SAN DIEGO San Diego County will provide attorneys to immigrants facing deportation proceedings under a pilot program approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
The 3-2 vote orders work to begin on a $5 million, one-year pilot program administered through the county’s public defender’s office. It would provide lawyers for free to those detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center, the local federal immigration detention facility.
County staff have 90 days to report back on a plan to fund and operate the program permanently in partnership with immigrant defense and non-profit groups.
Supervisor Jim Desmond voted against the measure, noting the cost.
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Activists representing a diverse mix of causes marched Saturday afternoon in a May Day protest throughout downtown San Diego in one of many actions across the county.
May Day, celebrated on May 1, is typically a day of protest aimed at giving visibility to the exploitation of workers and is also known as International Workers’ Day. Large protests happened Saturday across the world, including in France where more than 100,000 people marched and fought with police, said Reuters.
Elsewhere in the county, The Gente Unida Coalition organized a car caravan from Balboa Park to the San Ysidro Port of Entry to protest immigration policies, and the San Diego Tenants Union staged a car caravan to protest property owners they characterized as slumlords. Other events included a caravan to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, to protest immigration detention, and a May Day caravan from Barrio Logan to Escondido advocating for the “health and dignity of all workers.”
CALEXICO â The American Civil Liberties Union has targeted the Imperial Regional Detention Center as one of 39 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities across the United States it wants to see closed.
In a letter Wednesday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis, ACLU National Political Director Ronald Newman noted ICE is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain thousands of empty beds at ICE facilities. He argued that money would be better spent on alternatives to detention and other priorities.
âAs a matter of good governance, and particularly in light of the historically low number of people in ICE detention, it is time for ICE to dramatically downscale its network of more than 200 facilities,â Newman wrote.
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Citing $1 million a day of wasted federal dollars, the American Civil Liberties Union called on President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday to close 39 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities across the U.S., including the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral.
The federal government has been paying for the empty bed spaces at these facilities, almost all run by privately-owned companies, which the ACLU called “wasting” taxpayer money.
The ACLU established a criteria for the 39 facilities it is calling on the federal government to close. In its statement, issued Wednesday, the ACLU said that Otero County Processing Center (OCPC) was included because of its “extensive record of civil rights violations and inhumane treatment.”
ACLU calls on Biden administration to shut down 39 ICE facilities, including Otay Mesa Detention Center
The ACLU says there have been documented patterns of abuse, mistreatment and misconduct at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Author: City News Service, Amanda Shotsky (Reporter) Published: 5:23 PM PDT April 28, 2021 Updated: 11:05 PM PDT April 28, 2021
SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. The American Civil Liberties Union called Wednesday on the Biden administration to shut down 39 ICE detention facilities across the country, including the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the ACLU called for the closure of the facilities it alleges were opened without adequate justification, opened in remote locations with compromised access to legal counsel and external medical care, or have documented patterns of inhumane treatment.