By Alexander J Schorr

May 19, 2025 (San Diego) -- East County Magazine editor Miriam Raftery interviewed Nora Milner, an immigration attorney based in San Diego. This interview originally aired April 4 on KNJS radio, with a Youtube video available. Milner, who works at the Milner & Markee (LLP) law firm, specializes in immigration law.

In the interview, she voiced alarm over blatant denials of due process for immigrants under the Trump administration, warned that even citizens are not safe, and offered tips for those concerned about being visited by ICE or detained for potential deportation.

Latino and labor groups submit records request on communications between city, ICE and federal officials

By Miriam Raftery

View video of the press conference

April 2, 2025 (El Cajon) – A coalition of advocacy groups and El Cajon residents held a press conference today outside El Cajon City Hall to denounce the March 27 immigration raid on a painting company in the unincorporated part of El Cajon.

El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell, in response to a request for comment from ECM, stated via email, “El Cajon staff (police, management, elected officials, etc.), had no involvement in the Federal law enforcement action that took place outside the city limits last week. I learned about the event when I saw a media alert. Further, the City's involvement would have been a violation of Prop 47 and we are committed to abiding the law.”

But speakers called for “accountability” from the Mayor and three councilmembers who recently voted on a resolution to allow the city’s police to cooperate with federal immigration officials regarding undocumented immigrants in the city accused or convicted of crimes.

Latinos en Acción and the National Day Labor Organizing Network also submitted a public records request to the city seeking all communications of city elected officials and employees with U.S. Customs and Immigration (ICE), the Dept. of Homeland Security, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, the San Diego County Sheriff, State Senator Brian Jones, and the anti-immigrant group America First Legal between Nov. 2024 and the present regarding enforcement of immigration law, the immigration enforcement resolution, and the immigration raid.

Issue prompts drive to recall Councilman Phil Ortiz

By Alex Schorr and Miriam Raftery

View video

Photo, left:  Resolution opponents hold up sign denouncing hate and likening ICE roundups to “Gestapo” tactics

February 14, 2025 (El Cajon) – El Cajon’s City Council on Tuesday passed a controversial resolution allowing the city’s police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and hand over any undocumented who has been convicted of a violent crime, as well as immigrants merely accused of a crime.  The measure was introduced by Mayor Bill Wells, with backing of Councilmember Phil Ortiz and amendments by Councilman Steve Goble.

The meeting was contentious, sparked by numerous emotional outbursts, threats to recall Councilmember Ortiz for supporting the resolution, and playing of phone threats made against Councilmembers who voted against the measure previously.

Just two weeks ago, the Council rejected a similar proposal by a 3-2 vote, but reversed that action on Wednesday after Councilmember Goble switched sides.

By Miriam Raftery

View video of full Council hearing (Immigration agenda item begins at 37 minutes.)

January 29, 2025 – Emotions ran high during yesterday’s El Cajon City Council meeting, where a packed chamber heard testimony from 88 members of the public over a proposed over immigration enforcement resolution, followed by a heated Council debate that divided the all-Republican members during a hearing that ran over five hours.

The measure introduced by Mayor Wells, a revision from a version heard two weeks ago, aims to authorize El Cajon police to comply with federal immigration enforcement officials within the limits of state law and the Constitution for the purpose of removing violent criminals.

But the action comes on the same day that the White House Press Secretary indicated that the Trump administration views all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” even though crossing the border itself is a misdemeanor on the first offense, not a felony or violent crime.

Sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have begun nationwide, picking up many immigrants with no criminal record—including an El Cajon man with no criminal record who was awaiting his asylum hearing when arrested  this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at his home in front of his five-year-old daughter, Councilman Michelle Metschel revealed in an impassioned speech.

By Sergio Olmos, CalMatters

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters

Photo:  Farmworkers work on a field outside of Bakersfield in Kern County on July 25 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

January 22, 2025 (Kern County, Calif.) - Acres of orange fields sat unpicked in Kern County this week as word of Border Patrol raids circulated through Messenger chats and images of federal agents detaining laborers spread on local Facebook groups. 

By Jessica Brodkin Webb

January 7, 2025 (El Cajon) --In 13 days, President-elect Donald Trump could potentially begin to make good on his campaign promise to pursue mass deportations of immigrants and refugees living in the United States.

“As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America," Trump said in a Sept, 2024 speech and although he has not released specific details of how he might direct such a plan at a federal level, community leaders stand divided on how best to respond at the local level.

Under current California law, state and municipal governments are barred from working in conjunction with federal law enforcement agencies to actively pursue deportation for anyone who has not committed a serious crime. That approach stands in direct opposition to Trump’s proposed plan to conduct mass immigrant deportations.

