Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the meeting of the Alameda County Together for All Ad Hoc Committee.

Let's call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Fortinado Baas.

Present.

So thank you everyone again for joining us.

We have a couple important items on our agenda.

So to get started, I'll just review our agenda, and we have a brief slideshow presentation to give an overview of our work as a committee as well as to present the uh two recommendations.

So today we have our first informational and action item, and that is a response plan for immigration enforcement activity in Alameda County.

We also have another item, which is a policy that restricts the use of county-owned and county controlled properties for immigration enforcement activity.

So for this item, we will hear a presentation from myself.

We will then go to Alameda County Health, Social Services, and we also have a guest on Zoom from Santa Clara County.

We'll have some discussion and take public comment before taking any potential action.

And then our second item today is an update on impacts of federal administration policies and budgets on Alameda County Asian communities and recommendations to address that impact.

And for this item, I'm really grateful that we have a number of community-based organizations who are joining us, including Asian Health Services, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, New Light Wellness, and APIO, API legal outreach.

So we'll hear those presentations and have some discussion as well as public comment.

And then we will end the meeting with any comments related to items that are not posted on our agenda.

Okay, let's go to the next slide.

Just by way of background, the Alameda County Together for All or Act Ad hoc committee is a committee that was proposed in January and then formed with approval from the entire board, and we've been meeting approximately monthly since February.

And our purpose is to coordinate a response to federal policy changes and budgets that impact our communities.

In particular, we have been hearing about the impacts due to the federal administration's mass deportation agenda.

We have also been hearing about impacts due to HR1, the big brutal budget is what I call it.

So we've had hearings that have included immigrant and refugee rights, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, health care access, and food security.

And there's a number of items that we have brought forward to the full board as recommendations from our committee, together with Supervisor Marquez.

And that has led to funding by the full board with measured W Essential County Services funds in the tune of $7.5 million for immigrant and refugee rights, 16.5 million to food security, and 1.5 million to the LGBTQ community.

And before I go further with our agenda for today, I do want to ask my colleague, our vice chair, Supervisor Alisa Marquez, if you would like to share any opening or framing remarks before we get started.

Sure.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Fortunato Bass and your team for gathering all the presenters and information for today's meeting.

I really appreciate the collaboration and the partnership.

And just want to take a minute to acknowledge the trauma and the pain many of us are still going through alongside our community members that were impacted by the increased activity a few weeks ago.

Really sent everyone to react, and it's unfortunate that we're still getting these attacks for the federal administration, but I am really pleased of the work that we're doing here at the county to be prepared and respond because we know that there could be other threats to our community.

Want to highlight that myself and Supervisor Fortinato Bass yesterday attended, attended the belonging in the bay convening with 12 other counties.

So I know we'll be hearing from Santa Clara County later today, but just really want to thank everyone that organized that event so that way we can learn best practices, lessons learned, and our commitment here to strengthen our coordination in Alameda County.

Also, want to flag and want to really thank our county staff who responded swiftly.

And last week we just approved 450,000 for two positions for an interim office on immigrant and refugee affairs.

That's significant.

We've been waiting for that for a long time.

So just really want to commend county staff that made that possible.

And it's a parallel process, but my office is working to secure funding from philanthropy.

And so far, we've secured over a hundred thousand dollars to initiate a study that will include community engagement so that way we can have a more permanent office in the future.

So we're really tackling this in a phased approach.

We're doing what we can immediately, mid and long-term goals.

My primary focus is to sustain the work of this committee.

We really need to have that vital infrastructure in place.

So I just want to thank all the presenters today and everyone working in collaboration to defend every immigrant and refugee here in Alameda County.

So thank you all for the partnership.

Thank you for leading these efforts, Supervisor.

Thank you to our vice chair.

Um before, well, let's go to the next slide.

And before I introduce the two recommendations that are in front of us, I will also share a little bit of background and context.

You know, again, this committee, Alameda County Together for All is charged with a host of impacts because of this federal administration.

Today we are continuing to focus on immigrant rights, and as many of you know in Alameda County, one out of three residents is foreign born, and half of our children live in a household with at least one immigrant parent.

Back in 2016, the board declared Alameda County a welcoming county, recognizing the value of immigrant integration and ensuring our policies, programs, and initiatives reflect the diversity and strength of our community.

And as we all know, under the current president, ice raids are sweeping across the country, including elementary school graduations, workplaces, and even immigration courts here in the Bay Area.

And there's also been federal deployment in Los Angeles, DC, Chicago, and Portland.

And as we know, much of this activity is undermining our constitution, violating our basic rights, including the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process and access to legal counsel.

And these are fundamental rights, again, afforded by our constitution, not just for immigrants, but for every single one of us living in the US.

And so while this administration's mass deportation agenda is spreading fear, causing trauma and separating families, I'm really proud that our county is showing up for each other, that our communities are demonstrating courage, resilience, and an unshakable commitment to organizing and keeping each other safe.

And as I have been out in the community, we participated in three know your rights trainings.

There has been a lot of interest in making sure that we're doing everything possible, not only as this committee, but as a board to protect our immigrant and refugee communities who are at threat of detention and deportation, and also living in fear and continued trauma because of this political situation and the current environment.

So the recommendations in front of us are to help advance continuing to protect our communities.

The first is a response plan for immigrant, a response plan for immigration enforcement.

And this would be to direct the county administrator to create a response plan for immigration enforcement and direct them to bring forward the response plan for immigration enforcement activity for the board's consideration at the next board meeting.

The next item is ICE free zones.

So this would be adopting a resolution that restricts the use of all county owned and county controlled properties for immigration enforcement activity and directing the county administrator to implement the resolution effective immediately.

So we'll have some presentation as well as some discussion and then we'll decide what our motion will be as a committee in terms of how to bring these items forward.

I wanted to, if you go to the next slide, I think it's important to also again to be aware of the work that we have done as a committee over the past year.

So again, in February, we had our first committee meeting, and we heard updates and recommendations from the immigrant and refugee community.

The following month in March, the board did unanimously approve our committee's recommendation to provide an emergency allocation of $3.5 million to respond to initial threats and impacts from this current administration.

And then just last month in October, the board had two actions.

The first to unanimously approve an additional allocation of 3.57 million to respond to increasing threats around immigration enforcement, including militarized presence in several use in several U.S.

cities.

And then finally, as you heard from my colleague, we also unanimously approved an allocation to enhance coordination among our county agencies and community partners, specifically by investing into staff who would help support that work.

Next slide.

And a brief recap of these investments so far, which form our current infrastructure for immigrant and refugee support services, 1.3 million for the public defenders immigration unit for crucial legal defense for non-citizen residents, as well as additional funds, which we approved last month to cover increased immigration application and litigation fees for low-income residents.

So our public defenders immigration unit now has three additional attorneys who can help provide this important legal defense.

Next, $2 million has been allocated to a CORD, which is anchored by the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and that's to expand due process legal services and also to provide deportation defense.

$2.7 million has been allocated to a CLIP, which I think everyone in this room is aware of.

That's the Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership anchored by Centro Legal.

That is our rapid response hotline.

And with this allocation, they've been able to expand into the weekend.

They're also conducting no year rights trainings and providing legal services.

And then we've also allocated one million to the coalition ACUDIR, which is anchored by Trabajadore Sunidas, Workers United, to support community preparedness, mutual aid, and neighbor neighborhood based resources.

Next slide.

So we would be remiss if we didn't thank all of you for your partnership.

All of this has really been done at the urging and with the partnership of our community advocates.

And so definitely want to thank all of you for the incredible work that you are doing on the ground each and every day.

We know that it is very trying and traumatic, in fact, and we appreciate all of you.

Next slide.

So with rising ICE activity as well as funding, we think it's important to have the discussion that we're having today.

I think everyone is aware that with the recent federal budget, HR1, ICE is receiving an additional $75 billion over four years, and that's a funding surge that represents a 300% increase in enforcement and detention capacity.

And it makes ICE the most well-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S.

history.

And I think we're all aware that as recently as October 22nd, there were confirmed reports of a planned large-scale immigration enforcement escalation here in the San Francisco Bay with agents stationed very close to us here in Alameda County at Coast Guard Island.

So given all of that, it's imperative that we as a county be fully prepared for these impending attacks on our community, and that we collaborate not only internally as the County of Alameda, but also with our cities, our neighboring counties, hospitals, and health care facilities, and other institutions such as education, transit and the Port of Oakland.

Next slide.

By next year, ICE's budget will triple to 30 billion.

And along with that comes massive recruitment for additional ICE agents, and we are seeing that some of them working under DHS are masked, some of them are not well trained, some of them are in fact violating the constitutional rights that we have as citizens and as residents of this country.

So if we go to the next slide, the first item is a response plan to immigrant enforcement activities.

So this is based on the work that our staff is currently doing, and we'll have an opportunity to hear from two of our more public-facing agencies.

This is also similar to work that's being done in Santa Clara County, where the county is creating a response plan and is also seeking to collaborate with other counties.

So the first peak, the first piece is a work plan framework.

So for Alameda County, this would build off our current Vision 2036 goals and the board direction that exists, and it would emphasize rapid coordination among our county departments as well as our community-based partners to protect individual rights, ensure access to services, and promote public safety.

And again, this would be informed by existing work by county agencies and departments as well as community-based partners serving immigrants and refugees.

And we also want to make sure we're collaborating with our neighbors in various counties in the Bay Area.

We are part of numerous lawsuits to ensure our constitutional rights under this administration.

It includes legislative efforts, including at the state level, community partnerships, and also advocacy for our children.

We're seeing families separated.

You know, there was a recent incident where it appeared that somebody was detained and their three-year-old was left in their vehicle, and that's a real crisis for our families.

So we want to make sure that we have plans for families and for children who may be separated or even detained.

We also want to make sure that there are proactive communications and media efforts.

Thirdly, we want to have a tiered community and county response, and this is recognizing that there's existing targeted enforcement that is happening here in the county.

Some of it is non-targeted, it might be more situational.

There's enforcement and sensitive non-public places, and as we are seeing in other parts of the country, there are also mass raids that we want to be prepared for.

So this is to take into account there's a lot of fear as well as trauma that's happening right now for people impacted by the increased immigration enforcement, and we need to have a plan, especially as the safety net of our county for community restoration and healing of the trauma that is being created.

Next slide.

So here we want to make sure we're drawing on feedback from our own Alameda County community as well as examples from cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland.

I'm part of a network of elected officials that includes those cities, and we are all trying to learn as well as respond together.

And so some of this, as I said, is being done already by our county departments and agencies, and there's a more comprehensive list in the board letter.

We want to make sure that there are protocols for communication with county employees, other law enforcement agencies, the cities within Alameda County, our neighboring counties, as well as other government agencies.

And this can build off of our existing emergency operations center protocols.

Secondly, we want there to be training for all of our county staff.

And we do have staff here who will talk about the existing training.

I believe there's a timeline of 45 days by which that training would be created.

So there's a lot of interest in the community to make sure our health care facilities and hospitals are prepared and complying with that state legislation.

We want to safeguard our workplaces, employees and clients.

We want to protect our courthouses and other public safety facilities, and we do recognize that the courthouse does work under jurisdiction of the state.

We also want to protect our hospitals and health care facilities, as I said.

And again, in the board packet, there's more information about the types of things that could be included in this response plan.

And then lastly, some jurisdictions are directing their county council to use the Freedom of Information Act to seek key records from the federal government regarding any residents served by the county, including those in the unincorporated area, including reasons for detained individuals' arrests during unlawful raids and associated costs of the federal activity.

This is an opportunity for us to be even more informed than we currently are about what might be happening in terms of federal immigration activity.

Next slide.

So the next slides deal with the second action item, which is the creation of ice free zones.

And so I wanted to call out that on October 6th, the City of Chicago took historic steps when the mayor declared city owned properties ice free zones, restricting the use of municipal facilities, including parking lots, garages, and vacant land for federal civil immigration enforcement.

Here, locally, Santa Clara County's board voted unanimously on October 21st to initiate a process to develop an ordinance to restrict immigration enforcement and create an immigration enforcement response plan.

And then when within Alamed within Alameda County itself on October 28th, the City of Berkeley took similar steps to initiate the creation of a policy regarding ice free zones.

So while Alameda County's policies don't explicitly restrict federal immigration enforcement agencies from using county-owned land or facilities for operation staging or surveillance, I do think it's important for us to consider a policy so that these types of larger operations, including staging surveillance, could not happen on our Alameda County publicly owned property.

Next slide.

The proposed policy would include but wouldn't be restricted to the following actions.

One, an inventory and assessment, so identifying all county-owned and county controlled properties that could potentially be used for immigration enforcement, staging, processing, or surveillance, and ensuring where appropriate.

