COACHELLA: Another Alta California city votes
to become an "Immigrant Sanctuary"

by
Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California - March 24, 2006 - (ACN) Yet another city council in Alta California has voted to become an "Immigrant Sanctuary". Coachella, a city 125 miles east of Los Angeles and with 30,957 residents, passed a resolution that states "the city will provide a safe, healthy and dignified place to live for its immigrant communities, regardless of immigration status."

Coachella Mayor Jesse Villarreal said that the undocumented immigrants living in the city can rest easy knowing that the local police won’t act as border patrol and turn them in. The resolution will also protect US citizens of Mexican descent from being harassed by the police who could mistake them of being undocumented. . The city populations is 97% Latino.

The "Immigrant Sanctuary Movement" is rapidly expanding in Alta California with the cities of Maywood, Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Pomona and San Francisco having already passed similar measures. The city council resolutions are attempts to prevent local police from arresting the undocumented if the anti-immigrant legislation presently before the US Senate passes.

The Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, before the U.S. Senate, authorizes local authorities to enforce federal immigration law, proposes building a $2 million fence along the border and criminalizes those who help the undocumented. It would also authorize police agencies to arrest undocumented immigrants.

The Coachella resolution passed by its city council is credited to the efforts of the Comite Latino that attended the Mexicano/Latino Leadership Immigration Summit in Riverside. At that summit meeting the Vice Mayor of the City of Maywood, Felipe Aguirre, gave a presentation on how his city became an "Immigrant Sanctuary". His presentation was very inspirational and it gave birth to the immigrant sanctuary movement. The federal government has threaten to stop the funding for certain city programs but Vice Mayor Aguirre simply told the feds, "Keep your money!"

The "Immigrant Sanctuary Movement" within the various cities will most probably join up with efforts by the Catholic Church. Los Angeles Cardinal Rogelio Mahony has gone on record saying that if the "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes, he will instructs his priests to disobey certain measures of the proposed law that makes it a criminal act to help undocumented people in need. We may be witnessing the beginning of massive civil disobedience by huge numbers of people, organizations and institutions.

The City of Coachella has a long history revolving around agriculture. Cesar Chavez once marched through the city in his struggle for farm worker rights and today the area's agricultural industry still relies mostly on Mexican and Mexican-American workers.