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Roughly 40 people rallied at the 1 Post St. headquarters of Diane Feinstein in response to the senator\u2019s proposed legislation that activists say will violate San Francisco\u2019s \u201cSanctuary City\u201d and \u201cDue Process for All\u201d policies, as well as destroying trust between the immigrant community and local police.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all felt really surreal,\u201d said Bismark Torrez, who was arrested along with seven other demonstrators after they chained themselves two-by-two on the lobby floor of at 1 Post St. \u201cThe whole time I was really pissed, just because of how Feinstein and [Barbara] Boxer are trying criminalize us in the community for one person\u2019s actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill, which Feinstein called a \u201cwork-in-progress\u201d during a July 21 Senate Committee hearing, was crafted in reaction to the highly publicized death of Kathryn Steinle, the 32-year-old woman who was killed on July 1 in San Francisco by undocumented Mexican national and convicted felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. Feinstein met Steinle\u2019s father Jim, who was present at the Senate hearing.<\/p>\n
In the wake of Steinle\u2019s death, Feinstein has also called for San Francisco to join the Department of Homeland Security’s Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which would enable the DHS to work with state and local authorities to take custody of \u201cconvicted criminals and others who pose a danger to public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feinstein has been criticized by activists and the immigrant community, who claim that she along with right-wing politicians are using this moment of tragedy to scapegoat the immigrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Democrats have definitely shown that they don\u2019t have the spine,\u201d said Luis Ojeda, California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA) statewide coordinator. \u201cThey\u2019ve been willing to just cave to Republicans and anti-immigrant individuals like Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kitzia Esteva-Martinez, an immigrant rights organizer with Causa Justa, who also attended the rally, argued that politicians and conservative media are using Stienle\u2019s death to criminalize the immigrant community, which allows them to ignore the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.<\/p>\n
CIYJA was among the various other organizations that crashed the lobby of Feinstein\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had tried to meet with a staff member last week and they just dismissed my questions and were not really listening to my concerns,\u201d said Sandy Valenciano, an organizer with CIYJA who was one of the eight arrested on two misdemeanor counts of trespassing. \u201cThey didn’t even allow me to go up to their office, they came to meet with me in the lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wei Lee, a 26-year-old undocumented immigrant from Brazil who is ethnic Chinese, has been living in San Francisco for 10 years and echoed Esteva-Martinez and Bismark\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople pin all of this anti-immigrant sentiment on one incident. But there are facts that say immigrants commit less crimes compared to people born here,\u201d Lee said. \u201cSo this is another thing to push the anti-immigrant agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roughly 40 people rallied at the 1 Post St. headquarters of Diane Feinstein in response to the senator\u2019s proposed legislation that activists say will violate San Francisco\u2019s \u201cSanctuary City\u201d and \u201cDue Process for All\u201d policies, as well as destroying trust between the immigrant community and local police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":27560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5949,3935,5951,5957,5637,5959,5955,5961],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-27551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-california-immigrant-youth-justice-alliance","tag-causa-justa-en","tag-ciyja","tag-department-of-homeland-security-en","tag-diane-feinstein","tag-kathryn-steinle-en","tag-pep","tag-priority-enforcement-program","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n