Secondly, policy development, implementing a policy restricting the use of county-owned or county controlled property for immigration enforcement, and establishing a process which could include posting signage to declare the restriction of such property for immigration enforcement.

Also making signage available free of charge for private property owners or renters that wish to delineate non-public areas of their own property.

Thirdly, reporting protocols, so developing procedures requiring county staff to report any federal attempt to use county owned or county controlled property for immigration enforcement operations to their supervisor who will communicate with the county administrator's office and the board of supervisors.

And there are various ways that counties appear to be creating these protocols.

I just learned recently that the county of LA, I believe it is, has designated one what a person in their county council to be that point of contact.

Excuse me.

And lastly, legal review, ensuring compliance with federal and state law while maximizing local authority to protect immigrant residents.

And we are in discussion with our county council to make sure that we are developing this proposed policy together.

So with that presentation, we we do have a couple presenters.

Hugh, I appreciate being here today.

Two from our own county and one from Santa Clara County.

So first I want to invite the interim director of Alameda County Health, Anika Chowdry, and then after that, we will hear from our social services agency and then Santa Clara County.

Good afternoon.

Oh, I didn't bring my water.

Good afternoon, Supervisors Anika Chow Trade.

Excuse me, Anika.

I just I'm sorry, I just learned that Santa Clara County has a hard stop at four.

Do you have a sense of how long your presentation is?

About five minutes, but if you want to switch up the that's totally fine.

Why don't we go ahead since you're at the mic, we'll go to you, then we'll go to Santa Clara and then we'll go to social services.

Thank you.

So thank you, supervisors.

Alameda County Health is one of the largest agencies with the county, and so wanting to just share a little bit about how we've been preparing for response and planning.

So just to start off, in terms of the response to uh and understanding what's happening at the federal level, we've had an internal cross-agency group meeting since December 2024 just to understand what's coming down the pike, both at the state level as well as the federal level.

Just recently, we instituted a modified incident command structure within the agency.

So it's not a full uh, you know, um, it's not a full launch of our emergency structure, but it's just a way for us to be organized and coordinated around our planning and response.

Um, in terms of our facilities and physical locations that we have across the county, um, we have clearly marked public and private areas, and so uh you know uh ICE and like other law enforcement may be in publicly designated areas, but they're not allowed back in any areas that are designated for patient care or for just you know staff only entrants.

Um, all of our buildings do have up-to-date protocols on building specific security, um, and so this is consistent with our general emergency operations plans and continuity of operations, and so you know it sort of depends on where they are.

Umy and most of our buildings have key card access for um just anything that's not publicly designated.

Um, and then I'll note that you know we are required to comply with HIPAA, which uh adds extra protections around what we can and can't share in terms of information and data about clients.

So we don't share data on anyone, and uh all of our staff and contractors are required to be trained in compliant with HIPAA.

In terms of staff support, uh, we have made sure to, you know, just kind of have an open-door policy with our staff in terms of if they need any support, and really trying to openly acknowledge the difficulty of the situation and promoting a culture of compassion and acceptance and understanding that people have different viewpoints on many of these polarizing issues.

Um we've also made sure to let our staff know that the employee assistance program uh is available to them should they uh be needing to uh get in contact with them, um, and then really trying to be clearer about policies and procedures and you know clear communications and guidance with our staff wherever possible.

Um, in terms of training and education, we have sent guidance to all of our staff about what to do if uh ICE or other law enforcement or First Amendment auditors uh show up at any of our buildings, and so um these are pretty consistent across the agency.

Um, and we're reminding staff that you know uh we want them to prioritize their own safety and ensure their ability to do their work.

Um, and of course, as we're doing this, there are you know questions that are developing in terms of specific scenarios and et cetera.

And so we're kind of continuing to work through those because those will require some additional analysis.

Um our staff uh do have access to know your rights resources and the ability to connect to rapid resource community organizations so that they can connect any clients or other community-based organizations who might be interested in doing trainings or um, you know, receiving additional information.

Um then just in terms of, you know, our overall uh response planning, just wanting to note that we're focused on, you know, ensuring access to care, thinking about the specific communities that are being targeted, and really focusing on information and guidance to our community and partners, and really continuing to engage and build with trusted messengers in the community to do that.

I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

We'll um save our questions for after our three presenters.

So, next um on Zoom, I do want to invite Mary Hannaweir, who's the lead deputy county council in Santa Clara County.

Thank you, Mary, for joining us.

It was good to meet you recently.

And um, knowing that Santa Clara County is also working on similar policies.

I did ask if they would join us and if they would share what they are doing to be prepared for potential increased immigration enforcement, how you're working regionally with other partners, as well as whether you have any feedback or guidance based on what you might have read in the meeting packet or what you've heard so far.

Thank you, Mary.

Yes, thank you so much, Supervisor, and for inviting me.

Uh, my name is Mary Hannah Weir.

I'm the lead deputy county counsel for the County of Santa Clara.

Um, among other offices, I support the division of equity and social justice, which includes our Office of Immigrant Relations.

And the division has really been leading the way within this County of Santa Clara to pull together our uh response in these difficult times.

I would say that the county of Santa Clara has had strong policies related to non-cooperation with civil immigration enforcement since at least 2011.

And so we're really building off of that history.

We established the Office of Immigrant Relations in 2015 and have updated our policies over time as we learn more about how to best protect and serve our community.

Uh since the 2024 election, we've taken some really important steps in the county.

Um, in December of 24, we committed several million dollars to support our immigrant legal services and community service providers, including our rapid response network, and have increased that allocation thereafter.

Uh, in February of 2025, we adopted a strong resolution recommitting the county to supporting our immigrant families and ensuring that we are doing the best we can to prepare for crises should they arise.

And then this fall, we've really been digging in quite extensively, beginning in September at the direction of our board, our division of equity and social justice in consultation with the county council's office, developed and presented to the board in October, the immigrant immigration enforcement response plan that was attached to your agenda materials today.

And that is really a first step in a process and an iterative process of collecting what the county is already doing and working with our community partners to vision together on how to respond to increasing threats from the federal administration.

And we're doing that, keeping in mind certain important principles.

One that we, of course, need to adhere to state and federal law in both following the California Values Act of that which restricts the use of local resources to assist with federal civil immigration enforcement, that we're protecting people's constitutional rights, that we're keeping families safe, and that we're coordinating our legal and social services in a compassionate wrap around approach to our impacted residents.

So that tiered plan mirrors what uh is on the proposal for you all today.

Uh a couple things that I wanted to draw your attention to in our plan that I think is um building off of our own experience and addressing individual instances is really the coordination between community organizations and the county and ensuring that we have clear internal protocols of who to call when an immigration enforcement officer shows up, uh, and how to respond.

We work closely with our response network and also with our community network.

It's called Immigration Protection and Empowerment Network or IPEN, to verify reports, to share information and to assure the community of the appropriate responses and internally within the county having clear protocols of who to report to and a consistent countywide process and training program to make sure that folks across the county of Santa Clara who work in public facing spaces in particular, but really anywhere in the county, know how to respond if immigration enforcement shall show up, and similar to what was just presented by uh your agency, also a kind of a similar approach to other law enforcement and to First Amendment auditors.

Uh at our October board meeting, the board also did ask us to uh provide options for an ice-free zones type approach as well.

And what we're currently in the process of doing is reviewing our existing policies and protocols.

The long-standing non-cooperation policy in our county already prohibited the use of county facilities for civil immigration enforcement work.

And so we're taking a look to see what additional policies and protocols and and ways of doing we might consider.

Um, and we're coordinating regionally uh with cities and counties across the bay who are considering similar policies, as well as conferring with colleagues in, say, Chicago, who, as you mentioned, have already adopted such a policy in the county of Los Angeles, who have already had to respond to a massive immigration response effort and and and working with our colleagues in all of those spaces to ensure that what we're doing is consistent with the law and is as protective of our immigrant communities as we can be, and it's also ensuring that our safety net services are provided in a way that is welcoming and open to all, and that we don't inadvertently make it harder for folks to access our critical services while also making sure that folks can do so in a way that's as safe as possible.

So, with that, I'm happy to take questions if helpful, but I think those are the key points that we wanted to bring to you all today.

Thank you so much.

Uh, given your time constraints, let's uh ask a few questions.

Go ahead.

Hi, Mary.

Thank you so much for being here, and thank you to Santa Clara County for being gracious hosts yesterday.

We learned a lot and really appreciated the hospitality and um just the willingness to collaborate.

So thank you for taking time.

Um, I reviewed the plan and really appreciate Santa Clara County being leaders in this area.

It's nice to learn when you launched your Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs back in 2015.

So you're far ahead of us, but um want to learn from lessons learned, best practices, and specifically to the idea of ice-free zones.

Um, can you share with me what the plans are to engage labor groups as well as justice partners?

That's a really great question.

Thank you so much, Supervisor.

I think we work very collaboratively across our county, including with our public safety and justice departments and our Office of Labor Relations and our union partners in thinking carefully about what makes sense.

One of the things we're doing right now is reviewing some of our existing policies, you know, as I'm sure the supervisors uh are aware.

Sometimes county policies appear in lots of different places.

And so we're, you know, doing a review of those things and thinking through what might need some updates.

And we would certainly want to collaborate with to the extent that we're asking county employees to do something new and different to think um collaboratively with our union partners to ensure that what we're doing uh is responsive to their needs and uh doesn't inadvertently create difficult situations for county employees.

Um we do the board has um provided us with the authority to make sure that we have uh counsel on the ready to support county employees in the in it in the if there was an unfortunate incident where they were following county policies and uh the federal government or others thought uh that was unlawful on their part, and being able to defend our county employees is really important when they are doing their jobs as we've asked them to do.

And so I think that's one piece of the puzzle, but it's certainly uh it's an iterative and collaborative process over time.

Okay, and with this um plan of action, are are there timelines assigned to it?

Like, is there a status update to the board in terms of advancing this work?

I don't know if there was a specific deadline as to um when these ideas, these policies can be implemented.

Can you speak to like what you're thinking, how long it's going to take to actually advance this work?

Absolutely.

We are anticipating reporting back to our board of supervisors in early December.

They meet, I believe on December 9th.

So we're targeting that meeting for a report back with some options, including things that they might be able to implement right then and there, um, should they choose to.

Uh, we are also um thinking through um to what extent our existing policies already achieve some of the goals of what the board uh um asked us to do in October, and to the extent that we already have policies on and protocols on the books that could be um refreshed or where we could do some education of our employees that that might be something we can do even now and in the in the interim.

Okay, thank you.

And then, with respect to um, we're close partners with obviously the court system.

Um I know there's been concerns about ICE activity, whether it's inside or outside the courts.

Can you just kind of explain to the public the role of the judicial council and the attorney general?

Um, my understanding is there hasn't been any guidance on that.

Can you um help us understand that?

I can do my best, um, although I think at the end of the day, it might be a question primarily directed to the Judicial Council.

I think one thing that the that uh, you know, the members of the public have to understand is that our county governments no longer control the local courts, that those are our state agencies that are sort of collaboratively governed through uh the judicial council and the state legislature.

And so while they um are county by county, we the counties don't actually control those spaces generally.

Um we have worked with our sheriff, I'm sure you all have as well as as our sheriff's deputies provide security for the courts to uh ensure that to the best of their ability, they can uh use a similar set of protocols in those spaces.

Um, but at the end of the day, it's it's really the courts who need to figure out how they want to protect and ensure that folks can safely uh participate in the judicial system without unnecessary fear of civil immigration enforcement.

And it can be difficult as obviously many court spaces are open to the public and and need to be open to the public.

Thank you so much for that response.

And I really appreciate Santa Clara County's willingness to share your best practices and help us see how we can advance this work in Alameda County.

So thank you so much for the partnership.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

I don't think I have any.

Well, actually, let me ask just one specific one question, which you may or may not be able to answer.

So Santa Clara is a little bit different from Alameda County in terms of your health care system and your hospitals.

Is there a particular way that you're approaching this with your health care partners, including implementing or supporting implementation of SB 81?

That's a really great question, Supervisor.

As a you may be familiar, the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare, we run four hospitals and 15 uh health clinics across our county.

And so we have a pretty massive healthcare system that is publicly run in our county.

And we already understood both because of our non-cooperation policies and because of our interpretation and understanding of both state and federal law related to health information privacy, that much of SB 81 was all consistent with our existing policies in terms of ensuring that we have training for our healthcare professionals on what to do if ICE were to show up, that we have clear practices and protocols around privacy of information.

Generally, as a matter of course, we train that unless it's medically relevant, a person's immigration or citizenship status need not be asked or put into a medical record.

And so I think that's already generally consistent with SB 81.

And we had already been implementing the attorney general's previous guidance, the California Attorney General's previous guidance on how to protect the safety of our residents.

We certainly want anyone who, regardless of their immigration status, to be able to access care in our health and hospital system and have really put a primacy on ensuring that people are well trained and know who to call.

