More Santa Cruz County businesses and community groups are closing or taking action Friday as part of a national shutdown protesting violent immigration enforcement and the killings of anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis. Restaurants, retailers and organizations from Felton to Watsonville announced closures, donations or solidarity actions, while students and health care workers also organized rallies and demonstrations.
The Trump presidency and Santa Cruz County
News and opinion coverage of reaction in Santa Cruz County to the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president, plus news from around California via Lookout’s content partners.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Immigration arrests quietly surge by 1,500% in San Diego: ‘I feel the temperature rising’
San Diego doesn’t feel like a city under siege by Border Patrol, but it’s the scene of a dramatic increase in immigration arrests during President Donald Trump’s crackdown.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
California state employees alarmed by demand to prove their citizenship
Close to 4,000 employees of the California Department of Public Health were told they must use the federal E-Verify system to keep federal funding. Unions are pushing back.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz nurses organize actions during anti-ICE ‘national shutdown’ Friday
Santa Cruz nurses are organizing for Friday’s national “day of no school, no work and no shopping” to protest recent killings of anti-ICE activists and others in federal immigration custody, including ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Posted inLatest News
Watsonville Community Hospital nurses hold vigil to honor life of nurse killed by federal agents in Minneapolis
Nurses at Watsonville Community Hospital gathered Wednesday evening to remember the life of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was killed by federal immigration agents Saturday in Minneapolis.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
California Democrats have new plans for confronting ICE: Taxes, lawsuits and location bans
The California Senate passed a bill that would make it easier to sue federal officers over civil rights violations. Recent shootings of civilians by immigration agents in Minnesota lent urgency to the measure, one of several targeting ICE.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Trump administration says San Jose State broke the law by allowing a transgender volleyball player
The Trump administration has concluded that San Jose State University discriminated against women by letting a transgender athlete play on the women’s volleyball team, the U.S. Education Department said Wednesday.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
County supervisors prepare for possible immigration enforcement actions with subcommittee
Santa Cruz County elected officials are creating a subcommittee, led by Supervisors Monica Martinez and Felipe Hernandez, to prepare for the possible impacts of immigration enforcement on county residents.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Federal land in Santa Cruz County safe from drilling under new BLM proposal, but environmentalists remain wary of oil and gas development
With a federal plan updating oil and gas drilling rules on Central Coast public lands now open for public comment, attention in Santa Cruz County has turned to whether any local federal lands could be vulnerable to drilling.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Indivisible follows up impromptu Sunday rally in Watsonville with anti-ICE protest in Santa Cruz
Hundreds of people gathered at the intersection of Ocean and Water streets in Santa Cruz on Monday afternoon to protest the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by immigration officers in Minnesota. The gathering came just one day after an emergency anti-ICE rally in Watsonville, which also brought hundreds of people together.