El Magonista | Vol. 10, No. 14 | April 7, 2022

New Community Health Equity Center in North Long Beach is named for a tireless Chicano advocate of more than 50 years.

A $5 million upgrade and a new name had city officials and North Long Beach residents excited Monday morning, April 4, when the Ronald R. Arias Health Equity Center opened its door at the edge of Houghton Park, 6335 Myrtle Ave.

The City Council voted last year to name the center after Arias, who worked for the city’s health department for 22 years, 12 as the director. He has been active in the Chicano/Latino equity movement in the city for more than 50 years.

The health center is more than 50 years old, serving as an area facility center, a health center and day care over the years. The heating and ventilation system broke down a few years ago, prompting the push to renovate the building, said Human Services Director Kelly Colopy, who succeeded Arias.

“Our people were wearing coats and hats, trying to provide services,” Colopy said. “In the summer, there were fans all over the place... READ MORE

SPECIAL EVENT TOMORROW!

The Biden administration announced the end of a Trump-era law that expelled asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border under the banner of public health. But not yet.

The upcoming repeal of a Trump-era edict that has effectively barred asylum seekers from crossing the southern border was the first good news in a long time for President Joe Biden’s beleaguered allies in the immigrant-rights movement.

But then the Biden administration announced plans to keep expelling people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border for nearly two more months, and those good feelings were quickly extinguished.

“While we are relieved that the Centers for Disease Control will not be renewing Title 42, the administration’s plan to phase out the policy is simply not enough,” said Tami Goodlette, director of litigation at RAICES. “The rape, torture, and kidnapping of those expelled under Title 42 is well-documented and rampant, and with the CDC’s announcement, it will continue for two more months. That is unacceptable.”

In March 2020, the U.S. government functionally barred would-be asylees from entering the country under Title 42, a public health order implemented in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic by President Donald Trump that allowed him to shut down the border in the name of stalling the spread of the virus Over the course of the next two years, that order blocked more than 1.7 million people from requesting asylum in the United States, expediting their removal under the aegis of public health... READ MORE

Racist state-legislatures around the country are hoping to continue the Trump-era Health statute that effectively shut down the Southern Border with Mexico.

Three states on Monday sued the Biden administration over its plans to rescind Title 42, a Trump-era order that allows the U.S. to rapidly expel migrants who have crossed the border to seek asylum.

Missouri, Arizona and Louisiana filed the suit after the Biden administration on Friday announced it would lift the order on May 23.

The suit seeks to block the lifting of Title 42 by arguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which issued the order, violated the Administrative Procedures Act by failing to allow for a comment period on its revocation.

The CDC, however, didn’t use such notice and comment rulemaking to put the order in place, with the Trump administration instead using a sunset clause requiring the CDC to review the order every 60 days.

The bulk of the suit argues canceling Title 42 would cause a surge of immigration at the border that could overwhelm state and federal resources.

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Part Two of a three-part series by acclaimed local author, offering hard facts about the scoundrel sheriff who relies on racial profiling of his own people and well-known internal gang activity within the LA County Sheriff's Department.

It didn’t take long for Los Angeles County’s controversial and frequently bombastic sheriff, Alex Villanueva, to lay his hands on a proverbial third rail. Early on in my interview with him last week, I asked about a topic that has always perplexed me.

Although Latinos have protested police brutality against their community for decades in Southern California and beyond, the issue rarely generates the same level of widespread anger as similar cases that have long played out in the Black community. Not only that, there’s never been a case of a Latino killed by law enforcement that has galvanized Americans the way too many cases of slain Black people have and continue to do.

I asked Villanueva to respond to this discrepancy.

“You know, it’s a good question,” he replied. “I’ll say it’s cultural.”

He mentioned slavery, redlining, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and “so much trauma from way back when to the present time” that explained the Black community’s sustained distrust of law enforcement. Latinos, he reasoned, didn’t have that same historical experience with the American government.
It was a progressive analysis, and one that surprised me. What didn’t surprise me were the dog whistles Villanueva blew on the way to get to that conclusion.

He rattled off the names of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and Michael Brown, all Black people who, save for Martin, were killed by law enforcement and whose deaths sparked nationwide protests.

“For every one ‘Say her name,’” Villanueva proclaimed, “you’d have to say a thousandnames of people who were killed. Black people... READ MORE