We do have centralized reporting structures if and when immigration enforcement might show up at a healthcare clinic or at our hospitals.

And to the extent that that's happened, I think those protocols and that training has worked quite well.

Thank you so much.

And lastly, I just want to highlight that you as a county are interested in and already collaborating with a number of counties.

And so as we look at how we can continue to protect our immigrant community, ensure access to services.

We have folks who live in Oakland who work in Santa Clara County, or vice versa.

We also have folks who live in Contra Costa but work here and vice versa.

So we have to really be working together.

So thank you for making the time to come to our meeting, and we look forward to working together.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for having me.

And I apologize that I have to step away now, but I appreciate you accommodating my schedule.

And yes, we absolutely want to continue this partnership and with all of our regional partners as exactly you're exactly right, Supervisor.

It's one larger community with quite porous boundaries.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

And so at this time, we will hear from our next um speaker, which is Hannah Hamilton with our social services agency.

Thanks for joining us.

Good afternoon, Supervisors.

The Alameda County Social Services Agency continues to uphold the county's commitment to protecting immigrant and refugee communities.

Our current operational updates and immigration enforcement response activities include the establishment of an agency work group on immigration.

We created this in January 2025 to inform agency strategy and serve as a communication hub to each of our operational departments within the agency and to our CBO partners as needed, with representation from each department on that work group.

We meet monthly and we share federal, state, and local updates pertaining to immigrant and immigrants and refugees.

A couple of the deliverables that we've completed in this work group are an updated resource guide for immigrants with programs and services offered by our agency and community partners that's on our website, as well as guidance for staff and our shelters during potential encounters with ICE agents or immigration enforcement.

Regarding communications, we've distributed over uh 1,200 red cards in threshold languages to each of our offices to clients along with posters listing individuals' rights.

We added signage in our offices in early 2024, restricting access of non-SSA staff to public areas in our offices.

In terms of our operations, we continue to administer a range of immigrant support programs, include including cash aid for refugees and non-citizens, employment and language services, and assistance for survivors for survivors of trafficking and crime.

We've invested over 90 million in services to immigrant communities since 2017.

And we participate in policy advocacy through public comment on proposed federal federal regulations that would be harmful to immigrants.

This was last month, strengthening the collaboration between our department of children and family services and the consulate.

The this MOU establishes a formal process for coordination and consular notification in child welfare cases involving Mexican or Mexican American minors.

It comes into play whenever a child in county care is identified as Mexican, when parents or relatives reside in Mexico, or when court proceedings or placements have cross-border implications.

Through this agreement, the consulate can be notified promptly and assist with family reunification efforts, obtain documents for immigration relief, and work with Mexico's agency to conduct home studies and monitor placements abroad.

And then, of course, with the interim coordination of immigrant and refugee services, we will be moving forward with your board's approval to create a team within our agency under my direction to enhance and coordinate support for immigrant and refugee communities across the county.

In closing, we remain steadfast in protecting immigrant and refugee rights, safeguarding privacy, and ensuring equitable access to community services.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much, Ms.

Hamilton.

So we've heard from our three speakers in the presentation.

To my colleague, any questions or comments?

Since we have you here, thank you, and thank you for your work on identifying the framework for the two new positions for the interim office of refugee and immigrant affairs.

Can you give us a status update in terms of when you think those positions will be filled?

We're still looking into it.

However, I'm available to get started at least on the conversations.

Yep.

Okay.

But we it it is a priority in terms of being able to fill those positions.

Okay.

We've been having internal meetings with our HR department to see kind of how we can strategize to get somebody on as soon as possible.

I I will just flag I was in a uh meeting this morning, hosted by La Familia and Eden United Church has been hosting meetings, but there is a real need for um convening and collaboration collaboration work in center and south Alameda County.

Um North County's doing a great job.

There's a lot of connections, a lot of resources, but we really need to build out that capacity.

So I just want to flag once those positions are identified, that's definitely something that we heard from our coalition partners, just really needing um leadership from the county to convene those meetings.

So hopefully we could get those positions filled soon so that way we could have that coordination that we know is desperately needed.

So just thank you, thank you for advancing that framework.

It was really impressive, and I'm glad that it was a unanimous vote.

Um, your over your presentation was extremely comprehensive, but can you speak to a little bit more?

What uh training are we providing to our employees, specifically those that are out in the field, whether they work in adult and aging or child protective services, what type of training are they receiving just to be mindful of possible ICE activity in the community?

So we our ICE docum, our ICE guidance for staff uh has is very very comprehensive.

We've been working on it for months, and Samantha's seen it many times over the past few months.

Um we are very close to sharing that with our staff and training them on that.

It does have to go to labor, um, but we are we're we're very very close.

Uh so once that happens, it will be rolled out and it has all of you know the protocols that Santa Clara County mentioned as well.

Um yeah, making sure that we're coordinating with our sheriff's off uh officers in our buildings and that the right people are responding to ICE agents so that we're not putting you know frontline staff necessarily um at risk in those types of situations.

And where it's appropriate, are we also um lessening restrictions in terms of whether an interaction with the community member, a client could be virtual versus in-person, since there is a lot of fear?

We I know some um visits require face-to-face in person, but where it's not mandated or required, is there some flexibility around that as well?

Um, I don't know that that's spelled out in our guidance right now, but we can um take that back and see if we can integrate it.

Okay, and then once the training goes through meeting confer with the labor groups, is that expected to be a voluntary or mandatory training?

I don't know yet.

Okay, okay, that's fine.

Thank you for being.

I do want to note we have uh the county council represented here in case you want to answer, help answer any of the questions.

That would be for Director Ford.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you to both of our agency representatives for sharing plans.

It's really great to hear how much you have been planning and working with staff as well as ensuring services to our clients for the health care agency.

Uh the training that was just discussed for social services, is that a similar training for you, or are you on a different track with the training you're doing with your um staff who is more out in the field?

We have a uh general guidance for our agency-wide staff that everyone gets, but sort of to some of the points that Hannah was making, the uh specific policies for the field staff were still under development for those.

So for a lot of our, and you know, field staff uh they belong to different unions, they do different types of work.

So something that we might develop for say our vector control staff would be different from uh maybe our uh public uh nurses who do home visiting, right?

So uh we're working through that, and so we're a little bit further behind than our social services counterparts, but hope to get that going soon.

Okay, thank you.

Can you give us a sense how many labor groups we're talking about, three, five, seven, just so we could understand the complexity of I believe we have about five across our agency.

Five.

And then SSA is it three?

Two to three, okay.

Okay, thank you.

And and I will note that on the field, um, you know, many of our field staff have uh other emergency policies that they use when um they're in the field, and those are really intended for you know their safety to make sure that they're not getting into any sort of uh situations that put them at risk.

Um, but I think with this one we need to tweak it a little bit more because they're also concerned for their clients.

And do you know if it sounds like Santa Clara's working through theirs?

We were just with LA County yesterday, didn't ask them this question, but we will follow up.

I know we have to go through meet and confer, but I don't know if I'm gonna be careful because I don't want to open a can of worms, but has the idea been floated um opting in, opting out.

I'm just trying to figure out if that's been discussed like options to engage, participate.

Cause I I will note one thing that was shared yesterday at our convening is some of the feedback from LA County was um they said that uh specifically one of their uh African American black employees male is just like I am not gonna interface with any type of law enforcement.

So I think those concerns for our BIPOC community is real.

Um so I'm just wondering, are you aware of any type of creativity options alternatives around this idea of um advancing this work but also being respectful to some people have some real fears and trauma related to interfacing with any type of law enforcement?

Yeah, without um speaking out of my HR um scope, uh I think that you know, any time we have a requirement for all staff to do something that's a very high bar uh in terms of you know coordination and partnership with our our labor partners.

Um and especially if it's something that you know our staff might think puts their safety or their job or other things at risk, just kind of accounting for that.

Um so the way that you know, even our uh current policies and procedures, it's really framed as guidance uh for staff to be able to take.

So in the event of you know law enforcement First Amendment auditor or ICE shows up, um, we would want them to notify their supervisor and sort of have leadership uh come in and help support them.

Um, and in the instances, you know, where there's subpoenas involved, etc., then we've got protocols for uh getting counsel involved.

Um, so really trying to be mindful of the diversity of our staff and the different trauma that different groups carry um and how they might um show up in this space.

I I don't have a good answer for you in terms of.

I think we're trying to figure it out so that that's that's real.

I appreciate that response.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hannah.

Do you have a response as well?

Just wanted to add that it's three unions for SSA.

Okay.

Okay.

Um I do have a question for SSA.

Um, so noting um, it was very helpful to hear Santa Clara County talk about how with their response plan they will be engaging community-based organizations, and it's very iterative.

Um is there anything that would be helpful from our committee in supporting the onboarding of staff for the two positions that we approved for the interim office of immigrant and refugee services as it relates to carrying out the work that we envision, but also you know, I think this developing a response plan where we have input from those on the ground is also very critical and should be part of that work.

Is there any support from our committee that would be helpful?

You know, I think we are um in the very kind of inception of this work, um, but we really look forward to partnering very closely uh with you and your staff, um, as well as our um foundation partners that uh have an interest in this.

Um, so we will uh uh I think well, I think right now um what I would say is our policy breakfast is tomorrow.

Um, I know Supervisor Marquez will be attending, um, and hopefully, and I I believe staff from both offices will be there.

Um, we will have a breakout session where where there will be an opportunity to hear from our CBO partners uh some initial ideas on this.

Um, and so that's kind of one one area where we can start to get some input, but this is just it's just the tip of the iceberg.

This is something that we are really looking forward to engaging on.

Thank you.

Okay, let's go to public comment on these items.

We have 13 speakers, Mickey Dexberg, Francois, Leslie Firestone.

Good afternoon, Supervisor Marquez and Supervisor Fortunato Basque.

Very glad to be here today.

And today I'm representing the first Unitarian Church of Oakland, the Justice Council.

I want to commend both of you and your all of your staff for creating such an urgent proposal to make our community safe instead of threatened by mass men with guns.

As you both know, the city of Evanston, Illinois saw a horrific attacks by ICE in the last week, and the mayor issued a warning to the whole nation, get out in front of this now.

The reason we could give emergency assistance, organized food, safe houses is because we started organizing months ago.

So what you've done already is part of that, and you're getting out in front of this, and we are very, very thankful for that.

The Justice Council encourages you to unequiv take this one step further and unequivocally state that the county does not support the federal government turning the former women's prison in Dublin into a detention center.

As you both know and have worked on, the prison was a site of horrific sexual and physical abuse, and until thousands of Bay Area residents insisted it be shut down.

We encourage an urgent dialogue with the board and other elected officials in cities around the county, because having a detention center in Dublin will affect everyone in the county.

It's well documented around the country that when there's a detention center, there's more arrests, more violence, more terrorizing, and more separation of families and all of the surrounding communities.

So we need the strongest possible statement that our county infrastructure will not be used in any way to support a gulag in Dublin.

And I know you know this, but I'm saying it for the record.

I use that word intentionally because we know that ICE detention centers involve sleep deprivation, food deprivation, and interrogation, sometimes bordering on torture.

So we encourage you to do everything possible to make it impossible for there to be a detention center out there.

Thank you.

Sir Mark Advisor Marquez Supervisor for Sonado Bas.

Um I am a president of the district five, and as you know, a member of Isma DSA.

I am also from a refugee family.

So when Asian Law Caucus found that the detention and deportation of Southeast Asian had risen six times, I was horrified.

Hence my immense gratitude for the actions that you are taking today, creating uh ice-free zones as well as your unwavering support on October 3rd for the ethical investment policy because those two are part of the same continuum of defense against the campaign of terror of ice.

Right now, the county has about 4% of its investment in Cisco and Alphabet to companies that are contracted by ICE to provide them with communications apparatus and cloud computing uh capacity to identify the next targets.

Well, the ethical they might not be subject to the ethical investment policy.

The investment from those companies would go a long way in telling your residents that the county will not profit from their own impression.

Thank you.

Excuse me, um, you said Cisco, and who's the other company?

Alternate to our current company of Google.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm a member of the know your rights health care working group, made up of health professionals and health educators living in Alameda County and working in Alameda County, and I'm also a local community activist.

I commend you on taking steps to protect our neighbors.

I want to comment specifically on the protecting our hospitals and health care facilities in the response plan.

I definitely support such a plan.

However, in reviewing this plan as written, there appears to be a large hole that leaves patients at county clinics and hospitals extremely vulnerable.

It is imperative that the plan include a directive to each specific county health facility to create a detailed response protocol should ICE enter that facility.

