By Steven Riznyk,  immigration attorney, San Diego

March 21, 2017 (San Diego) -- It is interesting to note that a lot of Green Card and visa holders are still not aware of Presidential Order 13768 as the travel ban took over the news. However, Steven Riznyk’s law firm, San Diego Biz Law, has been receiving calls from clients nationwide and worldwide who are affected by this section. They are afraid to travel, are denied entry at the border, and lose their airfares as well as vacation times. 

People don’t realize, states Steven Riznyk, how Presidential Order 13768 is affecting their family members and employees. Regrettably, and what is more surprising, states Mr Riznyk, is that a lot of visa and Green Card holders have no idea this Order is in effect, and are blindly traveling outside our borders, never to return. 

Green Card and Visa Holders are unaware that if they have a criminal record of any kind they require an approved waiver from the CIS (=immigration department) or Governor’s Pardon (for more serious offences); otherwise, they are leaving the United States, possibly never to return. Although people think that they only have a 5 or 10-year bar with certain offences, the reality is that they are not automatically allowed in after the time has elapsed; they often have to present a case. People without a valid waiver will find themselves unable to visit sick or dying relatives or otherwise travel outside the United States. 

By Miriam Raftery

March 20, 2017 (Sacramento) – Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), and Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) have announced legislation that would require the state’s pension funds to divest from companies involved in the construction of the president’s wall along the United States-Mexico border.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo:  Los Angeles smog in 1972, before the current standards; photo by Gene Daniels, public domain via Wikimedia.

March 18, 2017 (Washington D.C.) — California has threatened legal action after President Donald Trump ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon strict fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and rules that limit emission of greenhouse gasses.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Child in Africa, where famine threatens millions of children with starvation, the U.N. announced this week.  Trump’s order, blocked by a judge, barred refugees from entering the U.S, including drought-stricken nations

March 16, 2017 (San Diego) – A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked implementation of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, just hours before it was scheduled to take effect. In a scathing 43-page ruling, U.S.  District Judge Derrick K. Watson wrote that there is a strong likelihood that the case, filed by the State of Hawaii, would be successful in proving that the executive order violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating based on religion. Read the ruling.

East County News Service

View video: https://www.facebook.com/ienearth/videos/1657313897618763/

“Native Nations Rise” led by Standing Rock Sioux, indigenous people from across America will march to the White House in response to Trump’s pipeline aggressively calling for a new era of respect

March 10, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – Today, indigenous people from numerous tribes led by the Standing Rock Sioux marched on the White House in response to President Donald Trump authorizing the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone Pipeline that threaten waters on indigenous lands.

By Miriam Raftery

Image:  Interactive Map Shows if Your Drinking Water Is at Risk from Trump's Executive Order

 Source: Environmental Working Group, from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Geographic Information Systems Analysis of the Surface Drinking Water Provided by Intermittent, Ephemeral and Headwater Streams in the U.S.

March 5, 2017 (San Diego) — President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to rescind Clean Water Rule protections for small streams and replace it with a new rule allowing more pollution.  That action threatens drinking water supplies for millions of Americans – including 679,769 residents in San Diego County, according to data obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

By Veronica Carter/Eric Galatas, Public News Service

March 1. 2017 (Washington D.C.) – President Donald Trump's call to increase military spending by $54 billion likely means cuts will be made to some politically-sensitive programs, from education and the environment, to science and fighting poverty. Trump first announced his plans Monday to the National Governors Association and shared more details in a speech to Congress last night.

San Diego Republican Darrell Issa calls for independent investigation into Trump-Russia ties

By Miriam Raftery

February 25, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – In a statement reminiscent of   Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal,  President Donald Trump slammed media reporting on his administration’s ties to Russia adding that media outlets “shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name.”   Yet calls for an independent investigation into Trump’s Russian ties are now coming from some prominent Republicans, including San Diego Congressman Darrell Issa.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo:  Gavin Grimm, transgender student whose case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court

February 23, 2017 (San Diego) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered the Department of Education and the Justice Department to withdraw guidelines that required schools to protect transgender students under Title IX, the federal law which bans sex discrimination in all public schools.

By Miriam Raftery

February 19, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – President Donald Trump has raised disturbing comparisons to notorious dictators and to disgraced President Richard Nixon with his unjustified attacks on respected, established media outlets as “fake news” and his repeated denouncements of  “dishonest media.”  

Worse yet, Trump’s tweet this week calling media an “enemy of the American people” has drawn sharp criticisms from  a Fox News anchor, his own Secretary of Defense, Republican Senator John McCain, and Carl Bernstein, the reporter whose investigation exposed the Watergate scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation.

East County News Service

Rep. Vargas denounces exclusion as “unacceptable”, says Trump actions are creating “chaos around the nation”

February 16, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – Several Hispanic members of Congress including Congressman Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) were booted out of a bipartisan meeting with the acting director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by Speaker Paul Ryan’s staff, reportedly on orders from President Donald Trump.

By Miriam Raftery

February 15, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – CNN reports that President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder, has been withdrawn due to growing opposition in Congress as well as from organized labor.

Protesters storm town halls, march on Wall Street and call for national strike Feb. 17

By May Strong

February 11, 2017 (San Diego’s East County) - It’s been a rough week for some Republican Congressional members backing the Trump agenda, as well as for a cabinet appointee.  They’ve been dogged by vocal protests at airports, town hall meetings, schools and even their own homes. Meanwhile a national strike is being organized on February 17 for all who seek to resist Trump.

By Miriam Raftery

February 9, 2017 (Seattle) – In a unanimous verdict in State of Washington v. Trump, a three-judge panel on the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against President Donald Trump and refused to reinstate a travel ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim nations.  That means admission to the U.S. will resume for refugees  and for immigrants who are citizens of of Iran, Iraq, Libya Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as green card holders with permanent residency in the U.S.

In their decision, the judges wrote, “The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States. Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all. We disagree…”

By Miriam Raftery

February 7, 2017 (Washington D.C.) – For the first time in history, the Vice President had to cast the deciding vote on a cabinet nominee.  Betsy DeVos was confirmed 51-50 as Secretary of Education, with all Democrats voting no, along with two Republicans (Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska).