Immigrant rights supporters gathered at Chicano Park and marched together to downtown San Diego on Monday, July 2, to protest ICE and immigration policies. Photo by Mario A. Cortez
By Marielena Castellanos
Hundreds gathered in Chicano Park this week for a rally and march through downtown San Diego to call for an end to family separations, the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to cancel the implementation of Operation Streamline.
The federal program being expanded along California’s border, Operation Streamline, which creates fast tracked mass prosecutions of people caught crossing the United States-Mexico border without documentation, is expected to begin this month in California.
A group of local activists once again called out for a clean Dream Act in a press conference on Monday, March 5, date by which the Trump administration suggested congress provide a solution regarding the fate of immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
From a podium, DACA recipients who make up the activist group San Diego Border Dreamers spoke on the west lawn of San Diego City College about the importance of the program and to urge lawmakers to pass a Dream Act without any concessions attached as soon as possible.
The event was a response to a deadline which was created by the Trump Administration on Sept. 5, 2017, when the president ended DACA and gave congress six months to reach an agreement over this immigration-related subject.