the Mediterranean or risk being shot or risk having your children taken from you because you just don’t want to live in Central America or Syria. People are fleeing oppression. This isn’t crossing borders to have a picnic.
“The rally, organized and co-sponsored by a variety of local organizations, is intended to show support for the reunification of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the zero-tolerance policy of the Trump administration.”
Sounds more like a “tolerate lawlessness/open borders” rally instead to help with midterm elections voter turnout. Look at some of the organizations co-sponsoring it – “Organizing for Action East Bay Central Chapter” and “Tri-Valley Progressives for Our Revolution”.
Democrats/liberals/progressives have revealed themselves on this issue. Some are already calling for ICE to be abolished. So what governmental organization, if any, enforces our immigration laws afterward? Let the Democrats run on this issue – prioritizing illegals over the citizens and see how that plays out.
If we executed some of these “children” or “kids” publically (remember they are criminals), maybe their parents would think twice about breaking our laws and stealing our tax money. If the executions were televised and posted on the internet, word would get out pretty fast.
@resident,
Jesus would support executing children. It says in the book of Romans that you are supposed to just do whatever the government tells you to do.
@JW,
Where do you find the “truth”? Alex Jones?
Try to stick to the subject.
@JW,
Thank you for labeling me a liberal and a genius. By the way, I agree with conservative groups like Club for Growth that increased levels of legal immigration are good for our country and others. And looking at what I said, it was you who resorted to labels. I can’t see where I used any label on you.
As for Trump’s executive order, it should never have been needed in the first place. The policy was as heartless as it was unnecessary.
@no clue,
You’re right, you have no clue. Those illegal immigrants who are working in fields, at restaurants, and construction crews are supporting you, not the other way around. We need unlimited work visas. Change the laws.
@Really,
Those are refugees, not people on work visas. Read what I wrote. We need to change the laws, starting with the artificial limit on H-1b visas and work out from there.
Change the laws. Reunite the families with their children.
Off with their heads! Infants first! What fun!
Rider,
Your sarcastic example works against you. You’re advocating for enforcement of existing laws – ie not letting certain speeders off because they had a good reason for speeding.
Grumpy,
I agree with you. We can be in support of both. These are not dependent.
No, please stick to the topic.
A new visualization for your debates; 200 years of Immigration to the US (National Geographic): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture-exploration/2018/07/graphic-united-states-immigration-origins-rings-tree-culture/
This one is a video; pretty dramatic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lqQZb5kvE
I’d like to see more of this: http://eastbaytimes.ca.newsmemory.com/?token=RTGyAZN%2f%2bu5ZgnL8Hg0O8D%2bAMBW5M9Qh&product=eEditionCCT
It’s one person’s 20 point plan. Otherwise we are just taking sides and offering no solutions to the problem/policies.
@ DKHSK – OK, so Trump is just following the law of the land. Will he then start enforcing the law and punish those employers who hire illegal immigrants? Those employers are breaking the law and contributing to the problems we face by providing an incentive (jobs) luring migrant workers from Central and South America.
Should we separate their children from them as well? Maybe this will provide a deterrent from them using cheap labor.
Once the jobs dry up, the flow of illegal immigrants will significantly reduce. Are you prepared to pay higher prices for your food, houses, and other goods/services dependent on cheap labor?
@”Hiring Illegals”,
I don’t check.