Each plan must include training all staff, especially those front facing positions, such as reception and security staff in how to respond to an ICE encounter, training administrative staff on how to review and respond to judicial warrants, adding additional privacy barriers wherever possible to waiting areas, creating policies around documentation of any on site enforcement actions, and ensuring that patients are informed that there is indeed a plan to support their safe usage of health care unless patients feel safe and know that providers there are taking appropriate precautions, they will not access vital services for both acute and chronic conditions.

Only when such plans are in place and training has taken place in each facility will the county be prepared.

I also want to say that I support the ice free zones policy.

Thank you.

You have two minutes.

Hi, this is Jean Moses.

I'm a member of the Interfaith Coalition for Justice in Our Jails and also of Faith in Action East Bay.

I want to build on what Nikki Duxbury has already said.

We work very hard to end the use of FCI Dublin to house women who are treated as inferior and less valuable than others of us in society.

It would be totally horrific to see that rundown and dangerous facility used again to hide away people who are deemed less than.

The circumstances of their kidnapping and detention are setting up the same dynamic.

If you label people as dispensable and hide them away, you can mistreat them while pretending that they are gone or don't matter.

We must say, not in our county, not on our watch.

Let's not get co-op.

Well, I wanted to say that I'm also that I'm I'm really proud to be a resident of Alameda County, where I can tell my grandchildren that they live in a place where people value the individual dignity and freedom of not just the visible well-to-do people, but every single person with no exceptions in Alameda County.

Let's not get co-opted by our current federal government.

Let's do everything we possibly can to send the message that we reject and abhor the policies and actions of ICE and its aligned agencies.

Thank you so much for what you're doing.

Rebecca Journey, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Hi, my name's Rebecca Gurney, and I work for East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, an immigration nonprofit located in Berkeley.

EBSC reaches over 12,000 immigrants yearly with legal and social services.

We serve people from 72 countries and in over 20 languages with expertise in Spanish and mom-speaking communities.

I'm here today to support the proposal for creating ICE-free zones.

I encourage the community committee to make sure that county services and resources will not go towards the caging of our neighbors in an immigration detention facility in Alameda County, such as ICE has discussed doing at FCI Dublin.

EBSC and the communities we serve have been deeply impacted by the federal government's deportation agenda.

Our multilingual hotline website and staff are experiencing huge volumes of requests for trusted legal information and linguistically accessible support.

We've been working hard to educate our community, including local businesses, on their constitutional rights and how to protect private spaces.

We're incredibly thankful for your dedication to protect Alameda County residents by allocating resources for CLIP, legal services, and organizing.

But Alameda County cannot be a sanctuary county if there's an ICE detention center here.

ICERS have a direct relationship with the availability and proximity of immigration detention centers.

If we do not do everything in our power to prevent ICE from opening a detention center at FCI Dublin, more of our friends, family, and neighbors will be detained and live in fear.

Moreover, in the past few weeks, we've seen the impact that the news of increased immigration raids has had on our community.

Events were canceled, families went without work, and children stayed home from school.

Thankfully, the mass raids we are seeing throughout the country have not yet arrived in our county, but they will.

We highly support the creation of an immigration enforcement response plan to use this time to make sure our county is prepared to respond and keep our community safe.

Thank you.

Amy, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Thank you so much, Honorable Chair and members.

My name is Amy Heinz Schick.

I'm a member of Bay Resistance, and I've been a volunteer precinct walking in Dublin to get the word out to Dublin residents to stop the reopening of FCI Dublin for any carceral purpose.

I'm a parent, a union member, and a small business owner.

And several of my clients that are that I provide services to are in Alameda County.

I'm here today to support the proposal for creating ice free zones and to encourage the committee to encourage, to ensure that county services and resources will not go towards the caging of our neighbors in an immigration detention facility in Alameda County, as ICE has discussed doing at FCI Dublin.

I also support the creation of an immigration enforcement response plan.

This is a critical moment for all people of conscience to speak up, especially our elected leaders.

Thank you so much for everything you're doing in clear terms.

Thank you so much for the concern that you've expressed for our immigrant communities after the threat of escalation of federal agents into the Bay Area.

FCI Dublin was the site of horrific staff sexual abuse.

FCI Dublin's infrastructure is dilapidated and dangerous.

There is mold, asbestos, and broken plumbing.

We do not need to spend more resources to fix these myriad of problems.

It needs to be demolished.

ICE arrests increase in areas with immigration detention centers.

ICE arrests and deportations tear families apart.

ICE detention centers have horrific conditions.

Violent ICE enforcement undermines everyone's civil rights and liberties, and I implore you to strengthen and pass this proposal to ensure Alameda County does everything in its power to prevent FCI Dublin from becoming an ICE detention center.

Thank you.

Marla Kamiya Sailaja Lita.

Thank you.

And I just want to announce that if you do wish to speak on the screen, then please go ahead and raise your hand or turn in your speaker card now.

I will need to cut off public comments so we can work within the time frame allotted.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

My name is Marla Kamiya.

I am a Berkeley resident and a member of Sudo for Solidarity, a Japanese American organization working to stop mass detention and deportation based on our own community's experience of mass incarceration during World War II.

My U.S.

citizen parents, aunts and uncles, as well as my grandparents were removed from their California home and incarcerated in a prison camp in Amachi, Colorado.

Sudo for Solidarity is a strong member of the ICE out of Dublin Coalition.

We deeply appreciate the leadership that you are giving to the defense of immigrants' rights over many years, super um Supervisor Bess, and especially in this current moment.

We support your efforts to create a response plan, especially to make workplaces, hospitals, and courthouses safer for all residents to access.

We support your effort to create Alameda County ice-free zones.

We know, however, that Alameda County cannot be an ice free zone if we allow an ICE detention facility to open in Dublin.

As others say, research shows that ice rates increase drastically in regions with detention facilities, and the truly substandard inhumane conditions of these centers run by private for-profit contractors has been well documented.

We do not want to be complicit in our silence.

As part of an ICE-free Alameda County, we urge you to include language opposing the possible opening of a detention facility in Dublin or anywhere in Alameda County.

And to specify that no county services or resources will be used to support the opening of such a facility.

And the coalition would like to have more discussion with you about some of the implications of this.

So thank you to both of you for your leadership and this very challenging time.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Sila Jessuresh.

I'm from the Alameda County Office of Education.

Thank you for this space.

Wanted to provide a couple of updates.

One, appreciate the work that the supervisors did in creating the rapid response fund for food insecurity that our Alameda County residents are facing right now.

One update from ACOE is that we're also going to be providing direct assistance to our foster and McKinney Vento homeless youth.

So we're working on that right now so that those families can get direct assistance.

In addition, we are working with the volunteers who've been running the Oak Adopt a school model to run the foot patrol trainings.

So we will be organizing outreach as well as supplies for schools that are interested in instituting a foot patrol in the morning drop off or afternoon pickup times so that our students and our families feel safe coming to and from school and are also coordinating with the safe routes to school from the Alameda Transportation Authority as well.

So we'll have the supplies available through ACOE, and we'll be reaching out to school leaders to provide those supplies to them.

As we know, the uh attendance uh dipped the week that we had the ice scare here in Alameda County, and we want to make sure that we don't see those same attendance impacts in the future.

The kits will include safety vests, whistles, air horns, flyers for community awareness, as well as red cards.

Uh hello, supervisors.

I am a member also of the know your rights.

Can you adjust the mic so we could hear you, please?

Thank you.

There you go.

I want to make sure we could hear you.

Okay.

I'm a my name is Lita Crowick.

I'm a 35-year-old resident of Oakland.

And I am also part of the know your rights health care working group.

Um, one of our members uh wanted to make a statement and couldn't, and I'm wondering can I have your permission to read it to you?

Um this is from Dr.

Keitia uh Weingarten.

Uh recent research consistently shows that immigration enforcement, oops, immigration enforcement deters people uh from seeking health care services.

Hispanic communities in wait, this kind of got sorry.

Well, Hispanic communities in 28th clinics in the Los Angeles area reported that the appointment cancellation and no-show rate jumped by 30 percent, triple the usual rate in the weeks since the federal enforcement rates heightened.

Importantly, these chilling effects extend to legal residents and citizens who may fear confrontation or worry about putting family members at risk.

One study found that immigration enforcement programs uh led to a 17% decline in health care visits, even among Hispanic immigrants who are authorized residents.

When people avoid health care due to enforcement fears, untreated infectious diseases spread, chronic conditions worsen, and preventable emergencies can become fatal.

Public health workers see this every day, even in the best circumstances.

It is a challenge to ensure to ensure patients with infectious diseases like tuberculosis complete treatment.

ICE presence at clinics makes this that worse, by actively discouraging uh patients with curable infectious diseases from seeking care.

Um, that's from uh Dr.

Weingarten.

I I also have a couple of comments.

I'm I'm the probably the only one on the committee that's not a doctor, I'm a lawyer and former administrative law judge.

And I really think it's important when you do the training, that you have a timeline for training and you establish a protocol for um public-facing staff to contact someone, who to contact if ice comes in, um, someone who knows how to look at a warrant, see if it's actually a judicial warrant, or what they've been doing is these administrative warrants.

Um, um, so I think when you people have access to know your rights, information that isn't enough.

They are too scared, and they really need a protocol and a training to know how to react in a way that will protect the public.

Um, and I've heard a lot about um, you know, designating private spaces and public spaces from public spaces to protect people, but I would also suggest that maybe you could explore modifying uh what is public spaces into a more private space, like a waiting room.

Maybe you could have an entry at the waiting room, so you can't just walk in.

Um, and um thank you so much for your comments.

Okay, thank you.

Dr.

Cesada Cruz, you have two minutes.

Uh many blessings to all of you.

I hope you can hear me okay.

Honorable supervisors, I'm here before you, not as a stranger, but as someone who has been part of this community for over three decades, working, contributing, paying taxes.

We feed over 22,000 Alameda County neighbors through homies empowerment, but no government contract.

Yet for most of my own personal life, I've been undocumented.

I've lived this contradiction of taxation without representation.

I know firsthand what it's like to have my own mother deported on three different occasions as a child.

That terror stays with you forever.

There are so many myths about immigrants, but this terror, this human catching is not new from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the deportation of the 1930s to Japanese American tournament, which we just heard about to Operation Wet back in the 1950s.

We just continue to repeat this history.

I know you know that immigrants are not drains on our society.

We contribute over 8.9 billion in taxes to California annually, but we also contribute all over Alameda County in so many other ways.

But beyond statistics, there's some sacred truths for our Mexican and Mexican American relatives.

This is ancestral homeland.

We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us nationally.

You may not know this, but we have over 600,000 black relatives who are undocumented, over 500,000 white relatives undocumented, over 1.7 million Asian relatives undocumented.

They're not criminals.

Migration in search of shelter has only been criminalized, but it is not inherently a crime.

Today you have the power to reject the myth that some human beings are illegal.

You can refuse to let human catchers operate in our county facilities by supporting supervisor Nikki Bassis proposals.

You don't just make us a sanctuary county, you make us a model for beloved community for this nation.

Govern with courage, choose sanctuary and choose love.

Bless you all.

Doug, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Hello, my name's Douglas Ashida, and I'm an Oakland resident emergency physician at Stanford Trivalley Medical Center in Pleasanton.

My father at age 15 was taken from his home during World War II.

He and his family were shipped off to a prison in the middle of the desert.

That's what Roosevelt did, invoking the Alien Enemies Act and then an executive order to incarcerate 125,000 Japanese Americans without due process.

Trump has invoked the same act to brutally round up assault and detain tens of thousands of immigrants.

As you know, his administration now wants to convert the FCI in Dublin to an ICE detention facility.

Studies have shown that where there's an ICE detention center, local immigrants are two to sixteen times more likely to be arrested.

The FCI was closed a year ago when it was discovered that the wardens and others were raping the inmates.

The prison is infested with mold, asbestos, and is leaking pipes, and is unfit for habitation.

Stanford Tri-Valley is the closest hospital to the FCI, and I took care of women from this prison.

This legacy of abuse cannot continue.

Should it be converted, it'll be run by a private contractor, corporations that have a long history of prisoner abuse and abysmal medical care.

Already 25 people have died in their custody.

Opening this facility will threaten the care of our local community, as we'll have to admit many patients from the ICE facility that would otherwise be treated as an outpatient because of a lack of outpatient care and follow-up.

This potentially could overwhelm our hospital.

But about a year after my father was released, the U.S.

government actually drafted him.

He, like so many others, proved his loyalty by serving.

Now, as his child, I'm asking you to show your patriotism by standing up against a dictatorship and speaking up for immigrants by not only passing the ice free zone statement, but also ensuring that no resources will support the opening of any ICE facility in Alameda County.

Thank you.

Janet, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Okay.

Um, my name I'm actually Dr.

Lore.

I'm a physician uh who lives in Berkeley at this point.

Um I am also part of the uh know your rights uh for health care facilities group.

Um my major concern with the current response plan is the lack of specific instructions and requirements for response to ICE presence in health care facilities.

