Hot on the heels of today's sweeping new immigration enforcement directive from the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco is set to host a citywide forum on resisting deportation.
As the New York Times reported this morning, the Department of Homeland Security's new directive, digested from an executive order to crack down on illegal immigrants, will usher in "a major shift in the way the agency enforces the nation’s immigration laws," including an expansion of the kinds of immigrants the federal government seeks to deport and the means of deportation available.
According to a press release from the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, tomorrow's afternoon forum will outline ways in which San Francisco's government and citizens can aid lawyers in preventing the deportation of undocumented people. For those unable to attend, it will also be available for viewing via livestream.
Though San Francisco is a sanctuary city, the forum is intended to formally address rising local concerns about what lies in store for immigrants under a Trump administration. Last month, there was outrage in the local Hispanic community over an attempted Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in the Mission.
The forum's hosts are expected to include actor-activist Danny Glover; National Association of Immigration Judges president Hon. Dana Leigh Marks; District 1 supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer; Beto Martinez Nolasco, a formerly detained immigrant; Morrison Foerster senior counsel James Brosnahan; and San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi.
In an illustration of how seriously deportation policies could affect the city, the Examiner reported today that immigrants account for over a third of San Francisco's population, contributing over $7 billion in annual spending power to the city's economy.
