And we have learned that we can mobilize enormous national strength through the local fights we engage.
By not signing the TRUST Act, Governor Brown signed his place into the ranks of Jan Brewer and Sheriff Arpaio. He let the President’s Se Communities mass deportation program go unchecked. And he missed an opportunity to make every Californian safer.
But he did not stop our movement.
We are stronger today than we were yesterday. More people are engaged in the fight against the polimigra today than yesterday.
In the past two years we have only seen copycats of SB1070 but this will mark the year that we see copycat bills to restore trust in California and the rest of this country.
There are multiple dimensions of uncertainty with the election happening in the coming months but what we know is that we will win positive local and state legislation and further federal reform.
We are turning a corner where our criminalization will not be tolerated, where our dignity will not go undefended, where people like Jose Ucelo, the Orange County day laborer still facing deportation because his employer filed a false police report instead of paying him his wages, will be leaders for our civil rights instead of victims of deportation.
Jerry Brown may not have seen it, but we do. California is awakening. We will fight the Arizona in our own back yard. Sheriff Baca, Jerry Brown, and the federal government’s willingness to see our families torn apart by deportation is not just a moral wrong, it is a political mistake.
Our organizing will make sure of that.