The most far-reaching effect of ICE presence at healthcare facilities is not the potential for violence at the facility, nor the concern about sharing health care and health information.

The problem is that vulnerable individuals will simply avoid health care maintenance due to fear of ice presence.

And that includes ICE presence in the parking lot and in the waiting area.

During COVID, uh hospitals were able to restrict access to waiting areas because they were concerned about COVID.

They can impose the same restrictions now to prevent ice from coming into waiting areas that can be considered private.

Will simply forego maintenance visits.

People who are ill will avoid health care contact in the early stages of an illness, allowing symptoms to worsen to crisis points, and in the meanwhile, spreading infectious diseases through the community.

Healthcare facilities need clear policies that prevent ice presence anywhere near the facility.

And forward facing staff need to have access to security and administrative personnel during off hours such as evenings and weekends.

Thanks very much.

Amanda Berger, John Lindsay Poland, and Iris Barrera.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

My name is Edis.

I'm part of the Rajalares Unidos Workers United, Aquilead and the ISAT of Dublin Coalition, and appreciate Yal's work, especially Supervisor Nikin Afortunado Bass for your leadership and ensuring that our immigrant communities are safe against these current attacks.

And I'm here today to support the creation of an immigration enforcement response plan and creating ice-free zones as well as to encourage the committee to ensure that county services and resources don't go towards the caging of our neighbors in an immigration detention facility in Alameda County, as ICE has discussed opening one in the Fed uh former federal women's prison in Dublin.

We've seen the negative impacts of having ICE presence towards our communities, and having a detention center increases ICE activity and arrests, putting our communities at an even greater risk of being kidnapped.

And your continual support and collaboration to protect our immigrant neighbors and communities.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Amanda Berger, and I'm a resident of West Berkeley and an active member of Bay Resist, see the vote in ICE Out of Dublin campaign.

I thank you for your work to make our community safer and to prevent ICE from launching raids from county-owned property and hospitals.

I do hope you will consider voicing opposition to the reopening of FCI Dublin as an ICE detention facility and or as a launching storage ground for ICE vehicles, et cetera.

Since May, I have canvassed numerous times neighbors in Dublin, and there are literally thousands of people in that area who do not want this detention facility in their community.

I currently work with a neighbor who is in fear of losing his green card after his son who sponsored him died of cerebral palsy, and I supported an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, who is an amputee.

I am seeing up close and personal the impact of the inhumane raids and detention of our community and friends.

In October, I traveled with Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity to see the three detention facilities in Central Valley, and I was greatly concerned about conversations with family members about the conditions inside, including lack of medical care, inadequate food, unsanitary conditions, and the overuse of solitary confinement for men and women detained.

Again, I hope that in your proposal you can look at creative options for stopping the reopening of FCI Dublin as a detention facility in our county, including canceling county contracts to FCI Dublin for basic services.

Thank you again for your leadership in these ever so difficult times.

Good afternoon.

We know that when this resolution comes to the full board of supervisors, there will be other voices in the room, including your peers on the board.

And uh one of the things that may come up is uh that sometimes law enforcement agencies, and I would include the sheriff's office of this county, say that they cannot obstruct lawful activities of federal agents.

The catalog of unlawful activities by ICE and this federal government is very long and growing longer.

There is the uh ICE and federal agents illegally denying due process.

There is the illegal use of violence, there's suspending funds.

The uh chief of these agents has said himself, President Trump, that he wasn't sure if he's obligated to uphold the constitution.

So law enforcement agents are familiar with the duty to intervene.

When the another law enforcement agent is breaking the law, they have a duty to intervene.

And this includes denying services.

This principle should be extended to include the denial of things that normally the county would feel obligated to provide, even by law.

But when an agency is breaking the law repeatedly, violently, hurtfully, this county has a duty to intervene.

And I would finally say that it may people may believe that this county can't kick out ice from Dublin, but if you express that opposition, it will make a difference in whether it happens.

Leslie Rose, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Leslie Rose.

I'm a proud constituent of Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

I'm also a member of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club.

I want to thank the committee for everything you're doing to protect our community and to express my support for these proposed resolutions.

The Wellstone Club is also a member of the ICE out of Dublin coalition.

I want to second the previous comments about the dangers of the threat to turn FCI Dublin into an immigration detention center.

I urge you to do whatever you can to prevent that from happening by, for example, as others have pointed out, making clear that the county will not provide it with services.

Thank you.

Christopher, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Thank you, Supervisor Fotonato Bas and Supervisor Marquez and the Together for All at Hot Committee.

My name is Christopher Martinez, Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation, a partner of ACILET.

I fully support the county developing a community-focused coordinated response plan.

We are in a public health crisis.

Our plan should be more than policy.

It should be about protecting the dignity, safety, and trust of our community.

Guiding principles reflecting our shared values will allow us to protect everyone's rights and safety.

Act quickly and work together across county departments and community partners to respond rapidly and effectively.

Help communities heal and recover, and encourage transparency and accountability in how we serve our residents.

I also strongly support establishing ICE-free zones in county facilities, including schools, libraries, health clinics.

So families can seek services safely and without fear.

These spaces are essential for building trust and community stability and no ICE detention in Dublin.

As a Clip, we look forward to being in conversation with you all, sharing some of the lessons learned from the hotline and our work in the community.

By developing a community-led response plan and affirming ICE-free zones, our community our county will send a powerful message that we stand with our neighbors, uphold our values, and are committed to a community where everyone feels safe and supported.

Thank you so much for your strong and continuing leadership and for considering this important step advancing Alameda as a fully inclusive county.

Thank you.

Diana Garcia, you have two minutes.

Hi, this is Deanna Garcia with First Five Alameda County.

Just want to share appreciation and support for the two policies presented today.

First Five Alameda County is working with our general counsel also for training for our support on for our staff.

And we welcome receiving policies and guidance from the county after they're adopted for alignment with our own work.

Thank you so much again for all your work and leadership in this in protecting our immigrant communities.

David Mort is back, Dave Thompson, April Newman.

Just want to say a few things.

ICE's hasty retreat a couple weeks ago on October 24th was not due to a billionaire's handshake, but due to a combination of the community badassery in pushing them out and the fact that Alameda County was not a hospitable place for ICE to set up shop.

And I think our community leaders for that part of the of the picture there.

The community is hard at work.

We're trying, for example, to figure out and post and get the numbers of who who is abducted.

Where are the vulnerable spots so we can be ready to defend those people and those vulnerable spots?

And we really love the idea that you're stepping in to take up some of that work.

We need to work in tandem.

Um as county leadership, um, we need you to say um this is the rule of law in this county.

Don't say, oh, well, it's not our counties.

Um Alameda Health System isn't the county, center health isn't the county, Alta Bates isn't the county.

This is Alameda County, and it's important for you all to lay it out the way it should be and expect people, institutions to follow.

Um that's really important.

And talk to your county department leads.

If it's okay to say we're not quite ready yet, but get on us, make us do our work, make us be prepared so we can together build the trust in our communities, build the strength in our communities, and build the health in our communities.

Thank you again for your good afternoon, uh Supervisor Marquez and Supervisor Portanada Bas.

My name is Dave Thompson.

I'm co-executive director of My Eden Voice, representing districts three and four.

I'm also a resident of district five.

Um, and by extension, we work in District Marquez's district as well.

Um first of all, thank you for modeling to your peers what it looks like when government-elected officials care for the future of their community.

We definitely appreciate that.

Um, and then from our standpoint, we're part of Aquadir.

So this is coming this both as a representation of our leaders and the broader network of Aquadir.

Uh, we appreciate the work on this response plan.

We appreciate the resources that you're providing to ensure that we're creating safe and secure communities.

We'd ask that you uh in addition outline a state of emergency that would marshal resources for families in adversely affected by ICE kidnappings, ice raids, um, or even those who are afraid to go to work because of the situation.

Uh, we also ask that you establish an eviction moratorium that would be triggered in the case of a of a large spread ice kidnappings or some other way to mitigate those who maybe can't pay their rent.

Um we also encourage you to work with the California courts to outlaw any ICE kidnappings.

Uh, modeled after what has been done by the Chief Justice in Cook County and Illinois.

Um, and then we also would ask that you if an ICE facility is established on any federal land in the county, that you would the county would actively dismantle any infrastructure that would support that land, including roadways and utilities.

And then finally, we would ask you to push the sheriff's office to state unequivocally that it will not criminalize civil disobedience.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is April Newman, and I'm the program manager for the Alameda County Collaborative for Removal Defense or Accord based at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and a member of the ICE Out of Dublin Coalition and the Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition.

Thank you very much for your leadership and support to secure and protect the safety and um of our community members regardless of where they were born.

I strongly support both the adoption of a resolution to prohibit county resources from being used to facilitate or enable immigration enforcement and the creation of a response plan as we continue to face increasingly aggressive and widespread federal immigration enforcement.

We must not make it viable for a DHS to operate in our beloved county where we uphold human and civil rights and support the right to migration and the right to seek immigration protection.

DHS and ICE have no place here.

We do not want a detention center in Dublin or anywhere, and we do not want our public resources, including any county resources, to help federal agencies cage abuse or deport us.

Taking a strong stand on making Alameda County an ice-free zone sends a clear message that we value humanity and liberty and we want to invest in the well-being of our residents, both newly arrived and long-standing.

As we have seen in locations across the country, the federal administration is attacking places known for their cultures and practices of being welcoming and upholding human dignity and constitutional rights.

So I support your proposal to create a plan to make sure that we are ready if and when the area is targeted again with brutal and racist ICE enforcement.

Many coalition and community members and I are here willing and ready and providing uh support to our immigrant neighbors so they can pursue their lives in immigrant and their immigration journeys in community with respect and dignity and not in detention.

Thank you so much.

Annx.

You have two minutes.

Anne Jenks.

You're on the line.

Good afternoon.

I'd like to thank the board of supervisors for their proactive approach to this unprecedented situation.

I'd also like to ask them to consider establishing specific policies for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

The presence of federal agents in Alameda County has the potential to damage the trust of county residents in local law enforcement and to place sheriff deputies in unnecessarily unsafe situations.

We need policies that include first regularly scheduled reporting to the Board of Supervisors, both on the presence of immigration enforcement, and instances of uh impersonation of law enforcement, civil rights violations, racial profiling, and excessive use of force.

Deputy sheriffs need protection and they need clear rules to protect them.

We need a policy that enables them to identify anyone in the county who purports to be law enforcement, requiring identification and uh credentials and documented on sheriff deputy body cameras.

Deputy sheriffs cannot safely respond in situations created by federal agents, as we have seen across the United States.

If possible, deputy sheriffs should attempt to identify agents, confirm the basis of detention during uh immigration detentions.

Deputy sheriffs should not be expected to engage in crowds or traffic control that enables or supports immigration enforcement, and deputy sheriffs should be instructed not to engage or intervene with crowds related to federal immigration enforcement, except in circumstances related directly to the safety of county residents.

Thank you.

Miriam, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Miriam Medin Myers.

I am a resident of Alameda County, and I am a lead organizer with Rahalores Unidos Workers United, also a part of the coalition ACULEED.

I am here today to support the proposal for creating ice free zones and to encourage the committee to ensure that county services and resources will not go towards caging our neighbors in an immigration detention in Alameda County, as ICE has discussed doing at SCI Dublin.

I also support the creation of immigration enforcement response plan.

FCI Dublin was closed for a good reason and it needs to stay closed.

It's crucial to clarify that the county will not provide county services to any facility that would support the caging of our neighbors in an ICE detention facility.

And if this detention facility is built in Alameda County, ICE will fill it with our neighbors, loved ones, our community members from across the Bay Area.

So it's important now more than ever that we ensure that FCI Dublin does not become an ICE detention center and create ice-free zones.

Thank you.

Diego Villegas, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Hello, everybody.

My name is Diego Villegas Aguilar.

I'm an organizer here with Trabajadores Sonidos Workers United, which is also part of the Acudir Coalition.

I live in Oakland and I serve the entire East Bay Area.

And there's a lot of community members over there that doesn't even know that this is a possibility, and uh have been telling me firsthand that it would create more division within the communities in Dublin.

I talked with people, I mean, not I couldn't talk with them because I have a language barrier with Hindi, with Persian, a lot of Latinx community over there, but I urge you to not support in any way for a detention center to be existent in Dublin because it will affect all of the communities of this entire region.

It will increment the detention, the abductions, and the suffering of communities here in Oakland.

And I also want to thank the supervisors here present for all the work they have been doing.

Thank you.

Andres Palmart, you have two minutes.

Yes, hello.

We're a local worker center that supports workers and community to know their rights and uphold their rights.

I'm here in support of the committee's proposal for a countywide uh immigrant enforcement response plan and ordinances that restrict the use of local county resources and properties for mice.

