By Miriam Raftery
Photo courtesy of Sky 10 via ABC 10 News, an ECM news partner
March 28, 2025 (El Cajon) – Federal immigration authorities raided the San Diego Powder and Protective Coatings company on Magnolia Ave. in El Cajon yesterday afternoon. A search warrant accuses the company of hiring undocumented workers, as well as fraud and misuse of visas, ECM news partner 10 News reports.
By Miriam Raftery
March 3, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Threats issued by President Donald Trump targeting colleges, universities and student protesters are illegal and unconstitutional, according to legal and civil liberties experts.
Today, Trump posted on his social media account, “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or depending on on the crime, arrested.NO MASKS!”
The post comes on the heels of two executive orders issued by Trump which seek to pressure higher education officials to target immigrant students and staff for exercising First Amendment freedom of spech rights, including pro-Palestinian protesterrs or students critical of the U.S. government, culture, institutions or founding principals. Today's Truth Social post goes further, demanding that even students who are U.S. citizens be expelled and imprisoned for participating in campus protests if deemed "illegal.".
Federal judge from Maryland temporarily blocks the Trump administration from using ICE to arrest migrants in certain sensitive locations
By G. A. McNeeley
March 3, 2025 (Washington D.C.) - A federal judge on Monday, February 24, in Maryland, temporarily blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from conducting raids, and targeting and arresting migrants inside of a select few churches, temples, and other places of worship run by organizations that filed the lawsuit. View the ruling.
The lawsuit challenged an order by the Trump administration to allow ICE enforcement in sensitive locations, including places of worship, a change to a longstanding federal policy which prohibited enforcement actions in places of worship as well as schools and hospitals. The religious groups challenged this change as unconstitutional. The ruling came down on the side of the religious groups who sued the Trump administration in response to the policy change, after asking federal courts to intervene.
By Chris Jennewein, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: a child at Jewish Family Service of San Diego’s refugee shelter. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)
February 17, 2025 (San Diego) - Faced with a halt in federal funding and and the closing of the border to refugees, Jewish Family Service of San Diego is shutting down its shelter and shifting focus to legal support of asylum seekers.
Issue prompts drive to recall Councilman Phil Ortiz
By Alex Schorr and Miriam Raftery
Photo, left: Resolution opponents hold up sign denouncing hate and likening ICE roundups to “Gestapo” tactics
February 14, 2025 (El Cajon) – El Cajon’s City Council on Tuesday passed a controversial resolution allowing the city’s police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and hand over any undocumented who has been convicted of a violent crime, as well as immigrants merely accused of a crime. The measure was introduced by Mayor Bill Wells, with backing of Councilmember Phil Ortiz and amendments by Councilman Steve Goble.
The meeting was contentious, sparked by numerous emotional outbursts, threats to recall Councilmember Ortiz for supporting the resolution, and playing of phone threats made against Councilmembers who voted against the measure previously.
Just two weeks ago, the Council rejected a similar proposal by a 3-2 vote, but reversed that action on Wednesday after Councilmember Goble switched sides.
By Miriam Raftery
Photo via Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego on Facebook
February 11, 2025 (San Diego, CA) – Multiple faith leaders and a crowd of around 1,500 people overflowed the St. Joseph Cathedral and then held a procession to the federal building downtown and prayers in support of undocumented immigrants, chanting “our neighbors, our coworkers, our brothers and sisters,” the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego posted on Facebook.
Cardinal Robert McElroy, whom the Pope has appointed Archbishop of Washington D.C., spoke at the event, as did Episcopalian Bishop Susan Brown Snook and other faith leaders.
“Just as Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to flee oppression to another land when they were on this Earth," Cardinal McElroy said, “So too we must stand with those who are immigrants here in our midst now and make sure that their safety is secure, and that humanity is respected.”
By Miriam Raftery
View video of full Council hearing (Immigration agenda item begins at 37 minutes.)
January 29, 2025 – Emotions ran high during yesterday’s El Cajon City Council meeting, where a packed chamber heard testimony from 88 members of the public over a proposed over immigration enforcement resolution, followed by a heated Council debate that divided the all-Republican members during a hearing that ran over five hours.
