Community
A woman with dark shoulder length hair, and wearing a purple pullover and glasses, sits at a small table reviewing a small stack of documents.

Volunteers Race to Preserve Culturally Significant Records in Chinatown

01.12.2024
|
By

A volunteer group led by community historian David Lei and University of California, Berkeley lecturer Anna Eng is working on a week-long project to scan boxes of documents — memos, letters, photos and other archived items.

The scanning project is a collaborative effort between historians striving to increase access to alternative historical sources and community organizations wanting the history to be restored and told.

Elections

With Provisional Measure Now Permanent, Noncitizen Parents Can Vote in SF’s School Board Recall Election

01.20.2022
|
By

San Francisco residents who are not citizens but are parents may vote in school board elections, including the upcoming recall election that could remove three members of the board. The Board of Supervisors in October made this enfranchisement, originally enacted through a 2016 ballot measure and scheduled to sunset in 2022, permanent.  

Community

Local Veterans Reflect on ‘Moral Obligation’ to Afghans

08.26.2021
|
By

After the Taliban took over the Afghan government, a massive evacuation effort began, but thousands are still waiting at the airport in Kabul. Tyler Solorio, an Army veteran deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and a policy analyst for the veterans nonprofit Swords to Plowshares, said the U.S. government has made it dangerously complicated for Afghans to get out.

Immigration
Evacuees from Afghanistan arrive at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, on an aircraft crewed by Air National Guard members on Aug. 23, 2021.

Organizers Rush to Help Afghan Refugees in Bay Area

08.24.2021
|
By

Thousands are fleeing Afghanistan in fear of violent reprisals from the Taliban, which captured the nation in a matter of days after the U.S. began withdrawing its troops. Farhad Yousafzai said refugees are arriving in the Bay Area from Afghanistan in dire need of everything — a place to stay, a shower, health care, a change of clothes for the first time in 10 days. 

A woman stands against a wall holding a copy of Solito, Solita, a book about border-crossing youth.

US Policy Frustrates Honduran Immigrant Who Crossed Border at 14

06.28.2021
|
By

Vice President Kamala Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday to tour a detention facility and meet with people who have made the journey to the United States.

For San Francisco resident Soledad Castillo, who left her home country of Honduras at age 14 to cross the border, the vice president’s visit and her previous statements on immigration have been frustrating.

Government & Politics
Courtesy of Free Burma Action Committee.

S.F. Organizer Sees Repetition of Brutal History in Myanmar Military Coup

05.04.2021
|
By

When Ko Ko Lay has managed to speak to his 86-year-old mother living in Myanmar under a military regime, she has told him she cannot sleep through the night. Like many civilians, she fears armed nighttime raids. “They are so worried about one day some security forces will come and will break through their door, and and they’re going to torture, and they’re going to kill,” Lay said. 

On Feb. 1, after a democratic election, Myanmar military forces seized control of the government and declared a year-long state of emergency. Civilians have been protesting that takeover, and the military has responded with deadly use of force, killing hundreds, including at least 40 children.

Immigration
Francisco Ugarte, managing attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender's immigration defense unit, holds a banner with the late Public Defender Jeff Adachi at a community rally for immigrants' rights in 2018.

S.F. Immigration Defense Unit Represents Immigrants Statewide Through Pandemic

11.24.2020
|
By

San Francisco’s office of the public defender has a unit dedicated to defending immigrants in court. In most states, they often have no representation because there is no right to counsel in immigration cases. Francisco Ugarte, managing attorney of this unit, talked with “Civic” about how handoffs between agencies work and what happens to someone who is arrested by immigration enforcement in San Francisco, as well as a class action suit the unit helped litigate over COVID-19 outbreaks in detention facilities.

Immigration

Immigration Attorney: Rapid Deportations a New Facet of Old Policy

11.09.2020
|
By

In October, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ICE — began implementing an expansion of rapid deportations, in which undocumented immigrants may be removed from the country without a hearing before an immigration judge. While such deportations have been conducted for decades, the new policy expands who might be affected.