My neighbors stood up to ICE. What they did next shows why California politics makes no sense

San Francisco Chronicle​

2 days ago

When ICE agents in full tactical gear descended on a beloved restaurant in my San Diego neighborhood last Friday evening and seized one of the workers, my neighbors did exactly what I would have expected: They raised holy hell.
A huge crowd gathered, booing. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents retreated as neighborhood residents screamed 'Shame!' in unison. Videos of the scene quickly went viral.
This triumphant moment of resistance is now being hailed by lawyers and activists across the country as a blueprint for how to push back against these brazen encroachments into communities.
Meanwhile, just days later and a few blocks away, an even larger crowd gathered in the neighborhood to target another potential enemy intrusion. Rather than winning social justice kudos, however, this protest demonstrated the often-infuriating incoherence of California progressive politics.
The invader in question?
Two proposed housing projects: One is a handful of large single-family homes abutting one of the canyons that snake through the neighborhood; the other is an eight-story, 180-unit apartment building located across the street from a charter school.
What unfolded at this second protest was a perfect distillation of how wealthy, largely white neighborhood groups across California that profess to value inclusion too often use their sway to ensure that their neighborhoods remain unattainable to anyone who doesn't already live there.
Organizers ginned up support for the event using language laden with progressive phrases — encouraging participants to 'take up space' and 'show up for each other.'
Never mind that restoring local control over housing decisions — and with it, the ability to keep out newcomers — is an actual page in the conservative Project 2025 playbook, the same one that lays out an aggressive plan to remove immigrants.
When I dropped by the gathering, most residents cited typical complaints like traffic as their rationale for opposing the new developments. Others suggested that the location of the apartment complex was disturbing: People living there would be able to see children on the school playground.
Are people who live in apartment buildings inherently dangerous? Are they perverts who prey on children?
I asked Jennifer James, one of the organizers.
'Yeah, I think that one's a little far-fetched,' she said. James was more worried about traffic.
She's correct that the intersection where the complex would be located is already overrun during school drop-off and pick-up times. But wouldn't adding housing across the street mean people living there would have an opportunity to walk their kids to school, instead of driving?
'I guess I just don't get the argument,' James said. 'Because you're making an assumption that families would move in there, that they have small children. Who knows who's going to move in there?'
Anyone who's covered the housing crisis knows how residents at community meetings like these repeat the same misguided criticisms, sometimes almost word for word, as people in faraway communities opposing different projects.
One opponent of the San Diego apartment project, a member of the neighborhood planning commission, repeated the line cited by virtually all opponents of new housing — that neighbors would support the project if it was 'actually affordable.'
'I don't know what kind of people they're planning to bring in here, but this is just a money grab,' Richard Santini told the crowd.
Compare that with a recent story about opposition to a large new apartment complex in Manhattan.
'If this project were about building 100% affordable housing on the Chelsea campuses, we would all stand down,' one opponent said.
Yet history shows that housing opposition too often doesn't stand down when buildings are 100% affordable. They simply find new excuses to protest, such as the fight against 2550 Irving St. in San Francisco's Sunset neighborhood over shadows and alleged environmental toxins.
Many people in the San Diego crowd lamented recent state laws that have limited local residents' ability to block new housing. Lawmakers in Sacramento are on the verge of even bigger reform that would exempt most infill projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, the state's landmark environmental law that is often weaponized to stop new housing.
Assembly Member Chris Ward, who represents the San Diego neighborhood and has written several pro-housing bills, said he is sensitive to community concerns over individual projects and thinks there's value in residents airing them.
But 'leaving ourselves vulnerable to years of ongoing debate over singular projects can result in projects failing,' he said. 'And then you get nothing.'
Some people in the San Diego meeting were genuinely trying to reconcile their opposition to the projects in light of the ICE raid.
Karen Lafferty, a 54-year-old resident who said she was part of 'that last generation that could afford to buy a house and leapfrog up,' spoke up to encourage more outreach to Latino neighbors.
'Are they excited about there being more housing? Do they have perspectives that we haven't even considered because we're just looking at things from our point of view?' she wondered.
While Lafferty said she thought the rendering of the apartment building was 'god awful,' she acknowledged there was 'cognitive dissonance' in the room when it came to the reaction to the ICE raid and the opposition to new housing.
'I think it's easy to talk about social justice and diversity when it is an abstract, or when you can just walk around with a sign,' she said.
She was not the only one to note the lack of Latinos or young people in the audience. Nonetheless, most of these well-educated, well-meaning residents seemed fundamentally incapable of connecting the dots: They might have 'immigrants welcome here' signs dotting each lawn, but they are simultaneously fighting for policies ensuring that very few are actually welcome to live here.
I asked Lafferty whether she thought a kitchen worker who was detained during the ICE raid could afford to live in the neighborhood without new housing being built.
'Hell no,' she said.