Letters: Immigrants are doing what anyone would do for their families
President Donald Trump and his adviser Stephen Miller characterize immigrants as murderers, rapists and thieves. They are correct — about the first immigrants to these shores, who indeed murdered the native residents, raped enslaved women and stole land that had been occupied by others for centuries.
Now descendants of some of these original pillagers have the audacity to terrorize the latest generation of immigrants who, along with prior generations from Europe, have built this country's infrastructure with their sweat and enriched our culture with their traditions, cuisine, art and music. Not to mention the billions of dollars they contribute to our economy.
To Trump, Miller and the rest who demonize people who risk everything to illegally cross our borders, I would ask: If your tidy neighborhood was plunged into violence, if you could no longer feed your hungry children because of society's breakdown, and just over the border, Canadians were still living in peace and comfort, what would you do?
I'll bet we'd find you sneaking over to Canada by any means possible.
Karin Burger, Petaluma
Fight for democracy
Let's unite against the threat of authoritarianism and defend our democracy.
We must learn from history and recognize the alarming parallels between President Donald Trump's actions and those of dictators like Hitler and Stalin.
The Republican-led Congress must be held accountable for its inaction. The Supreme Court's decisions are undermining our democratic institutions, and it's crucial we speak out against this erosion of our rights.
As Americans, we must stand together and demand our leaders protect our freedom, human rights and the rule of law. We must mobilize and march peacefully to show our determination to preserve our democracy.
Scott Paul, Royal Oak, Mich.
Military call-ups inconsistent
The Los Angeles Police Department has about 8,800 police officers. The department has dealt with major protests, such as this week's, successfully over the years.
Each Los Angeles police officer should be insulted because President Donald Trump apparently thinks they cannot do their jobs and ordered the California National Guard and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles.
This is pure theater at an estimated cost of $134 million to American taxpayers.
And why was the military not called upon when the U.S. Capitol was under siege on Jan. 6, 2021? We know the answer.
Phillip Points, San Francisco
Penalize union leader
Regarding ''I do not feel safe': City College of S.F. instructor shaken by union leader's verbal attack' (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, June 5): The public rant by Service Employees International Union Local 1021 President Maria Salazar at a City College of San Francisco board meeting is disturbing, unprofessional, unacceptable and in my view, antisemitic.
What's more appalling is that Board of Trustees President Anita Martinez allowed Salazar to continue her attack against a faculty member even after Trustee Aliyah Chisti cautioned Martinez that speakers needed to be 'mindful' of what they say.
Salazar said, 'I can say whatever I want' because she knows she can act with impunity. This is the crux of the problem at City College.
The board is intimidated because members rely on union endorsements to get reelected. The trustees' meek response in admitting they erred shows how cowed they are by the union.
It should be noted that during Salazar's inflammatory outburst, at least one trustee was laughing.
If trustees believe Salazar's action violated board policy, which requires speakers to be respectful and civil, what is the consequence? For anyone else, such overt discrimination and bias would be a career ender.
The targeted faculty member, the college community and the public need to see Salazar face real consequences.
Ghin Yu, San Francisco
All students matter
Regarding 'Not Lowell Caliber' (Letters to the Editor, June 10): The letter writer answered the wrong question.
What matters is not whether lottery students admitted to Lowell High School could do as well as their better-prepared peers. What matters is whether the lottery kids did better than they would have at a different school.
We need well-educated citizens to save this country from tyranny. To write off some teenagers as 'not belonging' is shortsighted and cruel.
