Category: Election

A was is raging within America — between the people and immigrants versus ICE and its enablers. Here is a collection of recent articles about ICE:

ICE Budget Makes It Larger than Most of World’s Militaries — and Largest Law Enforcement Agency in U.S.

The House and Senate have now passed a bill making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the United States’ largest interior law enforcement agency, with funding for Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda higher than most of the world’s militaries, including Israel’s.Trump’s bill means a massive increase in ICE funding as part of an immigration enforcement agenda worth $150 billion over four years.

Will ICE Be Building Labor Camps in America?

One aspect of the Republicans’ big, ugly bill that didn’t get enough attention until Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elevated it over the last few days is the massive amounts of money it directs to the apprehension and detention of immigrants. On Thursday, right after the bill passed the House, AOC posted on Bluesky:

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion – making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

Vice President JD Vance was met with a chorus of vigorous boos and jeers as his motorcade departed a University Heights sushi restaurant over the Fourth of July weekend.

A crowd of protesters gathered outside Soichi Sushi on Adams Avenue Sunday, July 6 to show contempt for the vice president and criticize recent policy decisions.

“I hope your Michelin-star sushi was worth it with 82 people dead in Texas. Thanks for cutting the National Weather Service,” one protester shouted.

Videos posted online show Vance’s motorcade being escorted out of the neighborhood by police as demonstrators lined the sidewalk, some flipping the bird.

By Lucas Robinson / The San Diego Union-Tribune UPDATED: July 1, 2025 at 10:32 PM PDT

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre led Chula Vista Mayor John McCann in early results in the race for county supervisor representing South County’s District 1 — an election that will decide the direction of a Board of Supervisors that’s been left in limbo for months.

Partial returns late Tuesday after the polls closed showed Aguirre, the Democrat, leading by more than 6 percentage points over McCann, her Republican opponent, with about 70,000 ballots counted.

In a statement, Aguirre said the results showed South County backed her platform of fixing the area’s sewage crisis and opposing cuts to the social safety net being pursued by the Trump administration.

“Today belongs to the working-class people of District 1,” Aguirre said. “County government has been deadlocked for months while families pay the price — from rents being too damn high to beaches being closed and contaminated. That inaction ends today.”

Despite trailing in early returns, McCann said Tuesday night he was in a “competitive position.”

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 27, 2025

Earlier this month, San Diego Catholic Bishop-Designate Michael Pham and Auxiliary Bishops Ramón Bejarano and Felipe Pulido reflected on the past and accurately predicted the future.

“. . . it has been experienced that the presence of faith leaders makes a difference in how the migrants are treated,” they wrote in a June 11 letter to fellow priests, deacons and parish leaders.

A little more than a week later, Pham led a delegation of faith leaders to accompany immigrants attending court hearings at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

The proceedings and scene in and around the courthouse on June 20 were calm compared with chaos and controversy in San Diego and elsewhere at other times when agents snatched immigrants on the way to and from appointed court hearings.

Too bad that sense of dignity, humility and, frankly, adult behavior brought by Pham and his colleagues couldn’t be cast upon other aspects of the immigration enforcement crisis, created by recent militaristic raids and aggressive government response to protests that sometimes have devolved into violence.

by Marti Emerald / Times of San Diego / June 26, 2025

As a former investigative journalist and now a Sweetwater school board trustee, I’ve spent decades calling out public officials who mislead voters. And let me tell you — Republican John McCann’s campaign for supervisor is engaged in some of the most desperate and dishonest tactics I’ve seen in a long time.

Here’s the truth: McCann has one substantive policy, and that’s bringing DOGE-style cuts to programs South County families rely on, like Medicaid, CalFresh, and CalWorks. That’s the same old Republican playbook that’s left South County behind for decades.

I know Paloma Aguirre. She’s honest. She’s tireless. And she shows up. While most politicians are about photo ops, Aguirre is about getting stuff done — like securing $600 million from Congress to solve the Tijuana River sewage crisis, lowering electricity bills for ratepayers, and cutting homelessness in half here in Imperial Beach where I live.

That’s why teachers, firefighters, trade unions, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the Democratic Party, and the Union-Tribune are endorsing Aguirre in the July 1 special election for the open seat on the Board of Supervisors.