These policies will help promote the safety and security of all in our county, including families and workers.

Additionally, I also want to uplift that a reopening of the FCI Dublin does not create a safer Alameda County.

County resources should resort should not resource um detention centers or uh things that incarcerate our communities.

Thank you.

Laura's Martinez, you on the line, you have two minutes.

Hi, my name is Lourdes Martinez, co-directing attorney of the immigrant rights program at Centro Legal de la Rasa.

We're the leading organization in Asilep, Alameda County's Rapid Response Network, as well as the state-funded regional network hub for immigrant families.

We want to thank the county and this committee for the proposal for ice-free zones, which we support implementing in the most expensive manner possible to ensure immigrants and their loved ones continue to feel safe on county property and accessing county services.

Additionally, Asila would like to welcome the opportunity to be in conversation with a county regarding the creation of the response plan introduced here, so that we can share some of our lessons learned from what we hear from community through the hotline and what our legal team responds to week by week.

For example, we'd like to highlight how important it is for the county to consider community trust as well as mental health as goals intrinsic in this plan.

What a CLIP has been observing through the community's calls to our hotline in recent weeks is the fear and anxiety caused by all the various law enforcement operations taking place in Alameda County.

In the month of October alone, our hotline received nearly 1500 calls, even though most ICE enforcement activity at the moment continues to be targeted, and much of it takes place at ICE processing centers.

Nevertheless, Alameda County residents are calling the hotline frequently with fear and distress caused by the presence of law enforcement bodies in our county.

These include not only Alameda County Sheriff's Office and the various municipal forces that operate within our county, but also sheriff's offices from neighboring counties in Sacramento, the California Highway Patrol, as well as federal agencies such as the FBI, the Coast Guard-led Counter-Counter Drug Task Force, and others.

What these distressing calls reflect is the fear and vulnerability immigrant communities are and the men.

Interfaith movement, you have two minutes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Reverend Deborah Lee, and I'm one of the co-executive directors of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.

We are based here in Alameda County, District 3, and we engage with numerous faith communities and spiritual communities throughout the country that are very committed to ensuring that our immigrant neighbors are not racially discriminated, targeted, detained, or deported.

I want to thank you very much for the resolution.

Thank you, Supervisor Nikki Bass, for this, and thank you for your leadership on this.

I think it's so important that we do as much as we can on the area of prevention, to prevent further harm from occurring.

Already, you know, today we had two.

I know in San Francisco, I was there and someone was detained, and I know one of our clients, uh, our asylum clients was also detained.

It is check-in.

So the harm is already occurring, but the presence of a detention center so close to the Bay Area would be devastating to all of our communities and neighbors, and it would be more than any of the tremendous network of nonprofit organizations and movement organizations.

It would be more than we could be able to support and to handle.

We're barely staying afloat as it is now.

So as much as you it's possible to do that, to um make it take a stand, make clear statements that you're opposed to the and you would not support any of the support services or contracts that could feed into the potential detention system in Dublin, is really really critical.

Um, there are cities right now in California City in the South that opened up, and our the coalition we're part of recently.

We had to sue the city for not doing that.

So we really want to collaborate with the county to take a united stand as a community to prevent harm, to keep our communities safe, and to make sure no one is uh is caged under deplorable conditions.

Thank you.

Daniel, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Hi, my name is uh Daniel Dongsey.

I'm with the NFA Movement for Human Integrity as a Alameda resident myself.

You know, I also uh support this uh resolution of uh uh ice free zone.

Um, especially myself, like you know, working directly with our immigrant population.

I see um, you know, just um just uh just the um the stress, the depression, just pretty much everything that they go through day to day to day in their life dealing with um you know this threat of mass deportation, and uh I want to ensure that uh the county follow through with this and also create more um more uh resolution and policy that that would uh support our immigrant um community and that will also expand widely to um uh um deny um immigration enforcement any any type of access to uh weaponize any any any resources against our community.

So uh I just want to say thank you so much for standing up and um being a being a model to uh help our community and also to fight back against uh this uh this this uh this horrible uh policy from um you know the disadministration.

Thank you.

There are no more speakers.

Thank you.

Um I do want to note that the public defender is also one of the uh important arms that we are supporting in our immigrant rights, immigrant defense strategy, and want to invite them up to speak.

I believe um we have Raha who runs the immigration unit on Zoom.

Raha, could you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

You're on the line.

Thank you, supervisors uh for proposing these measures.

Uh, as you know, the Alameda County Public Defender firmly supports the creation of an immigration enforcement response plan as well as the proposal to restrict the use of county owned and county controlled properties from immigration enforcement activity.

We believe that these proposals help us do our jobs better and protect vulnerable community members.

And I will say that these proposals are not just to protect immigrants, they're to protect all of us, unmarked vehicles roaming our communities and masked agents making civil immigration arrests, even when people are doing what courts have ordered them to do, such as appear in court.

That's harmful to us all.

Um, and as the last seven or excuse me, eleven months have shown, aggressive and violent enforcement tactics jeopardize the safety of all of us.

They reap chaos and disorder.

We've seen numerous U.S.

citizens harmed in this process alongside immigrant community members.

Just yesterday I watched a video of a man whose leg was pinned down by an ICE police vehicle.

These are terrifying actions that proposals like this are meant to prevent, and we appreciate as always your leadership on these critical issues.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you so much.

Um Raha, while you are with us, if you don't mind, um, do you happen to have does your office happen to have any information in regards to um guidance from the state judicial council about activities related to immigration in our courts?

For example, there's the new masking law.

Um any information that you can share about safety in our courts.

Thank you for the question, Supervisor.

I do not have any additional information as far as guidance from that, Bobby.

Thank you.

All right, um, thank you so much to all of the members of the public who came to speak and everyone who has been engaging really throughout the whole year with our committee and in support of all of our residents.

Um I wanted to offer up some potential direction for these two items, and we do have one more item, so I appreciate everybody's patience.

Um, so firstly, we have uh the response.

We have the response plan, and I want to lift up a couple things that came out from the conversation.

This is not exhaustive, um, but I do want to lift up the importance of engaging with our community-based organizations, including those which we are supporting to build up our immigrant rights and refugee rights infrastructure.

Um I wanted to lift up the need to make sure that the training that is being created by some of our departments is being reviewed by our county council, and we'll also go through our process with our labor unions.

I also wanted to lift up that the social services agency's MOU with the Mexican consulate in regards to protecting children impacted by detention and deportation is really important, and perhaps that's a model for other consulates, as well as for you know others, other counties who may not have that MOU in place.

And wanted to also lift up the comment from Supervisor Marquez about the need for more capacity and infrastructure in Southern Alameda County.

One of the things that came up also from our partner in Santa Clara is that this will be an iterative process.

Certainly, the county already has some systems and protocols in place.

This committee, with our leadership, has been building up our infrastructure and will continue to do that.

But the work will probably not stop just given the dynamics of this administration.

So what's in front of you today is really initial direction for the county administrator.

It will be iterative, it will continue to engage people, and it will continue to evolve.

And of course, with both of these items, you know, we have interaction with our courts, we have interaction with our hospitals, our school system, and thank you to OCOE and FIRS Five for being here.

So all of that must be addressed in addition to how our resources will be used.

So for the plan in particular, I would like to move this forward to our next board meeting on November 18th, and that would be so that the full board could take action to provide further direction to the county administrator to continue developing this plan.

And then secondly, and I'll um share this and then get response from our vice chair.

In terms of the ICE-free zones, I think one of the things that's notable is that many, many jurisdictions are looking at this type of policy, both here in the Bay Area as well as across the country.

So there is an opportunity for us to coordinate with our regional partners to develop a strong policy.

There's also, as my colleague noted, the importance of consulting with labor, with our justice partners, with our community partners.

And I also wanted to note the request around the coalition working to stop Dublin FCI from reopening.

So that is also something that we could look into.

And just on personally, I wanted to share that I was really honored to join Suru and a number of the ICE coalition working on keeping ICE out of Dublin and others for the event that happened out in Dublin and have signed the petition so that I am on the record not personally supporting it, but I am interested in meeting together with the coalition and also seeing what it would look like to incorporate those requests into what the board is considering.

So for the ICE free zones, I would like to hold on bringing it to the full board so that we have an opportunity with county council, with staff and our partners to do some further development and also make sure that we are aligned with other jurisdictions who are working on similar policies.

Okay, Supervisor Marquez, your thoughts.

Yes.

Excuse me, we're all getting over colds here.

Um I just want to thank you for your leadership on this as well as your team.

I know this was a heavy lift, but just reflecting on all of the work that this committee has done, as well as listening carefully to our other three colleagues on the board in order for us to advance any of the work, we really have to get buy-in and support from our colleagues.

So I feel that we are very close to that, but not quite ready.

I think we're missing hearing from General Services Director, GSA, as well as our justice partners.

And I also heard the need to know exactly what our hospital or public safety net hospitals are doing with respect to Alameda Health System for SB 81.

So I feel like today was extremely comprehensive.

We heard from two of our main department heads, but I'm just worried if we advance this in two weeks, our colleagues are just gonna kick it back to what about, and those are gonna be their questions.

Where is our position on justice partners as well as GSA?

So I I think we're really really close, but my preference would be to bring those missing um presenters to our next meeting, or even if we have to schedule a special meeting, but I'm just really concerned that our colleagues will not be ready without us fully exploring those other department heads, and that's in relation to both of the items.

The plan which would where the action is further direction to flush it out and have it come back to the board and the ice-free zones.

Yes, I think we need to hear from those entities before we can advance it to the full board.

So it'd be GSA as well as our justice partners, and then getting an update from Lameda Health System with respect to SB 81.

So once we have that feedback and input, then I would hope that they would be inclined to support it.

That way we could say we fully vetted this with all of the key departments.

My concern is if we advance it as is, that's gonna be the pushback we get.

Okay, so um as well as county council.

I mean, they're hearing this today, and we need their analysis as well.

So I think there's just um a little bit more work that is needed in order to bring it to the full board.

Okay, I do want to note I have received some uh initial input from county council and from the sheriff.

Um, and again my intention was um to bring this forward that week that we had the potential ICE escalation, and so um, you know, this came instead of going to the full board, it came to our committee.

And I do believe there is more consultation that needs to happen.

Um certainly for the ice-free zones, I think that should definitely um continue to get vetted, um, including by GSA.

And for the plan, just give it I want to make sure we're on the same page here, given that the direction would be for further development with the administration.

You still don't feel comfortable sending that to the full board and want to keep it here in committee.

I want to hear from the justice partners as well as GSA, just like we got updates from staff in terms of what's being done already and how to advance the work.

I want to make sure the public knows what's currently being done, what's missing, so we could further expand the plan.

Like if they're highlighting things that are missing or things that are already being done, then we'll know what's in place and what's outstanding.

So, my goal is to be as comprehensive as we can and get this to be as responsive and defend and protect our community at all levels, and I feel like we have a lot and most of the information, but not we need just a little bit more.

Okay, so just so that we can capture this for um the minutes.

So the action is to um have this come back to committee, and to hear specifically from GSA, and our justice partners, so just to be clear for everyone that's probation, sheriff department, public defender, and the DA.

Okay, and that way they have time to review this as well.

They could tell us what's currently in place, what's it, what's not.

Um, like we flagged earlier, the court system and the judicial council.

So at this point, we're trying to assess what we know, what we have in this county, and what's missing.

Right.

So just like we got the feedback from our two department heads, I want to hear that from the justice partners as well as GSA.

And just so everybody knows, General Services Agency manages all of our buildings.

So they're going to be instrumental in anything we do.

And then we can also add the work that we heard from the public today in terms of responding to not having uh the prison in Dublin become a detention center.

So we could also incorporate that as well.

So basically taking the work we've done today plus community input, how do we expand that work?

I think we need one more touch point before we bring it to the full board.

Okay, so we can collect that information from those that you mentioned, plus getting an update from Alameda Health System as well.

SB81, yes.

Yeah.

And my staff has reached out to our health partners, AHS, the consortium, and a few others to check in with them as well.

Yeah, and I I do believe they're being responsive, but I think they should come here to tell the public exactly what's being done.

Okay.

Okay, so we've got um agreement on that next step.

I don't know that we need to.

Can I ask, do you think that'll be for December's meeting?

That the sooner the better for me.

I don't want to, I just want to get this as close to we possibly can to present it to the full board.

Yeah, I'm not sure what's on the agenda for December though.

I think it can be would be the fourth.

Um, yes, we might have to check because that's the week of CSAC and ACTC.

So we'll have to make sure we confirm the date.

Okay.

Okay.

So maybe just for the minutes, um, why don't I make a motion to bring uh this particular item and these two pieces back to our December meeting, which we will confirm the date of, and we will have uh we will invite GSA, our general services agency, Alameda Health System, um, our justice partners, our four justice partners, and um supervisor Marquez.