Cynthia Cudaback, Oakland
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CNN
12 minutes ago
- CNN
DHS defends social media post calling for public to help ICE locate ‘all foreign invaders'
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, 'Help your country… and yourself.' Written underneath the poster is the sentence, 'REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,' and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line. The post — which DHS and the White House also posted to Instagram — prompted a flood of criticism, with some social media users comparing the post to authoritarian propaganda. On Thursday, at least two far-right X accounts claimed to have a hand in creating or disseminating the image before it was shared by DHS. A source within DHS told CNN the agency did not create the graphic. The DHS's Uncle Sam post has more than 81,000 likes and comes as immigration protests roil Los Angeles and other cities around the country, amid a deportation crackdown by President Donald Trump and DHS. And it marks an escalation in the agency's communication strategy, after weeks of using social media to attack or mock perceived enemies, promote ICE arrests and ridicule media reports it disagrees with. In another recent post, DHS responded to a comment appearing to question a popular X user's immigration status with a meme of a character with magnifying glasses. In May, DHS also said it was reviewing a reality TV show pitch where immigrants would compete for US citizenship, which an agency spokesperson said at the time was in the early stages of vetting and had not yet been approved or denied. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem later told a Senate committee that she had 'no knowledge' of a reality show plan. The Uncle Sam graphic is reminiscent of media used previously by other governments to provoke fear, especially of immigrants, said Elisabeth Fondren, a journalism professor at St. John's University who has studied government propaganda and communications during war times. 'This poster fits within a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and, yes, state propaganda,' Fondren said. 'It evokes these remnants of Cold War, fake propaganda by the Russians, or, you know, authoritarian fear mongering messages … but what I think is so interesting is that this is a call to action in an environment where we're not in a war.' In defending the Uncle Sam post, the agency told CNN that it aligns with terminology used by other officials in the executive branch. DHS pointed CNN to a number of posts from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller using terms like 'invade' or 'invaders' when referring to undocumented immigrants. Asked for comment on this story, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told CNN that criticisms of the post 'are fundamentally unserious and reflect the completely juvenile state of mainstream journalism. These reporters should get off social media and start focusing on the very real victims of illegal alien crime.' 'Every American citizen should support federal law enforcement in their just effort to deport criminal illegal alien invaders from our country,' McLaughlin said in a statement. 'During the Biden Administration our borders were opened to an invasion by the very worst from around the world. Now President Trump and Secretary Noem are reversing the destruction of our nation.' Trump's overall handling of immigration tends to earn higher approval ratings than his performance on other issues, but there is also evidence that Americans are less supportive of the way he's carrying out deportations. A CNN poll in April showed 52% of Americans said Trump has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants. DHS's provocative social media strategy has led to a rapidly growing audience. Engagement with the DHS account has grown significantly since Trump took office; it's second only to the White House in online engagement among US government accounts, the agency said. DHS communication officials have in recent days frequently posted videos from the LA protests that it says indicate the demonstrations are not peaceful and highlight law enforcement efforts to quell disorder. The demonstrations have impacted a relatively small area of the city, mostly in a section of downtown LA, where largely peaceful daytime protests have been giving way to volatile, occasionally violent scenes each night that have resulted in hundreds of arrests. The curfew zone is about one square mile, in a city that covers more than 450 square miles. The agency's posts come as random and anonymous users on platforms like X and TikTok have also shared old and sometimes completely fake content about the unrest, projecting an image of chaos, often in an apparent attempt to juice their own engagement. The agency has also posted names, photos and alleged charges of people it has arrested as justification for ICE's operations in Los Angeles. And on Wednesday, DHS shared a post on X that said: 'Liberals don't know things.' Many of the posts to the DHS account are memes or content created by outside sources. The image of the Uncle Sam poster was posted on X last Friday, around the time tensions in Los Angeles escalated, by podcaster C. Jay Engel, who describes himself as 'Christian nationalist adjacent' and has claimed that 'nations cannot survive replacement migration.' After DHS shared the Uncle Sam image, Engel posted: 'This image came from my account. NEVER STOP POSTING.' 'The question is, 'Is there room for like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee?'' the podcaster, Engel, said in an October podcast, in response to a listener's question. 'Yes, there's an imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight with us.' Although Engel circulated the image of the Uncle Sam poster, another X user claimed to have created the image. That pseudonymous X account, which has the words 'Wake Up White Man' in its biography, is full of nativist rhetoric and reposted another X user who declared: 'Whites deserve our own nations, like everyone else is allowed to have.' The pseudonymous account appears to have been the first to post the image. CNN has requested comment from Engel and attempted to reach the X user who claimed to have created the image. CNN's Samantha Delouya contributed reporting.
