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Author: Immigration Working Group of DSA San Diego

  • Support El Comedor

    This #Giving Tuesday, DSA San Diego asks you to make a gift to El Comedor, an autonomous migrant-run kitchen in Tijuana that serves meals and provides other resources to asylum seekers and people in need. The collective that runs this kitchen, Contra Viento y Marea, was born out of the self-organization of caravan members during the siege of Benito Juarez in December 2018.

    The Central American exodus of 2018 and the caravans that followed brought a number of asylum seekers to Tijuana. The US and Mexican governments have been coordinating to flout international asylum laws and criminalize migration – they do not allow asylum seekers to present themselves at ports of entry and instead funnel them into an illegal metering system. This has resulted in a number of asylum seekers being stuck in Tijuana, waiting in line to enter the US and unable to go back. 

    This past year, DSA San Diego via the Immigration Working Group has been building ties across the border with organizations and collectives made up of and serving the members of the migrant caravans. El Comedor is an especially close connection, as its emphasis on collective governance and mutual aid resonate with DSA’s priorities.

    El Comedor is a community kitchen, garden, and donation center serving the impoverished Zone Norte neighborhood of Tijuana and is supported solely by donations. Your contribution will help pay for rent, utilities, and food. This autonomous space provides hot meals, distributes donations of clothes and hygiene products, and serves as the location of a medical clinic. Aside from feedings migrants, individuals deported from the US, and Tijuana’s unhoused community, El Comedor also provides survival goods like blankets, warm clothes, shoes, sleeping bags, tents, and toiletry kits.

    The migrant crisis persists and many migrants seeking asylum in the US find themselves stranded in Tijuana with little to no access to resources from the government, a situation gravely exacerbated by the Trump Administration’s Remain in Mexico policy, which forces asylum seekers to return to Mexico until an asylum decision has been made – a period of many months, even years. A donation of any size will be a commitment of compassion, justice, and global community.

    You can donate now to the Gofundme page created to support El Comedor’s rent and other regular bills, or via Venmo @tjrefugee-support.

  • March to Close the Concentration Camps – October 13

    Join DSA San Diego and community members as we march to demand that DHS close its egregious concentration camps. No kids in cages! Asylum is a right. 

    Speeches by a coalition of left organizations across San Diego, including DSA, will be given between intervals of our march.

    DATE: October 13
    TIME: 12:00 pm
    ADDRESS: 585 Harbor Lane

    For more details:

    October 12, 2019

  • DSA San Diego Immigration Working Group Statement Urging Senator Sanders to Adopt Human-Rights Focused Immigration Policy and Uplift Border Community Voices

    DSA San Diego Immigration Working Group Statement Urging Senator Sanders to Adopt Human-Rights Focused Immigration Policy and Uplift Border Community Voices

    We, the Immigration Working Group of the San Diego chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), are dismayed by the DSA National-endorsed Presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, and his continued capitulation to the right-wing of American politics with  backwards statements on immigration and immigration policy. First, Bernie Sanders used right-wing talking points in his misinformed position against ‘open borders’, with an open and continued use of the dog whistle phrase “comprehensive immigration reform.” Now, in a moment where Senator Sanders could have stood up for Democratic Socialist values, he fails to appropriately name the atrocities being orchestrated by the Trump Administration at the border, and instead distances himself from their characterization as concentration camps.

    Because of the Trump Administration’s increased militarization of the southern border, and its violent enforcement-only policies, at least seven children have died in U.S. custody since late last year, and trans women, like Johana Medina Leon and Roxsana Hernandez, have also died languishing in detention cells. The Department of Homeland Security’s own inspectors have cited detention facilities as overcrowded and unsanitary, with “unusable toilets, mildew and mold on the showers … little to no access to recreation, horrible food conditions” among other appalling problems. These facilities do little more than punish people fleeing dangerous conditions and seeking safety and deny them their human rights.

    In short, they are the very definition of a concentration camp.

    Since 2010, at least 90 people have died as the result of an interaction with U.S. border agents,  and the number of stories of death and abuse of children and adults in detention facilities grows with each passing week.

    As  socialists who live and work in the southern border region, we urge Senator Sanders to leave behind these outdated and misinformed talking points on immigration and border policy, and to adopt a human-rights first approach in his immigration platform, one that falls in line with our socialist values, and upholds the legal right for people to seek asylum, without criminalizing asylum-seekers or anyone fleeing dangerous situations and seeking safety.

    We urge Senator Sanders to work with organizations and communities that actually live and work in the southern border region, to gain their perspective and trust, and to incorporate our vision and needs into his immigration and border platform.

  • Supporting Migrants and Refugees

    At our November 18 chapter meeting, DSA San Diego endorsed our participation in a robust coalition of San Diego grassroots organizations who are united in our solidarity with members of the Central American Exodus. (Text of the original resolution here.) Since inception, the San Diego Coalition for Migrant and Refugee Solidarity has organized a high-profile international day of action and strengthened the ongoing humanitarian relief effort in Tijuana. Thousands of asylum seekers continue to await the consideration that is their due in conditions where their safety and health are fragile at best, nutrition is minimal, and their rights insecure.

    As many of us join our loved ones in celebrating the holidays, we invite you to consider making a gift to support members of the exodus through the Coalition’s designated fund steward, Otay Mesa Detention Resistance. The entire amount of your donation will be used to purchase the food, bedding, hygiene supplies, and medications needed for the care and sustenance of asylum seekers.

    Gracias por todo – solidaridad.

  • Families Belong Together Protest June 23

    Families Belong Together Protest June 23

    Join other San Diego DSAers this Saturday June 23, 10am at the Civic Center to protest the unspeakably cruel and inhuman persecution of refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.

    San Diego Civic Center• 202 C St., San Diego, CA 92101

    Stand up with us to demand better treatment for immigrant children and their families.
    Endorsed by San Diego ACLU, who will be speaking, as well as the California Teachers Association, local border organizations, and local unions.