Posted on 02/25/2006 3:30:05 PM PST by LNewman
In a Republican county known as a cradle of border enforcement zeal, Costa Mesa has long been celebrated — and maligned — as a city that offered immigrants a generous embrace.
SNIP
Last year, the city shut down the dayworker center after 17 years. It abolished its human relations committee after 18 years. And as the city now moves to train local police in immigration enforcement — the nation's first municipality to do so — it has become a flashpoint in a national debate.
Outsiders have rushed in, hailing or condemning the city's efforts. There are demonstrations at City Hall, shouting matches, floods of e-mails, threats of a boycott. But nowhere is the turmoil felt more keenly than in the city's heavily Latino Westside.
"Everybody's afraid," said Sherry Chavez, 23, a day-care worker and mother of two, as she pushed her baby stroller toward her Shalimar Drive apartment. "They're scared to go out of their houses. I have family that don't have papers, and they're scared of taking their children to school."
SNIP
What Costa Mesa has are high-profile charities, such as Share Our Selves. All week long, immigrants stream in for medical care, clothes and bags of groceries — workers who clean the city's big houses, keep its yards hedged and oil the gears of its humming economy. They know the 36-year-old charity is a friendly place that won't ask about their citizenship.
SNIP
At City Hall, immigrant-rights advocates are converging from across the Southland to denounce the immigration plan. And border-crackdown activists are coming to hail it, hoping it portends broader change.
"This will be the testing ground for the country," Gilchrist said before a recent council meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
COSTA MESA, CA -- The Collectivo Tonantzin, an organization dedicated toward defending the rights of undocumented workers and all oppressed peoples, will be holding a weekly protest starting this Friday night on the public sidewalk surrounding Skosh Monahan's Steakhouse & Irish Pub, a restaurant owned by Gary Monahan, a Costa Mesa City Councilman.
The weekly protests are being held to express discontent over Monahan's decision to vote with Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilman Eric Bever to close the day laborer center and allow the Costa Mesa Police Department to enter into an agreement with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enforce federal immigration law.
The last two times this protest has taken place, a number of Minuteman supporters have shown up to support Mayor Mansoor. However, their presence has scared customers away from Monahan's restaurant, causing a drastic slowdown in business. And even though the protests are nonviolent, Monahan hires expensive security guards to protect his property.
Despite public statements to the contrary, these protests have hit Monahan where it hurts him the hardest: right in his wallet. Everytime we've demonstrated outside his restaurant, he loses money and business. And Friday nights are his busiest, according to various sources.
SO IF YOU ARE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THIS STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE, PLEASE JOIN US EVERY WEEK STARTING THIS FRIDAY NIGHT! BRING CARDBOARD SIGNS, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, AND WEAR T-SHIRTS AND HATS REPRESENTING THE GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS YOU BELONG TOO!
WHEN: Friday, February 24, 2006
5 pm - 9 pm
WHERE: SKOSH MONAHAN'S STEAKHOUSE & IRISH PUB
2000 Newport Blvd, Costa Mesa
(On the Northeast corner of E. 20th Street)
For more information, please contact
matlazinka@hotmail.com, atlachinolli_front@yahoo.com,
or duaneroberts92804@yahoo.com
Collectivo Tonantzin demands:
1. Re-opening of the day labor center
2. Withdrawal the vote for the ICE proposal
3. The resignation of council members who voted in favor of the proposal
4. Drop all remaining charges against Coyotl Tezcatlipoca
ping
Send the ICE over to talk to this scum. Deport any that are deportable.
Hmm, 'after 18 years' -- maybe they have seen what it is REALLY like when you invite illegals into your community. There is nothing quite like a Reality Check.
Hell, Santa Ana, the county seat, is an illegal alien's wet dream but there exist islands of sanity and sovereignty.
You say this like it's a bad thing Sherry.
L
I am from the East Coast and last year I visited Costa Mesa and happened to go for a walk and ended up in Santa Ana. I felt exactly like I was in Mexico. There were Mexican flags flying everywhere. I felt like I wasn't even in the United States anymore.
When I was in California, I walked everywhere and I realized that Southern California is almost all full of Mexicans. It was such a culture shock for me because I had never been to California before and I had a totally different picture of it, I thought it was like everything they say in the movies. Boy, was I in for a surprise!
Prior to the barricade, the neighbors were fearful of their neighors (and countrymen) because they would make them "pay to pass" on the sidewalk. The warm & fuzzy charity types don't live here ... neither do the "outside influences" as stated by Councilwoman Foley.
I count among the "outside influences" 123 Loans of Aliso Viejo which, within the past year, forked over $45,000 to pay off Costa Mesa's SOS (Share Our Selves) soup kitchen's mortgage on the Westside of Costa Mesa!
For those out of the area, Aliso Viejo is way-the-hell-and-gone from Costa Mesa in the scheme of things.
Anyone living in southern California has had that reality check. Even here in Orange County, we're up to our ass in illegal aliens. To see this mess up close and personal, all you have to do is visit your local hospital ER.
We want them gone. All of them.
One way or the other.
Says it all.
ping
Make Employers Check Work Eligibility
You can now pressure your local employers to check the eligibility of prospective employees.
Social Security numbers can now be verified by using the following toll free number: 1-800-772-6270. Up to 5 names can be verified over the phone and up to 50 by faxing an inquiry to your local Social Security office. It is all explained in a publication put out by Social Security- " Employer Reporting Instructions & Information. "
Oh, dear--"Brokebutt Border"--it's kinda funny.
That's true here with legals.
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