The measure introduced by Mayor Wells, a revision from a version heard two weeks ago, aims to authorize El Cajon police to comply with federal immigration enforcement officials within the limits of state law and the Constitution for the purpose of removing violent criminals.
But the action comes on the same day that the White House Press Secretary indicated that the Trump administration views all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” even though crossing the border itself is a misdemeanor on the first offense, not a felony or violent crime.
Sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have begun nationwide, picking up many immigrants with no criminal record—including an El Cajon man with no criminal record who was awaiting his asylum hearing when arrested this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at his home in front of his five-year-old daughter, Councilman Michelle Metschel revealed in an impassioned speech.
By Miriam Raftery
View video of full Council hearing (Immigration agenda item begins at 37 minutes.)
January 29, 2025 – Emotions ran high during yesterday’s El Cajon City Council meeting, where a packed chamber heard testimony from 88 members of the public over a proposed over immigration enforcement resolution, followed by a heated Council debate that divided the all-Republican members during a hearing that ran over five hours.
The measure introduced by Mayor Wells, a revision from a version heard two weeks ago, aims to authorize El Cajon police to comply with federal immigration enforcement officials within the limits of state law and the Constitution for the purpose of removing violent criminals.
But the action comes on the same day that the White House Press Secretary indicated that the Trump administration views all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” even though crossing the border itself is a misdemeanor on the first offense, not a felony or violent crime.
Sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have begun nationwide, picking up many immigrants with no criminal record—including an El Cajon man with no criminal record who was awaiting his asylum hearing when arrested this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at his home in front of his five-year-old daughter, Councilman Michelle Metschel revealed in an impassioned speech.
By Miriam Raftery
Photo: screenshot of aerial video by ECM news partner 10 News shows military troops with razor wire at a staging site in the South Bay, as troops prepare to deploy to fortify U.S. - Mexico Border and aid in Trump crackdown on border crossings.
January 26, 2025 (San Diego) – A tough crackdown on immigrants has begun, after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the Southern Border. On Thursday, 1,500 active-duty military troops have been deployed to patrol the borders in San Diego and San Antonio, Texas, with the first soldiers arriving Thursday. 10 News shot footage showing troops, including hundreds from Camp Pendleton, arriving at staging area in Imperial Beach along with concertina razor wire, tents, and military trucks.
Yet according to Associated Press, data doesn’t back up Trump’s contention of an “invasion” of immigrants. In fact, AP reports, “arrests for illegal border crossings plummeted more than 80% to about 47,000 in December from an all-time high of 250,000 the same period a year earlier. Arrests fell by about half when Mexican authorities increased enforcement within their own borders a year ago and by about half again when former President Joe Biden introduced severe asylum restrictions in June.”
Immigration sweeps have also begun across the nation, striking fear into immigrant communities as Border Patrol agents in some areas reportedly demanded documentation of everyone stopped, including citizens. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told Fox News that ICE arrested over 308 “serious criminals” in the first 24 hours after Trump took office.
One day later, Newsweek reports, Trump’s Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman lifted a long-standing ban, now allowing ICE to target immigrants in sensitive locations including schools, churches and hospitals.
In addition to fortifying the border to block crossings by migrants, including many seeking asylum and fleeing violence or persecution, Trump's administration has disabled the app which formerly allowed asylum-seekers to apply online without crossing the border, effectively blocking all asylum efforts, NPR reports.
Impact has left refugee aid groups locally and nationally in shock
By Miriam Raftery
Photo via Pentagon: Troops evacuating Afghans after fall of Kabul
January 26, 2025 (San Diego) – Following an executive order issued by Donald Trump to suspend refugee resettlement, the Trump administration has cancelled all flights for over 10,000 refugees already approved to resettle in the United States. According to Associated Press. This includes over 1,660 Afghans who helped America’s military as well as relatives of active-duty U.S. military personnel, Reuters reports.
The impacts hit hard in San Diego County, which in recent years has resettled more refugees from around the world than any other county in the U.S. including refugees from Africa, Asia, war-torn Middle-Eastern countries such as Iraq and Syria, Ukraine and other European nations, Haitian refugees fleeing natural disasters, and many more.
“This executive order is a step backwards for America,” the International Rescue Committee states on its website, urging the Trump administration to reverse the order.
The Trump administration has taken down entirely the State Department's page on the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.