The city of Berkely is using tax dollars to protect law violators. The worse news is that Newsom wants to use State money to provide law breakers, illegal aliens with attorneys.
“The nonprofit will host three educational events and workshops starting this Sunday, Jan. 12, with the last being held Jan. 19 in partnership with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a nonprofit that provides legal services and resources to immigrants. The events are co-sponsored by Kehila Synagogue Immigration Committee and Indivisible East Bay.
“If we can get facts out to people it can really help minimize the anxiety, because there are ways for them to protect themselves,” La Peña co-founder Eric Leenson told Berkeleyside.
He said advocates worked quickly to organize this Immigrant Rights Solidarity Week before the inauguration, when they believed community members would feel safer attending.
The first event (at 11 a.m. on Jan. 12) is a workshop on how to “become an immigration rights ambassador,” aimed at advocates and allies. The presentation will cover how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates and gathers information, and what to do during encounters with ICE. Attendees will also learn how to effectively share information with community members about their rights.
Not mentioned is that this non profit gets money given to it by the city council—as do most pro-criminal non profits. We are going to pay to deport criminals and we are going to pay to stop them from being deported—that is how crazy California has become.
Are you an immigrant or ally looking to prepare for Trump 2.0? This Berkeley program aims to help
La Peña Cultural Center and East Bay Sanctuary Covenant will hold workshops, a social hour and a community discussion, with the goal of teaching people to protect themselves and their neighbors.
by Vanessa Arredondo, Berkeleyside, 1/7/25 https://www.berkeleyside.org/2025/01/07/berkeley-workshops-immigrants-allies-rights?utm_source=Berkeleyside+newsletters&utm_campaign=e5f71d31cd-RSS_DAILY_BRIEFING&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8582aac18f-6348643cf5-323112229&goal=0_aad4b5ee64-e5f71d31cd-323112229&mc_cid=e5f71d31cd&mc_eid=b83149c3e5
Berkeley’s La Peña Cultural Center is co-organizing a week of programming aimed at informing immigrants of their rights and preparing allies to support their neighbors before Donald Trump, who has vowed to wage a mass deportation campaign, is inaugurated as president for a second time on Jan. 20.
The nonprofit will host three educational events and workshops starting this Sunday, Jan. 12, with the last being held Jan. 19 in partnership with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a nonprofit that provides legal services and resources to immigrants. The events are co-sponsored by Kehila Synagogue Immigration Committee and Indivisible East Bay.
“If we can get facts out to people it can really help minimize the anxiety, because there are ways for them to protect themselves,” La Peña co-founder Eric Leenson told Berkeleyside.
He said advocates worked quickly to organize this Immigrant Rights Solidarity Week before the inauguration, when they believed community members would feel safer attending.
The first event (at 11 a.m. on Jan. 12) is a workshop on how to “become an immigration rights ambassador,” aimed at advocates and allies. The presentation will cover how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates and gathers information, and what to do during encounters with ICE. Attendees will also learn how to effectively share information with community members about their rights.
“It’s geared to all community members, most of whom will probably not be immigrants themselves, but it’s a way of creating a community defense force,” Leenson said.
The second event (at noon on Jan. 15) is a social hour and an open community discussion on “defending our immigrant neighbors under Trump 2.0” that will be hosted by La Peña’s Vieja Guardia (Old Guard), a group consisting of many of the organization’s original members that meets monthly. The gathering — beginning at the cultural center’s Los Cilantros Restaurant — will focus on grassroot and advocacy efforts, like proposing city resolutions, distributing information and organizing demonstrations.
The third event (at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 ) is a hands-on “know your rights” workshop geared toward immigrants, advising them how to protect their families and what to do in case of an encounter with ICE. Immigration attorneys will be available onsite to provide free consultations, and volunteers will help create preventative family plans “to be prepared for any circumstances when the new administration is in power,” according to the event flyer. Free childcare will be provided for this event.
All events will be held at La Peña Cultural Center on 3105 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For more information and to RSVP, community members can contact: [email protected].
The cultural center, founded in Berkeley exactly one year after the 1973 military coup in Chile, serves as a gathering place for Latinx, Caribbean and Indigenous diasporic communities of the Bay Area to celebrate cultural traditions and develop advocacy initiatives. La Peña members formed a committee on immigrant rights during the cultural center’s 50th anniversary celebration in September, seeing the issue as crucially important, even amid La Peña’s ongoing financial crisis.
This week of programming is just the first wave of La Peña and other advocacy initiatives to help immigrant communities, Leenson said.
“We want to get people together and build community before [Trump] takes office. And then we’ll be able to evaluate what they’re doing and respond accordingly with the proper safeguards,” he said.