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jacinda Ardern Documentary ‘Prime Minister' Shows Us How the New Zealand Leader Is the Anti-Trump
On June 10 at a packed auditorium in Marina Del Rey, California, the former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (2017-2023) comforted a room full of anxious Americans by showing them what empathetic leadership looks like. She was answering questions from Rachel Bloom at Live Talks Los Angeles about her new memoir 'A Different Kind of Power.' She is also the subject of the Sundance World Cinema audience-award-winning documentary 'Prime Minister' (CNN/HBO), which Magnolia opens in theaters June 13. 'Over the course of my time in office,' Ardern told the rapt audience, 'we had a domestic terror attack that took the lives of 51 members of our Muslim community. We had a pandemic, we had a volcanic eruption, we had a series of natural disasters. I saw and experienced a lot of difficult moments, and in all of them, I can give you examples of incredible kindness and humanity and generosity. I still fundamentally believe [that is] our natural inclination. We currently have a disconnect where that is not what is on display by political leadership. Because instead, politics has decided that blame and the weaponization of fear is a better response to the difficult period we're in, than the much more challenging response in politics, which is to actually solve the problems that people are facing.' More from IndieWire 'In Your Dreams' Teaser: The Search for the Sandman Powers Netflix's New Animated Sibling Fantasy Gold List TV Honors 'Squid Game,' 'Deli Boys,' 'The Studio,' and More Ardern's story is remarkable. She reluctantly ran for Prime Minister in 2017 after the Labour candidate dipped in the polls, and her party eventually, after intense negotiations with smaller parties, squeaked to a win. Three days before the results were announced, Ardern found out that she was pregnant. She took office in October 2017 at age 37, the youngest in New Zealand's history, the youngest country leader at that time in the world, and the third woman to serve as New Zealand Prime Minister. In due time, she gave birth to a daughter, only the second elected world leader to do so (after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto). From the start, Ardern made it clear that her partner, Clark Gayford, would be the primary caregiver for their child. A former TV anchorman, Gayford was not only used to being in the spotlight but knew how to wield a video camera. He filmed their life behind the scenes from 2017 through her decision to step down five years later, after her popularity waned. 'The only thing that I ever found overrode self-doubt was my grinding sense of responsibility,' said Ardern. 'I knew that I had to answer the call. And so from then on, I just had to get on with it. So that was what did it.' That intimate footage was key to assembling 'Prime Minister,' which could have become a local production. But when producer Gigi Pritzker came on board, she brought in ace editor Lindsay Utz (Oscar-winner 'American Factory,' 'Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry,' 'Martha') to make a film with global appeal that was bigger than a New Zealand political story. Making her feature debut, Utz co-directed with New Zealand's Michelle Walsh. The film was seven years in the making. 'Everybody that was working on it in New Zealand recognized that it was a powerful moment in time and it should be documented,' Utz told me. 'But there was never any plan until Jacinda resigned and came to the States.' When the New Zealand team came to America to finance the movie, American financier Pritzker showed Utz some video. 'I only had to look at about two minutes to know that I wanted to take on the project,' said Utz. 'At the time, I looked at the breastfeeding footage. I had just had my second baby, and I was struggling with similar issues, common issues that women struggle with. And so this film became two countries and two teams coming together.' The Rt. Honorable Dame Ardern now serves as a fellow at Harvard University. When Utz got started, Ardern had moved to the East Coast, so the director was able to meet and bond with her in Boston. She and Walsh interviewed Ardern together and also got access to New Zealand's oral history project and 40 hours of audio diaries that had been recorded when Ardern was in office. 'That's a gift right from the documentary heavens,' said Utz, whose editorial background was an asset as the film melded together archive and fresh interviews. The first rough cut assemblage ran 17 hours. The editing team took a year to wrestle the movie down to one hour and 42 minutes. The directors wanted Ardern's voice 'to be at the center of the film,' said Utz, 'almost as if you're sitting next to her and she's telling you a story. The approach was using the audio diaries as a portal into the past and then doing these incredibly intimate interviews with her. And we were lucky, because she was writing her memoir at the time, so she was in this contemplative space. And you can see that in the interviews, they're pretty raw. She's pretty raw. She's still processing what she's just been through. We wanted it to feel like reflection, and intimate, but we were always aware that we wanted the past to be propulsive and move forward in a verité way. So we had to balance the past and the present.' Front and center was Ardern's model of a different kind of governing. 'She showed up unapologetically as herself,' said Utz. 'And that's what people take note of. They feel the authenticity, and they feel the conviction. And she demonstrates that you can be both empathetic and strong, that you can be kind and have resolve. It was important to us to show the portrait of the leader that we saw.' Remarkably, Ardern gave the filmmakers leeway. 'She did not have control,' said Utz. 'She was a good subject. You can imagine it's hard for Clark, because he shot a lot of this footage, to let go. We were given space to work and figure out how to craft this movie, and she didn't see it cut until after we submitted to Sundance.' The filmmakers screened 'Prime Minister' for Ardern in New York. 