With you being chair of public protection, I might also want to coordinate with you on reaching out and making sure that we get their involvement, yeah.

We're our office is happy to help coordinate and uh divide up those touch points because I know it is a heavy lift.

That would be great.

We're already working with county council, so thank you, Samantha, for being here today.

And then I will want to also check in.

Um, I'll meet with the Dublin coalition and we'll see what might be possible in terms of incorporating some of the feedback that we heard today.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so thank you everyone again for your patience.

We have one more item, and I really appreciate how patient everyone has been.

There's obviously a lot of interest.

So our second and last item is an update on federal impacts.

Um to our Asian communities, as well as recommendations, and I do want to note that um on October 14th when our board met to consider some additional funding allocations for immigrant and refugee justice.

We had some information about ICE arrests for the first half of this year.

And while the majority of those arrests have been of Mexican and Central American nationals, there is a lot of um impact still from many, many other communities, including the Asian community, the Southeast Asian community, and I am grateful that we have a number of presenters, a number of organizations who are here to share that with us as well as their recommendations.

So please come on to the front, and we welcome your presentation.

Thank you so much, uh, Supervisors Bass and Supervisor Marquez.

My name is Ben Wong, and I am with Asian Health Services.

Um, we are we first of all just want to uh really thank both of you for your leadership in creating this Act for All Committee and funding much needed services in Alameda County, including ACELEP, Accord Legal Services and ACUDEAR, Community Engagement, and more activities.

Also, thank you to all the supervisors for the unanimous support in taking these critical steps to support immigrants and refugees in Alamina County.

Our purpose here today is to share about a new working group composed of organizations in Oakland that provide direct services to Asian immigrants and refugees at very high risk of deportation.

And taking some of the data from the previous Act for All committee meeting materials, there is over 18% of ICE arrests in the San Francisco region, Bay Area region this year between January to July that are of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent, which is a significant number and a huge impact on many of our organizations, communities, and families.

Hi, Supervisor Marquez and Fortunato Bas.

Thank you for today.

My name is Elijah Chum.

And I also want to just say we stand in solidarity with Studio for Solidarity and the Japanese elders who stood by our Southeast Asian communities.

We stand with ISOT of Dublin as well, and they against ICE expansion in anywhere.

And we stand with Interfaith Movement who stood up against fear and mobilized our communities.

And so by saying all that, I know that our Southeast Asian community is not alone in this fight.

And we are grateful to share our work.

And today you will hear or from directly from organizations who have been providing essential direct services, support our Asian and Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees who often have final deportation orders, and who are under ICE supervision with upcoming ICE check-ins, court hearings, and at very high risk of deportation and family separation.

Many are also at great risk of third country deportation and living under that threat.

Many may not be recognized from Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia to be accepted into those countries.

You will hear our current system is not equipped to support the unique needs of our Southeast Asian community in Oakland and then Alameda.

And we also come in today with a spirit of collaboration.

We look forward to closer partnership with the county and have already begun establishing relationships with county-funding funded initiatives such as Accord and NACODEAR.

And we hope that today's presentation can inform the committee of our group's work, the needs and gaps in our Asian Southeast Asian community, and how our organizations can partner with the county to address these gaps.

Thank you, Supervisor Fortunato Bas, and Supervisor Vonquez, for your leadership in making Act for All a reality to protect refugees and immigrants.

Also, thank you, Supervisor Futonata Bass, for your strong and solid commitment to justice for refugees and immigrants, and for your support of the Pardon Refugee campaign.

I'm Mona Afari, the director of Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, SARI.

SERI was founded in 2006 as a community-based mental health agency in response to the urgent needs of about 100 Cambodian Khmer Rouge survivors of the Khmer genocide survivors who had endured unimaginable sufferings in their homeland.

They were resettled in the impoverished neighborhoods of Oakland and had been abandoned by the system for over two decades, never receiving culturally or linguistically appropriate mental health or social services.

They lived with severe PTSD and poverty and isolation, many grieving the loss of their youth and adult children to prison or violence.

Our mission was to create a haven, a place for survivors of trauma, war, torture, and genocide, and their families could begin to heal.

Over the past 20 years, Syria has opened its doors to other survivors of war and extreme trauma.

Today we serve 1,200 individuals each year from eight refugee and immigrant communities, offering mental health, social and advocacy services delivered by a staff of whom 90% are themselves refugees and immigrants.

Since the beginning of this administration, we've had to shift our focus, doing whatever we can to stop the deportation of our community members.

Our Southeast Asian 1.5 generation community faces removal orders, which my colleague Candy will speak about it, about our work with them.

Meanwhile, our Burmese, Afghan, and Eritrean members who fled war, and our Tibetan and Nepalese members who fled poverty and caste discrimination are now facing deportation as well.

We're hearing that 90% of asylum applications are being denied.

So we've hired an attorney to guide our care managers in helping our community members find pro bono legal services so they can file accurate asylum applications, and our therapists are providing psychological evaluations to document their trauma history.

Now I hand it over to Candy who will speak about her work with the Southeast Asian 1.5 generation refugees facing removal orders.

I grew up in West Oakland.

I am a daughter of a Cambodian refugee.

Six years ago in 2019, my husband was impacted by deportation.

I notified him to turn himself in.

With the help of Siri and other organizers across the bay, my husband is now free, safe, and a citizen.

Thank you, Supervisor Nikki Paz, for your support in this campaign.

Today I serve as a program manager for Syria Unbreakable Roots Program, supporting families like my own, those facing family separation.

I co-facilitate three support groups.

The first is for directly impacted 1.5 Southeast Asians born here, raised here, who grew up in poor neighborhoods, didn't speak English, and were bullied.

Many joined protective groups seeking safety, and some ended up committing crimes big or small.

Because they were born here, they were placed in removal proceedings for crimes that U.S.

born peers would have served time for and then free.

Now Southeast Asian refugees are being double punished, sent to countries they do not know.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been working with 47 directly impacted community members and their families.

The second group includes family and partners and children of those directly impacted.

The third group includes those struggling with complex mental health issues.

For each group, we provide wraparound care coordination, helping with everything from legal navigation, financial aid, mental health care.

We accompany them to ice check-in, court hearings and preparing social biopackets for pardon applications and helping them meet with their attorneys.

We also provide monthly healing events and support with language.

We do not have funding for this program.

There is only another part-time staff and myself.

With more people coming to Syria for help, my life has completely changed.

Every week is go, go, go.

I rarely pause, even at home with my five children.

I've always, I'm always on call, worried about missing a message or leaving someone out.

Last month during our big ancestral holiday, I could only attend Sirius Pichum Bun event, but I couldn't host my own family.

The Siri community is now my family.

I don't have a separate life.

There will be more people coming to us, and I know I have to be there for them.

Thank you.

When Sari began, it was with a deep commitment to justice.

And as you can see, we're still doing everything we can to live up to that promise.

It hasn't been easy.

We've lost funding, and as Kenley mentioned, there's no dedicated funding for anti-deportation program.

Still, we use every bit of resource we have just to keep one staff member and one halftime intern because this program is vital.

It protects families, it restores hope, and it saves lives.

But having just one staff member and a halftime intern is not sustainable.

This program needs more committed staff like Canley, especially as a number of individuals reaching out to unbreakable roots continue to rise.

So I urge you if the opportunity arises, please consider SARI for funding support.

Twenty years ago, one of my first clients was a survivor of genocide.

He had lost every family member during the genocide.

One of his deepest sorrows was that his son was in prison.

He blamed himself as he and his wife were living with severe PTSD at that time, were unable to protect or guide their son.

His son lost and was bullied and then later on joined a gang and eventually committed a crime.

Unfortunately, no one was hurt.

After serving his sentence for 15 years, he was released 12 years ago.

He turned his life around.

He found work, fell in love, got married, and became the devoted father of three children.

Then tragedy struck again.

His wife relapsed into addiction, and he was left raising his children alone with the help of his mother.

Last year, he received a removal order.

While Canley was working on his pardon application, he would meet with me weekly for therapy, bringing his three children, ages six, eight, and ten, with him.

One of them is autistic.

Our staff cared for them with love.

Every 10 minutes, the children would peek into the therapy room just to make sure that their father was still there.

He lived in constant fear, terrified by what would happen to his children once he was deported.

His mother had passed, there was no one left.

He was taken to emergency room twice.

He thought it was a heart attack, but it was actually a panic attack.

Canley worked tirelessly finding Probona attorneys to find both fight, both his criminal and immigration cases, and through her effort, his removal order was terminated.

So now he's a free man.

Today Larry is happy to now have the opportunity to give back not only to his community, but also to other refugee and immigrant communities at Seri, as he was just hired as of November 1st as a driver for Sari.

He's also overjoyed to once again have the chance to be the loving and devoted father.

He aspires to be for his three sweet children.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mona and Kenley from Siri for sharing your stories and your strength and courage, and I think uplifting this powerful model of holistic community building in the face of these threats of deportation.

Now, if it's possible, we have somebody from APSC on Zoom, Asian prisoner support committee who will share a little bit about his story and experience.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

Hi, thank you, Board of Supervisor.

On behalf of Asian Prison Support Committee, I would like to thank the Board of Supervisor, Supervisor Nikki Bass for your leadership and continued support for APSC and a champion for our community.

I am a 1.5-generation Cambodian.

I was born during the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, where half of my family members were murdered, including my father.

I grew up in a refugee camp until the age of six.

Growing up in a refugee camp, I saw horrifying horrific uh incidents of violence.

Um coming to uh immigrating to the US.

Uh we didn't understand anything.

We didn't even know where we were going.

Uh, coming here, we were bullied, uh, we bully and discriminated against and seek safety.

Uh, with the seeking safety, we gravitated into gang.

At the age of 18, I was already a father of two and was incarcerated.

After two decades of incarceration, uh, on the day that I was supposed to come home to my family, I was stuck with uh ICE detention.

Um, luckily, the community here in Oakland with Siri's Interfaith Movement and other uh organizations within Oakland supported me, advocated for me uh to uh for me to be free.

I was one of the fortunate ones that was freed and never detained, but still live under threat of deportation.

Um coming home, um, I wanted to support my community in uh in nervous changing of our incarcerated APIs, and also uh uplifting and uh advocating for folks that are facing deportation to countries that they've uh they don't know.

A lot of our folks in our community don't even speak the language or even understand the uh the landscape of the countries that they are being deported to.

Um starting of this administration and this increase of ICE enforcement.

To this day, I've lost over 10 of my childhood friends.

Um just three days ago.

I received the news.

One of my childhood friends uh recently was deported to Cambodia.

Um as I look around now, most of the folks that I grew up with was 1.5 generation Cambodians came to the United States the same way as I did as refugee, um, face a lot of discrimination and hardship and are mostly now deported.

These folks were deported inhumanely, a lot of them uh left children behind, wives, elder parents, and these are the children that our parents saved from the genocide to make it here.

Um APSC is a small organization, but we support our folks that are incarcerated in detention and also uh returning to our community.

We were we strive into supporting our folks to reunite with our community with uh cultural cultural healing, including uh navigation to support them in their successful re-entry back to our community.

I could share a story of some of our clients, but one that comes up for me is a mother of six.

Uh, she was incarcerated for less than six months, and is now in detention for over 16 months.

Um, as you heard, the detention center or like torture, uh torture uh chambers.

Um, the last I heard from her, she's in uh South Louisiana, and doesn't even have a cup to drink water while she's thirsty.

She's asked for just the the bare necessity of soap cup that she never received for medication.

Um, these are conditions that our community members are facing.

And our community members in our community right now, including myself, we live in so much fear.

Um, for my family that don't understand this immigration uh uh system.

They are they are so terrified that we can we cannot even talk about it.

Um I'm I'm happy to get support from organizations like Ceres to support my family and myself, uh APSC to support uh support me also.

And we are we we are impacted from war.

And this year should be a remembrance of the ending of the Vietnam War, but for our community is a continued uh trauma that we live with since the war since the genocide.

APSC is a small uh small organization, and the work that we do for our immigrant APIs and deportees uh uh are from the little resource that we do have.

We do need more resources.

I want to uh give a shout out to CCIJ for stepping in and supporting us in a lot of our work, know your rights, from knowing your rights to uh supporting some of our clients.

Um we had we asked that um API community are often forgotten when it comes to the immigration uh immigration issue.

We are at high risk of deportation.

A lot of our folks still check in after two decades of being home, asked uh the law request of them.

But this check-in, also our community is facing with the kidnap of their them.

They could be detained at any time when going for their regular check-in.

Um, a lot of our community members right now are just in shock and fear of even going to the store.

So I urge that uh, I urge that the this body support our organizations that are supporting our API community, and thank you for allowing me to speak and telling my story.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

So again, I'm Elijah Chum from New Light Wellness, and we were actually a project inside of Siri for many years and just emerged as our own organization last year.