El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, in a letter to the Calif. Attorney General, says he plans to propose that his city fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities. San Diego’s Board of Supervisors majority, by contrast, has urged county authorities not to turn over any immigrants to federal authorities, while the County Sheriff has said she will take the middle ground and follow state law, cooperating only when immigrants have committed serious crimes.

Besides posing a challenge for local elected officials who must decide how they will answer to conflicting state and federal guidelines, an element of murkiness also exists for prominent community members and social service agency heads who spend many hours each week working directly with refugees.

Plan also makes it easier for DACA recipients and immigrant college graduates to obtain work visas

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Immigrant rights march, via Wikimedia

June 18,2024 (Washington D.C.) – President Joe Biden today announced executive actions to protect a half million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation, if they have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years. An estimated 50,000 children under 21 with a U.S. citizen parent will also be protected from deportation. 

Until now, undocumented spouses and children of citizens had to leave the U.S. to apply for permanent residency, a process that often separated families for years. A similar parole in place program is already used to protect undocumented families of military members.

The new, broader parole-in-place program will allow parents and children to stay in the U.S. for three years while they apply for permanent residency.  All applicants will be vetted by the Department of Homeland Security to assure the applicant does not pose a threat to public safety or national security.

Reuters reports that the majority of those set to benefit from the order are Mexicans, many of them in California.

In addition, Biden announced a program to make it easier for Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and undocumented college graduates to obtain work visas/green cards if they have been offered a job related to their degree.

by Adriana Gonzalez-Chavez • Cronkite News

A record 2.47 million migrants were encountered at the United States’ southern border in fiscal year 2023, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (File photo by Alexia Faith/Cronkite News)

January 22, 2024 -- Asylum seekers who don’t speak English are once again required to bring their own interpreters to interviews for U.S. immigration services, and some worry it will be a hindrance for those fleeing persecution in their home countries.

The September rule change reverted to a pre-pandemic requirement that put the onus on non-English-speaking migrants to find and pay for an interpreter.

By Rebecca Person

December 13, 2023 (Jacumba Hot Springs, CA) -- Local volunteers in isolated East county border towns Jacumba and Boulevard are seeking support for humanitarian aid for migrants via a new crowd-funding campaign.  Volunteers set up this fundraising account in the face of a lack of  support by government entities such as Border Patrol and the National Guard and nonprofits such as the Red Cross, which have failed to utilize their resources to help masses of border crossers still arriving on U.S. ground. Border Patrol has directed them into barren detention sites with zero supplies. Water, shelter and food resources are being supplied mostly by volunteers through donations.

By Rebecca Person

Photos by R. Person and Noah Miller

October 10, 2021 (San Diego’s East County) -- What began as a trickle of migrant activity at the Mexican border outside small towns in the farthest corner of east San Diego County has surged to a humanitarian crisis - a river, a deluge of hundreds of border crossings here daily. The scene has mirrored and surpassed the crisis last May, when the towns of Jacumba Hot Springs and Boulevard felt a sudden wave of migrants when Title 42 was lifted and Title 8 returned.

Those changes allowed migrants to apply for asylum.  But for those not able to qualify for asylum, crossing the border can lead to formal deportation back to one’s country of origin and possible criminal prosecution if the person makes a second entry within five years. 

Humanitarian groups such as Border Kindness have joined local resident volunteers and some church groups to bring a steady supply of donations - bottled water, blankets, jackets and tarps to migrants camped along the border fence. Also sandwiches, especially the peanut butter kind.

East County Magazine

Photo, left: immigrants in Jacumba, CA, where some told aid workers they were barred from asking for asylum.

June 25, 2023 (Washington D.C.) -- The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of the District of Columbia, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and National Immigrant Justice Center this week sued the Biden administration over its sweeping and restrictive changes to asylum policies.

East County News Service; San Diego County Communications Office contributed to this report

August 30, 2022 (San Diego) -- A new County department reported Tuesday that in its first year, it secured $30 million to address homelessness, provided housing options for over 4,400 people, held or participated in hundreds of community events to create equitable communities and worked to support immigrants and refugees.

The ruling leaves thousands of Border Patrol agents "absolutely immunized from liability," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "no matter how egregious the misconduct or resultant injury."

By Julia Conley, staff writer, Common Dreams

Reprinted under a Creative Commons license from Common Dreams

June 9, 2022 (San Diego) - A ruling by the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday "will have far-reaching consequences" for people who accuse federal agents of violating their constitutional rights, the ACLU warned after the court ruled against a man who wanted to sue a U.S. Border Patrol agent who entered his property without a warrant and used excessive force.