'Michelle and I were sitting in the room squeezing each other, sitting a few aisles behind her,' said Utz. 'She's watching it for the first time, and that's always a nerve-wracking experience. A lot of it is hard for her to watch, but because she is such a lover of history and documentation, she understood that even the stuff that she is embarrassed by is all part of the story. And she gave us great freedom to do what we thought was right.' As you watch the documentary, it's striking how different New Zealand is from the United States, where it's hard to imagine many of the accomplishments of Ardern's administration even being possible, from shutting down the entire country during COVID, saving 20,000 people's lives, to ordering her citizens to turn in their arms. After the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, the government implemented strict gun control reforms. Within weeks, Parliament passed a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons, nearly unanimously. The months-long government buyback program, by the end of 2019, collected over 56,000 banned firearms and almost 200,000 illegal gun parts. 'It's surreal to watch this,' said Utz, 'because it feels like another planet.' The parliamentary system in New Zealand also favors the election of women in Parliament. Still, Ardern is something of a unicorn in today's tumultuous right-leaning times. 'You see the political will behind the scenes,' said Utz. 'And you see the passion, and you feel her commitment to these issues. We didn't want to make a film that was dissecting all of her policies. We wanted this to be an intimate, personal journey of a woman on the world stage, facing all sorts of things that women face: the balance of work and motherhood, what it looks like to have a supportive partner. This was a family story, too. You were invested in them as a family, because they were a unit, that's how she functioned, that's how she did her job.' Another aspect of the Ardern story: New Zealand has always been a progressive country. But that did not protect her when the wolves began to circle. Her popularity soared and then fell after months of organized protests. 'Russian cells were pumping disinformation into New Zealand,' said Utz. 'The New Zealand public was interacting with that disinformation at a much higher rate than other countries at that time. There was the anti-vaccine sentiment, of course, that we saw in lots of places in the world, that became a powerful force. And Quanon and our American politics were being looked at and studied and admired.' When the economy tanked after COVID, Ardern was under tremendous pressure, and decided to resign before the end of her term. 'A lot of people have anger towards her, still to this day, about her policies,' said Utz, '[saying] they were too draconian, too strict, put too much emphasis on life and not enough on the economy, although [Ardern's government] did do a lot to support families and people during the pandemic. You could find people on both sides of that issue.' As the movie hits theaters, Utz is 'secretly thrilled that we got a film about a progressive politician into theaters nationwide,' she said. 'It feels like something unique right now. People are desperate for some light and some inspiration. And she's good at that.' Where Ardern goes, applause follows. 'We could not move anywhere in Park City without being stopped by somebody in the streets,' said Utz. 'Since then, it's been playing at festivals, and we're getting the same reaction everywhere. There's palpable emotion in the room. We opened Sundance Mexico City last week. It's hitting a nerve, it's touching something inside.' At her Live Talks Los Angeles event, Ardern held the audience in her hand. She knows where the laughs and groans are and that she represents the polar opposite of Donald Trump. She's everything that our current administration is not. And she offers hope for what an alternative could look like. She told a story about the early days of her experience in Parliament. After a particularly grueling round of debate one day, Ardern went to one of the tougher politicians and asked how she should toughen up. He said: 'Just a minute, don't toughen up. If you toughen up, you will lose your empathy, and that is what's going to make you good at your job.' That was the moment, Ardern said, 'that I decided that actually thin-skin sensitivity, it's all empathy. And he was right, if I lost it, I lost something else. So that was just going to have to be the price I was going to pay. Politics was going to feel hard, but maybe it was meant to feel hard.' From there, Ardern learned to ignore comments, to filter, to avoid reviews. 'I would decide when I engaged on social media and when I didn't,' said Ardern. 'And when I was Prime Minister, I knew the media, and it was a saving grace, because it meant I dealt with the issue of the day, not the commentary on the issue of the day, and it meant that I was always facing forward, rather than trying to correct something that had happened in the past.' She also took control of her schedule. 'I was in a role where it was assumed that you couldn't,' said Ardern. And she focused on finding quality time for her child. 'The thing I found the hardest was I might be physically there, but I wasn't always mentally there. And so if I'm going to be home for that time, I need to make bath time count. I thought about the memories I wanted to have of that time, and I didn't want her to see a stressed mom.' At the end of 'Prime Minister,' Ardern and Gaylord get married. 'It's always a good thing,' said Utz. 'Can you have a wedding? Use it.' 'Prime Minister' opens from Magnolia Pictures on Friday, June 13. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Los Angeles Times
18 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
The gift Trump never meant to give: the spotlight to Democratic adversary Gavin Newsom