By Jacob Aere and Carolyne Corelis / KPBS / June 18, 2025

Carl Luna has been observing political engagement in the San Diego region since the 1990s.

He said the crowds that showed up for the local portion of what organizers called Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests were “unprecedented.”

“You had numerous events across the county, from Escondido down to the waterfront in San Diego. And in the city of San Diego you had the largest protest crowd I think that we’ve ever seen,” said Luna, who is director of the University of San Diego’s Institute for Civil Civic Engagement.

Take Action San Diego was one of the groups that organized the protest. Larry Stowell is a volunteer with the group and was in charge of tracking the crowd’s size.

Their crowd estimate on the day of the march was more than 60,000. Stowell said it came from a method, which looks at the density of people in one section of a protest, and multiplies that over the whole crowd. It’s called the Jacobs Crowd Formula.

The newly updated estimate of roughly 69,000 protestors uses a method that’s a little more high-tech — combining aerial news footage with on-the-ground video from the group’s own stationary cell phone.

By Joe Heim / Washington Post / June 18, 2025

Remember the poop statue? The curly-swirly pile of doo that sat atop a replica of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) desk? The work of protest art placed on the National Mall last October in mock tribute to the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election?

Well, the artists responsible for the political poo plop appear to have struck again. This time with a work called “Dictator Approved,” an 8-foot-tall sculpture showing a gold-painted hand with a distinctive thumbs-up squashing the sea foam green crown of the Statue of Liberty. It sits at the same location on the Mall near Third Street NW as the poop statue did last fall.

The artwork’s creators intended “Dictator Approved” as a rejoinder to the June 14 military parade and authoritarianism, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service. The parade, the creators wrote in the application, “Will feature imagery similar to autocratic, oppressive regime, i.e. N. Korea, Russia, and China, marching through DC.” The purpose of the statue, they continued, is to call attention to “the praising these types of oppressive leaders have given Donald Trump.”

Plaques on the four sides of the artwork’s base include quotes from world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin (“President Trump is a very bright and talented man.”), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (“The most respected, the most feared person is Donald Trump.”), former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (“We do have a great deal of shared values. I admire President Trump.”) and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (“Your Excellency.” A “special” relationship. “The extraordinary courage of President Trump.”).

It is official, according to the San Diego Police Department and the Union-Tribune: 60,000 plus people demonstrated in downtown San Diego Saturday, June 14, for “No Kings Day!” Times of San Diego and KPBS also repeated this number. Organizers claimed 80,000. Also, police reported there were no arrests.

Meanwhile, literally millions of Americans took to the streets in opposition to Trump and his policies in at least 2,000 actions.

There were also 10 other “No Kings Day” protests across San Diego County, including events in Carlsbad, Del Mar, Chula Vista, Escondido, El Cajon, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, Civita Park, Ramona and San Marcos. Times of San Diego reported “about 1,000” in Mira Mesa and organizers estimated 3,000 in Escondido.

A massive wave of protests, dubbed “No Kings Day,” is scheduled for this Saturday, June 14, 2025, with events planned in San Diego County and across the nation.
About this event

We’re the group that organized the Hands Off April 5th event at the Civic Center in downtown San Diego — join us again

Check out https://takeactionsandiego.org/hub/ for updates and last minute information.

In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings. NO KINGS is a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to increasing authoritarian excesses. We’ve watched as they’ve cracked down on free speech, detained people for their political views, threatened to deport American citizens, and defied the courts. They’ve done this all while continuing to serve and enrich their allies.

On Saturday, June 14, we’re gathering and building a movement to support and strengthen our community

The flag belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it.

On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.

A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.

San Diego County rallies

The National Guard is typically brought into American cities during emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances or to provide support during public health crises — when local authorities require additional resources or manpower. There was no indication that was needed or wanted in Los Angeles this weekend, where local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control.

Guard members also almost always arrive at the request of state leaders, but in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment of troops “purposefully inflammatory” and likely to escalate tensions. It had been more than 60 years since a president sent in the National Guard on his own volition.

Which made President Trump’s order on Saturday to do so both ahistoric and based on false pretenses and is already creating the very chaos it was purportedly designed to prevent.

Mr. Trump invoked a rarely used provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows for the federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” No such rebellion is underway. As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.