The University of California’s largest employee union released a statement urging the Board of Regents to divest from businesses who work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or support implementing President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” and family separation policies.
AFSCME Local 3299 made a request in late July for the UC to divest from contractors profiting from the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy of prosecuting all individuals who illegally enter the United States. When adults are detained for prosecution, their children are separately placed under the care of the Department for Health and Human Services. In the past, families were detained together, immediately sent back, or paroled into the country.
Maricruz Manzanarez, AFSCME Local 3299’s immigration committee chair, said that she thinks the UC must stop outsourcing jobs to companies who support deportation policy.
“UC outsources jobs to ICE collaborators for the same reason that ICE does,” Manzanarez said. “They want to pay their workers less. And most of those workers – like the families being ripped apart and detained by ICE – are immigrants and people of color.”
Over 50,000 employees across the 10 UC campuses went on strike for three days in May partly due to growing concerns about outsourcing at UC, which they feel leads to increased income and racial inequality.
In a statement, AFSCME Local 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger called for more severe condemnation by UC President Janet Napolitano of the Trump administration’s forceful immigration policies.
Lybarger also said she thinks Napolitano and the regents should use the UC’s purchasing power for social justice.
“This is a fundamental question of leadership and morality, and she can’t have it both ways,” she said.
UC gets how much money in federal funds? How much in federal financial aid do their students get? How many of the protesters are, themselves, illegal aliens or family members of illegal aliens? How,ugh of the incessant protesting is actually self-serving?
Too bad the US taxpayers can’t cut off those funds from entities that defy federal law, promote lawlessness and open borders, as well as try to politicize institutions and businesses that are best left apolitical. Those agencies that expend money and effort trying to protect illegal aliens from the consequences of their illicit acts, in fact attempting to reward illegal aliens for their lawlessness, deceitfully calling themselves “advocacy agencies,” have been trying to politicize such entities for years. They have increased their lawless efforts now that it is becoming more and more clear that Americans want our immigration laws vigorously enforced and our borders fortified and sealed.
Of course, California leads the pack of purveyors of lawlessness, having more illegal aliens unlawfully residing there than in any other state. The wayward, radical Left wing state’s support of illegality has it swimming in red ink, yet they continue to foster ruinous socialist agendas. They will try to drag the rest of the nation down with them. When CA finally goes belly up, do it’s alt-Left leaders think the rest of the country will be willing to pay to bail them out? I sincerely doubt it. California greatly needs a harsh smack-down, the faster the better. Napolitano would do well to ignore the radical far Left fanatics, and prudently manage the business of the university system in an apolitical manner. Let lawlessness, national sovereignty, and prudence prevail!
So well said… leftists will never admit they’re taking the wrong path until it’s too late… and even then will somehow blame Trump for their plight.. All you have to do is drive through the middle of the SFV in the evening and watch the homeless scattered everywhere along side taco stands every 50 ft… we’re going down the wrong path and we won’t even admit it publicly, thinking that by criticizing illegals that we’ll be called out as racists.. If this is what so-called progressiveness looks like.. then I want no part of it… Idaho, here I come.. (and this is coming from an immigrant from a 3rd world shithole)
Good riddance. Get ye hence to the heartland of the White Supremacists movement.
Virgil21 –
And the Federal Government collects how much money from the taxpayers, businesses, and economy of California? Your comment “When CA finally goes belly up” is risible. California has a growing budget surplus and is now by itself the 5th largest economy on the planet. (Sources: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article210903954.html and http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-economy-gdp-20180504-story.html).
The issue raised by Maricruz Manzanarez and AFSCME Local 3299 is not illegal immigration or the fate of illegal immigrants generally. Ms. Manzanarez and the union are protesting the family separation policy specifically. Under this policy, the Trump Administration not only took young children including infants away from their parents, they deliberately did not keep records in order to make family reunification very difficult or even impossible.
Some of these families followed the law. They presented themselves at legal border crossings and requested asylum per our laws. Yet border guards arrested them and took the children away in violation of both American law and international treaties that we have signed. Our government deliberately harmed young children as a political tactic. Perhaps you tried to change the subject to illegal immigration because this family separation policy is a stain on everything we claim to hold dear.
These people are fleeing chaos that our government has caused. The term “banana republic” arose from our interventions in the 1930’s in Central America on behalf of the United Fruit Company. Have you heard about the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration? In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the US Government funded, equipped, and trained right-wing death squads in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Have you ever considered the relationship between American demand for drugs and the hideous drug violence south of our border? We recklessly destabilised these countries with little care for the consequences of our actions. We are directly responsible for the violence these people are fleeing. There is blood on OUR hands. And by the way, you and I live in a country founded by force upon the displacement of native peoples and the importation of slaves. Perhaps your discussion of lawlessness should begin with these well-documented and proven FACTS; perhaps YOU are the one who “greatly needs a harsh smack-down, the faster the better.”
I was taught in grade school that the United States was founded upon the ideal of equal opportunity for individuals, that family and place of birth mattered far less than personal commitment and hard work. I recall reading something about, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
You might want to learn more about this idea before your next rant.
I am a UC graduate from the late Paleolithic era, I agree with the union that UC should pay proper wages, and never exploit its workers. Remember, there is no such thing as an illegal alien, only a good citizen-in-training!
Now, my dear students, how much more tuition are you all willing to pay to support this laudable goal of more money for our workers?
If each UC student contributed just $1,000 more in tuition, that would cover your social responsibility debt. Heck, you can all afford it–just the price of a burger every day (and much lower in cholesterol)!
My generation fought to liberate People’s Park! We choked on tear gas and picked birdshot out of our tushies to make a better world. The least you young idealists can do is cough up a few more bucks to support our shared liberal ideals!
Remember, “two four six eight, now is time to smash the state!” Carry on the noble tradition.
You mean the generation that protested over $600 a year tuition at Cal then when got into power raised tuition over 600 percent to pay for failed programs?
Fifty years of compound interest is a real butt whipper, and it accounts for a lot of the increase.
But there is more. Remember this, California has millions immigrants (all good souls, to be sure), and other folks who sadly, make minimum wage. This hard reality means that they can never pay enough in taxes to cover, K-12, college, UC, prisons, MediCal etc. etc. that they will consume over their lifetimes.
Hence, you have to cough up the tuition–your “fair share”, as Bernie would say.
Also, your liberal Democratic buddies in Washington increased the availability of student loans, a truly progressive idea..
Your Democratic friends in Sacramento then offloaded the cost of a UC education on YOU by reducing taxpayer support for college.
Did you notice the box of Preparation H in your welcome bag when you arrived in the dorms?
Here is a blast from the past: In the 1950’s and 1960’s California was rich enough guarantee FREE tuition to EVERY high school graduate. Jerry Brown’s dad was governor, and he did it. Jerry Brown can’t do it because California is a radically poorer state today.
If you want to get your money’s worth at UC, start thinking for yourselves. Ask some very politically incorrect questions. Here are a couple to get you going–Why, after 50 years of uncontrolled immigration and free trade why we’re not all rich. After all, we are told we need immigrants and we need free trade. A little cognitive dissonance never hurt anyone.
Ask your professors why my granddad and everyone in his generation went to UC tuition free, and I got to go bankrupt to do it.
The are not Democrats or republicans. They are all power hungry plutocrats.