SACRAMENTO — President Trump craves attention and will stoop to any depth to grab it — even pour gasoline on a kindling fire in Los Angeles. But this time he unwittingly provided priceless attention for an adversary. Because Trump needlessly deployed National Guard troops and — more ridiculous, a Marine battalion to L.A. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom was granted a prime-time speaking slot on national cable television to respond. 'We honor their service. We honor their bravery,' Newsom said of the troops. 'But we do not want our streets militarized by our own armed forces. Not in L.A. Not in California. Not anywhere … . 'California may be first — but it clearly won't end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. The moment we've feared has arrived.' I'm not sure the 'democracy is under assault' message has much traction, but keeping armed combat forces off our streets must be a salable pitch. Regardless, governors almost never get national TV time to deliver entire speeches, even as brief as Newsom's. You've practically got to be nominated for president. But the publicity-thirsty sitting president provided the cameras for California's governor. Newsom's strong address probably boosted his stock within the Democrat Party and revived dormant speculation about a 2028 presidential bid. No longer was the Democratic governor playing respectful nice guy and tempering criticism of the Republican president. Now he was standing up to the bully who loves to use California, Newsom and our progressive politics as a punching bag. Trump's red-state supporters love every swipe at this 'left coast' state. Newsom rose to the occasion, using his greatest asset: invaluable communication skills coupled with telegenic looks. He laid out his version of what happened to turn relatively peaceful protests against federal immigration raids into destructive street violence. And it's the correct version by objective accounts. On Saturday, Newsom said, federal immigration agents 'jumped out of an unmarked van' near a Home Depot parking lot and 'began grabbing people. A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb … . In response, everyday Angelenos' exercised their constitutional right to protest. Police were dispatched to keep the peace and mostly were successful, the governor continued. But then tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades were used — by federal agents, Newsom implied. Then Trump deployed 2,000 California National Guard troops 'illegally and for no reason,' the governor asserted. 'This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation … . Anxiety for families and friends ramped up. Protests started again … . Several dozen lawbreakers became violent and destructive.' Newsom warned: 'That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop.' And hundreds have been arrested. But he emphasized: 'This situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown. But that's not what Donald Trump wanted … . He chose theatrics over public safety.' In Trump's twisted view, if he hadn't sent in the National Guard, 'Los Angeles would be completely obliterated.' Never mind that the violence was confined to a few downtown blocks, a fraction of a city that spreads over 500 square miles. 'We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free and clean again,' the president promised. Veteran Republican strategist Mike Murphy had it right, telling CNN: 'He's lighting the fire as an arsonist, then claiming to be the fireman.' It reminded me of President Lyndon B. Johnson's manufactured Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 that Congress passed, enabling him to vastly escalate U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Johnson reported a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. destroyers that many experts later concluded never happened. But I think Trump mainly is obsessed with attracting attention. He knows he'll get it by being provocative. Never mind the accuracy of his words or the wisdom of his actions. Sending in the Marines certainly was an eye-opener. So is staging a military parade on his birthday — an abuse of troops for attention, personal glorification and exercise of his own power. He'll say anything provocative without thinking it through: Tariffs one day, suspended the next. He'll boast of sending San Joaquin Valley water to L.A. for fighting fires when it's physically impossible to deliver it. While Trump was playing politics with immigrants and L.A. turmoil, a poll finding was released that should have pleased him. Californians no longer support providing public healthcare for immigrants living here illegally, the independent Public Policy Institute of California reported. Adult state residents were opposed by 58% to 41% in a survey taken before the L.A. trouble erupted. By contrast, a PPIC poll in 2021 found that Californians favored providing state healthcare for undocumented immigrants by 66% to 31%. Polling director Mark Baldassare concluded the public opposition stems mostly from the view that California taxpayers can't afford the costly program — not that they agree with Trump's anti-immigrant demagoguery. In fact, Newson has proposed paring back the state's multibillion-dollar program of providing Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants because the state budget has been spewing red ink. Given all the rhetoric about the L.A. protests, the statement that particularly impressed me came from freshman Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), whose downtown district stretches from Koreatown to Chinatown. 'Rocks thrown at officers, CHP cars and Waymo vehicles set on fire, arson on the 101 freeway — have nothing to do with immigration, justice or the values of our communities,' he said in a statement Sunday. 'These are not protesters — they were agitators. Their actions are reckless, dangerous and playing into exactly what Trump wants.' Gonzalez is a liberal former chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party who stuck to his point: Hoodlums can't be tolerated. And, thanks to Trump, Newsom was able to make a similar point about the president on national TV: His dangerous, self-serving actions can't be tolerated either.