So we're a small and mighty team, um, serving Southeast Asian communities impacted by deportation across borders and across seas, by nurturing trust, collective healing, and reunification.

And um, I am a child of genocide survivors, and my siblings are 1.5 generation, though I was born the same year my parents arrived in this country.

I feel very closely, deeply connected and rooted within our 1.5 generation.

Um the story of the 1.5 generation and the story of our children here is the story of mental health and wellness and our journey of healing.

Next slide, please.

This year, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary.

As the leader organizer of APSC said, This is the year of remembrance.

This is the largest refugee resettlement program in the US, where Southeast Asian refugees were resettled in neighborhoods enduring structural violence and racism.

This was the time of mass incarceration, war on drugs, and the 1.5 generation, the children born in Thai refugee camps or Philippine refugee camps, or in the genocide or the wars of the Secret War of Laos, or, you know, we call it the Vietnam War, but they call it the American War.

And these are the children most vulnerable to the school-to-prison to deportation pipeline.

Some arriving here at three months old and still being targeted for deportation.

We also came with the ideology of model minority myth, which pushes the issues of our community further in the margins and invisibilizes our suffering and stigmatizes those impacted by incarceration deportation.

And today we are standing up against family separation and we're building this beloved community.

So I'm so grateful for everyone standing with us today.

So the work we do at New Light Wellness, similar to CERE, similar to APSC and other organizations that you've already heard from, the drug service work is, you know, the best we can do is connect folks to legal support.

So we, of course, need more lawyers.

But part of the rapid response is the ICE accompaniment to court hearings and ICE check-ins.

Some lawyers want us to do the FOIA request.

We work with pardon applications, you know.

Lawyers, of course, are helpful in this and can do it, but community organizers can also do it with families.

We do a lot of declaration support.

And I want to mention that because individuals' declaration is one of the biggest pieces of evidence when they do the motion to reopen.

But when someone tells their life story, you know, these are multiple pages, and this is sometimes in most likely in chronological order.

And if a person has endured genocide, has endured violence when they arrived here, and abuse after abuse and violence after violence, it is a very triggering space.

It's a very hard to advocate for yourself, even if it's with a paralegal or a lawyer in declaration support.

So what I want to say is that some of the gaps are the mental health pieces.

How do we hold folks so that they could advocate for themselves, tell their stories, and not feel like they are raw and left alone afterwards.

And I've been able to do this kind of work at least two times this year with paralegals and lawyers.

And of course, you know, the social uh bio packet, social media toolkit, and we also care about holistically care about the family.

So we offer mental health therapy, life coaching, family support, financial aid, and we really uplift the participatory defense model.

Uh, next slide, please.

And so we look at this work as really serving the base.

Um, advocacy and mental health goes hand in hand while serving our impacted Southeast Asian communities.

Um, we recognize with intergenerational trauma comes intergenerational wisdom.

And these photos are images of that.

This is our pardon refugee coalition's uh advocacy day and peaceful visual at Sacramento in August.

Um, next slide.

And so Parton Refugees, as you see, our very own champion supervisor Fortunato Bass, standing by us.

Um, it was a coalition of 13 coalition members, and starting from June to August, in reaction to all the ICE raids and of loss of due process and loss of our rights.

Um, a lot of campaigns and individuals that had very public campaigns went very silent in fear of retaliation.

Um, so we wanted to uplift 32 partner applications to the pardon office without saying their names.

And with this effort, we got 47 um statewide organizations and elected officials to endorse, and so thank you again, um, Supervisor Bass for all your support and by standing by us.

And more than 200 intergenerational multilingual attendees joined this peaceful visual.

And you know, these are the first times people are chanting in Vietnamese in Hmong and Khmai.

Um so we are still building that skill to build to bring our communities together and to stand against this injustice.

Next slide.

And so we really do believe this is a transnational movement for healing.

We offer support groups in Cambodia.

We hold spaces for individuals that are impacted.

We want to bring folks that do get their citizenship to return to Cambodia for their first time.

And we call this a freedom journey, something very similar to what Interfaith does here.

And we also offer coaching so that leaders on the ground in Cambodia have a sense of dignity and integrity and a space for them to hone their own psychoeducation and facilitate wellness, which is a very community health work model and peer specialist model.

Next slide, please.

And so because of the fear of third work, third country deportations, excuse me, a lot of our community members are living in constant fear, to the point where they want to self-deport.

And some of our community members are struggling to even get travel documents.

That's what ICE is asking them for, to get travel to diagrams to Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia.

And I know one community member that has been rejected by both countries, Vietnam and Cambodia, and so is does not know what to do at this point.

Next slide.

We're trying to build relationships with public defenders, with DAs, with elected officials to find different ways of relief, post-conviction relief, or other legal strategies if pardons are not a viable option.

And this is a picture of standing in solidarity with dignity not detention and sudo for solidarity at California City ICE detention.

Next slide.

And so we as community organizers want to do as much as we can on our side to support lawyers.

The hotlines we know are working.

People are coming to aid, folks that are being detained by ICE.

Though we do hope that these lawyers also understand the issues of Southeast Asians and that folks that have prior convictions, which are different, you know, legal strategies.

And, you know, my questions are really how do we continue to advocate and quietly without making public campaigns and still make an impact?

And if there's a fear to go public, how do we continue to stay visible?

So we definitely need your support and want this collaborative support with each other.

And there is more need for mental health and wellness services that is steeped in trauma-informed care with cultural humility and with language access.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Victoria Hartanto with API Legal Outreach.

I had the opportunity back in August to update this committee on our work this year.

So just I'll be very brief.

We continue to provide know your rights trainings regarding ICE enforcement directly to the community and also to many of our API community partners.

So I've been doing KYRs for, for example, Asian Health Services, Ebaldse Senior Housing Residents, members of the Oakland Chinatown coalition.

Just this morning I did a KYR for the Southeast Asian Development Center for their staff.

And these are really helpful as preemptive measures to make sure that our community members are and the organizations that serve them are prepared if they do encounter federal immigration agents.

We also continue with our legal clinics and workshops, consultations, and then our priority is on full legal representation.

That's where we spend most of our time on a variety of cases.

One of the bright spots recently in our immigration work, because it's been pretty dark, but one of the bright spots has been in our habeas work.

We just recently started doing that, learning it along with everyone else in the immigration bar that's just recently started doing these.

It is the only thing so far that has been working to get people out of ICE detention.

So we've been doing these cases.

They are quite a lot of work, but we have been winning.

So we hope to continue expanding our habeas work and our capacity to take more habeas cases.

Like many other organizations here, much of the work we do is not fully funded.

And we're not funded for removal defense work in Alameda County, although we are in talks with CCIJ and Accord.

So we hope to be.

But nevertheless, we are committed to serving Alameda County residents.

And thanks to the generous funding from Supervisor Fortunatabas' office, we are partially funded for our preemptive legal services, our KYRs, and other community outreach.

We're very proud that at API we have many API languages in-house, as well as Spanish.

So we have Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Tagala, Zebuano, Bisaya, Farsi, Dari, Toy Chinese, and Turkish.

On the ground, we have served many API community members who have unfortunately been detained by ICE.

From our experience, it's really helpful for these folks to have an attorney or an in-person interpreter who can speak their language.

It can be really hard to communicate with folks who are in detention when you go to the ICE office, they're behind a glass.

So it's really hard if all you have is language line to communicate with somebody who's behind a glass.

Also, it's very difficult for detainees to call out from a detention center.

There's so many technical issues.

So having that language capacity is key in our experience.

So just want to end with a very brief example of the work that we're doing to support the API community at this time.

One of our clients is a local Buddhist monk from Cambodia.

He survived the Khmer Rouge, but he was tortured.

He lost his wife and two children, and he subsequently decided to become a monk.

Apilo was able to help him get his green card, and he recently became a U.S.

citizen.

And this was with the help of a Khmer speaking caseworker from Asian Health Services.

So this is just an example of how we can all cooperate together to leverage our resources and serve the community.

So we just want to thank you so much for your championship of immigrants and immigrants.

Thank you.

Alright, lastly, I'm going to just share briefly about Asian health services.

We have a community healing unit that offers mental health and lay counseling resources, holistic healing such as acupuncture and resource navigation to Asian immigrants and refugees impacted by hate, xenophobia, and deportation.

Our program employs bilingual lay counselors who are effective at building trust and rapport with clients in their language and culture as they navigate this very traumatic experience, such as the threat of deportation.

Our team is in the process of coordinating care and referrals with close partners, such as those in the working group like Siri, APSC, New Light Wellness, and APIO.

And over the past few months, we've had many learnings to better understand the great need for holistic healing, wraparound care, family support, and organizing and advocacy efforts in addition to the legal services, the know your rights, and other much-needed interventions.

So in closing, just really want to thank all of the presenters here today, as well as on Zoom for sharing about the critical needs facing Asian and Southeast Asian communities in Alameda County at very high risk of deportation and sharing the effective work you're doing to support these individuals and families through holistic interventions over the many years.

And we also just wanted to thank the supervisors and this committee for really listening and hearing from the community about the need as well as the opportunities about the um the models around holistic healing, about mental health, family support, and organizing and advocacy.

Often by groups here today with a little to uh little funding and limited resources.

And so just really appreciate this chance to uh work with the Act for All Committee as well as the funded partners that are much needed, and we look forward to continued collaboration and communication with all of you here today.

So thank you so much.

Thank you so much to Asian Health Services, Asian Prisoners Support Committee, Siri, the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, New Light Wellness and APIO.

Some of you I we have worked with since 2019 when I was representing the city of Oakland, and I just so deeply appreciate your work because it has been personal to me.

Um I'll just share this as a point of privilege.

I learned about this issue of deportations of Southeast Asian refugees who have, you know, been through so much trauma and serve their time in the criminal legal system, but were a threat of deportation during the first Trump administration, and it really hit home for me when I went to an ICE check-in with a stepfather of my daughter's best friend, and it was at that ice check-in that he was taken away.

Uh, fortunately, from the work that I did with Siri and all of you, we were able to get, I believe, three pardons.

Um, but there were there was at least one person whose scarf I think you're wearing, um, Elijah.

I have a similar scarf from that person who was not who was deported.

And uh during the second Trump administration, we have a friend who's been deported, we have another who's in detention, another who has an ice check-in.

I mean, it's really unrelenting how this administration is targeting this particular community and people who are just upstanding members of our community who've gone through so much.

So I appreciate lifting this up here at the board and um hope that we can continue to partner and connect, especially as we build a future office of immigrant and refugee affairs.

Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you for coordinating this um really thoughtful presentation, and thank you all for sharing your um your testimony with us.

It was really powerful.

So thank you for uplifting that.

And I would uh love to all the presenters, um, my chief of staff is in the audience.

Sorry if I'm distracted.

I'm supposed to be in another meeting 10 minutes ago and had to get a hold of them to let them, it's okay.

I will join late, but just I apologize for um multitasking.

But I just want you to know that I'm committed to meeting with all of the presenters to learn more about your organizations.

And I know that the funding that we've done through ACT Committee, although it's um addressing many needs in this community, it's not meeting all the needs.

So I'm well aware of that.

And so I would love to meet with all of you to learn more.

And um, I have to have more information, but just know that our offices do have limited budget.

So I would like to learn more to see how my office can also help um meet some of those gaps.

Um, it's not as big as the county budget, but I do want to do my part to help um bridge those gaps, and the goal with the new interim office of immigrant refugee affairs is to do that analysis on what's missing in the county so we can strengthen those those services and protection.

So just know that the work that you're doing is um meaningful, and I'm listening and um do want to partner with all of you.

So thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Marquez.

So, um, do we have public comments on this item?

We have one.

We have one, okay.

Let's hear the public comment and then I'll propose our next step on this.

April Newman.

Then no speakers.

Um, again, thank you so much.

I'm also very grateful that um Akudir and Accord are connecting.

It sounds like there's a lot more connections being made.

There's so much more to do.

So I think our next steps are continuing uh to listen, to learn, to consider the funding support, to make sure that the future office of immigrant affairs is really listening and learning and supporting as well.

Um I would like to forward this particular presentation and um report to the full board so that there's some visibility, some additional visibility to all of our board members, and we can attach uh the PowerPoint and any additional information uh as soon as possible.

But I do want to make sure that the other three members of the board have visibility on it.

And so I'll just go ahead and make that motion for formality.

I support that.

Okay, thank you.

Call the roll on that.

Supervisor Marquez.

Aye.

Supervisor Fortunatabas.

Aye.

Okay.

Thank you everyone for your patience and for sharing a tremendous amount of information.

Lastly, if there are any speakers who wish to speak on items not on the agenda, we'll take those comments now.

No speakers.

Okay.

Thanks again, everyone.

Great discussion