People can really surprise you sometimes. In this case, the surprised were 26 students, their parents and their teacher at Rio Vista Elementary School in Anaheim, Calif. The people who surprised them? A couple, moved by a sermon, that’s giving up on a personal dream in order to help those kids go to college.
This is Marty Burbank and Seon Chun-Burbank. They are changing the lives of 26 kindergarteners.
The students of this kindergarten class are all English-learning students and will be the first students in their families to go to college, thanks to the Burbanks.
“I just can’t believe it. I can’t,” Maria Rodriguez, a mother of one of the students, told KNBC. “I don’t believe someone would be this interested in paying the tuition of this many kids.”
The Burbanks have been volunteers for years, but last December they wanted to do more.
“…and he was talking about charity and giving and when he gave that sermon I just felt moved that buying a boat was a very selfish thing for me and I could do so much more to impact the lives of these kids,” Burbank told Telemundo 52.
So, instead of the boat, the couple decided to help 26 kindergarten kids go to college.
When City Council member Ruth Luevanos made a Facebook post on July 13 advising immigrants about their rights, she thought she was acting in good faith for her community. Fast forward a few weeks later, Luevanos has been the target of mass criticism and even a death threat from the traditionally conservative town. Many are calling for the council members resignation but there is also a number of people who are standing by her.
How did this whole ordeal get started in a conservative town like Simi Valley?
Luevanos posted the video, which was filmed in her office and posted onto her personal City Council Facebook page, the day before what was supposed to be the start of President Trump’s nationwide series of immigrant raids. She says the video was made in part “to inform people of their rights,” noting that other California public officials, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, made announcements about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
The City Council member intentions were to also inform and assure constituents that California’s sanctuary state measure, Senate Bill 54, was still the law. The bill, which standardizes non-cooperation standards between California law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities, has been a national hot topic issue.
“I’m here to tell you you have rights,” Luevanos says as she sits in front of an American flag resembling a Mexican serape blanket.”You do not have to open your door to ICE officials. ICE cannot legally force their entry into your home.”
But the root of the controversy came from some of the comments that Luevanos made about law enforcement and comments about ICE detention centers. Like many other progressives, Luevanos has advocated for abolishing ICE.
“Right now, the United States is in the business of running concentration camps,” Luevanos says in the three-minute video. “They’re asking (detainees) to drink out of toilets. They’re verbally and physically harassing them. And they’re denying them basic sanitary care.”
As the video features footage of President Trump, Luevanos calls the immigration raids “a political stunt by our current president to ensure his re-election.”
“We have a responsibility as community leaders that our most vulnerable — whether they’re homeless, or veterans, or low-income or our immigrant population — are taken care of and that they feel safe in our community,” Luevanos said.
At an open city council meeting on Monday, Luevanos went face to face with many of those that are calling for her to step down.
In a hostile City Council meeting on Monday, Simi Valley residents voiced their opinion on the Facebook video. According to the Ventura County Star, there were dozens of speakers, some there opposing Luevanos and some in attendance to support her message.
Many of her critics say that the council member is advocating for unlawfulness and is spreading false information about immigration enforcement. Simi Valley resident Jenniffer Jones was at the Monday meeting to voice her frustration with the video.
“She’s advocating lawlessness,” Jones told ABC7. “You can’t be doing this. These people went to court, they had their due process. A judge decided they cannot be in the U.S. any longer.”
Even Simi Valley Mayor Keith Mashburn has had his concerns about the Facebook post and the look it gives the City Council as a whole. Mashburn says he doesn’t have an issue with Luevanos exercising her free speech but said that she shouldn’t have used her city office.
“It gave the appearance that it was endorsed by the city,” Mashburn told CBS2. “It had a city logo, and she announced that she was a city council member. It made it appear that it was the stance of the council.”
Despite the backlash, Luevanos has also seen a rise in support from local residents that support her stance.
Renee Fraser was one of those supporters that came out to the meeting in support of the first-term council member. “Thank you for telling people their rights,” she told the VC Star. “That is America.”
The support has come from different parts of the Simi Valley that say that Luevanos is being targeted for racial reasons, noting that she’s the first Latina elected to the council. One Twitter user said they attended the meeting because of what Luevanos represents in the predominately conservative community.
“I went to my first city council meeting, to support our first Latina Councilwoman @RuthLuevanos for six hours because she’s in the hot spot for making a know your rights video. May our voices be heard, and thank you for setting an example.”
The controversy doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon as the topic was not on the council’s agenda and thus the no action was taken on it. Many of her critics are now asking for it to be on a future agenda, as well as launching a recall campaign against the council member. But as of now, no action has been taken on the heated issue.
Images of a new border being constructed on the southern border in California are circulating. The images show tall border barriers being constructed to replace an existing border barrier on California’s southern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has shared photos of construction along the Calexico border in San Diego.
Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr
According to a press release by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), construction on the secondary wall along the border in California began in February 2019. The 30-foot steel barrier is replacing an older secondary barrier just north of the San Diego barrier.
President Trump promised his voters that he would be building a border wall on the southern border, yet, this specific length of the wall is not part of his promise.
Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr
This is one of those examples where words matter. The current construction happening in California is not part of Trump’s promise for a new border wall. What is happening is the construction to replace 50 miles worth of old border barriers. Right-leaning publication the Washington Examiner lamented the lack of new border walls 30 months into his presidency.
Trump continues to make the border wall a central part of his 2020 reelection campaign despite the lack of new wall being constructed.
Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr
CBP states in their press release that they continue “to implement President Trump’s Executive Order 13767 – also known as Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements – and continues to take steps to expeditiously plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve operational control of the southern border.” While that sounds good to advocates for the border wall, the wall that has been built to date is not part of Trump’s promise in Executive Order 13767.
Trump’s executive order on the border wall is clear that wall he is pushing is a new wall.
Section 2 (a) states that the order wants to “secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.”
Officials within the Trump administration blame Democratic lawmakers for blocking the construction of the wall.
Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr
However, for the first two years of his presidency, Republicans had a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. During those two years, however, there was not enough of a crisis along the southern border for them to push through legislation to allocate funds to the border wall. The crisis at the border became one that Trump had to speak about and push for legislation after Democrats won the majority in the House of Representatives.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that Trump could use military funds to build his border wall and it seems like that might be the only way he can start delivering on a promise he made during the 2016 election.
Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Flickr
As of now, the construction of a new border wall where there was never a barrier has not happened. Trump can say the wall is being built but the fact remains that the border wall is not being built.
