On Wednesday, April 4, nearly 50 Soka students showed up to attend an Aliso Viejo city council meeting. Why? Because the mayor of Aliso Viejo, Dave Harrington, opposes California’s sanctuary state law and wants to negate sanctuary in Aliso Viejo, by voting to join several other Orange County cities in a lawsuit against the state’s sanctuary policy. I, and many of my peers, strongly oppose this vote and believe it takes an anti-immigrant stance that is not supported by the community at large.
I did not lead the student movement to oppose this vote, but I was swept up by a wave of student organizing and activism coordinated by several clubs on campus (Global Politics, Latinx Unidos, YES GIVE, Democratic Socialists and a few others) to oppose Harrington’s xenophobia and to denounce the decision as harmful to the community at large, in addition to the lives of undocumented immigrants in the area. Within a few days of being alerted to the impending vote on an official anti-sanctuary stance, students were meeting to discuss logistics, create posters, coordinate transportation and make sure Soka students showed up to voice our concern for the community we live in.
The council meeting itself was held the night of April 4. The topic of the sanctuary lawsuit began at 8 p.m. and lasted until 1 a.m. (I left on the shuttle with a group of students around 9:30 p.m.; many stayed until after the vote at 1 a.m.) Many people from Aliso Viejo and the surrounding area showed up to voice their own pro-immigrant stances, but there was also a large and loud conservative crowd there as well, decorated with red Trump hats. Many of the anti-sanctuary protestors came from far outside Orange County; there was even a group who came out from Arizona just to get a small city in California to push xenophobic, racist rhetoric.
The night was intense and, at times, terrifying. The city hall chamber, with a capacity of about 80, filled quickly and an equal and possibly larger number of people waited outside. In the overflow area outside city hall, posters both for and against sanctuary punctuated the crowd, and each side chanted slogans for their respective cause. I saw several near physical confrontations while waiting outside and heard about at least one fist-fight that occurred while I was inside. Within the chamber, all community members present who desired to were allowed to testify either to uphold sanctuary or to join the anti-sanctuary lawsuit. All testimonies were passionate and emotional, but a strong current of vitriolic racism ran through many of the anti-sanctuary opinions. I was deeply disturbed by the uncensored hatred that flourished that night. At the end of the community discussion, which lasted around five hours, the council members discussed the issue and then voted, 4-1, to sue the state and undermine sanctuary. Ross Chun, mayor pro tem, was the only dissenting voice.
The fight, however, is not over. I only played a minor part in the student action to support sanctuary—club leaders from YES GIVE, Global Politics, Latinx Unidos, and several other student organizations, as well as unaffiliated individual students did the work to organize the Soka community to raise our voices about an issue that impacts Aliso Viejo.