Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the meeting of the Alameda County Together for All Ad hoc committee.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the role?

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Before we get started, I wanted to share that we do have an interpreter who can interpret in Spanish.

Thank you, Christine, for joining us.

She's in the front of the room if anyone needs support.

And Madam Clerk, do you want to share how to sign up for public comment?

For in-person participation, the meeting site is open to the public.

If you'd like to speak on an item, you can fill out a speaker's card in the front of the room and hand it to me, the clerk for in for remote participation, follow the teleconferencing guidelines posted at www.acgov.org and use the raise your hand function.

Thank you.

And welcome again to our meeting of the Alameda County Together for All Ad Hoc Committee, Act for All.

As many of you know, our charge is to monitor the impacts to our county and our residents of the federal administration and to bring together our department heads, community, and advocates to make sure that we are responding proactively.

I did want to take a moment to acknowledge the recent tragic deaths that have deeply affected immigrant communities across the country.

Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican man, was fatally shot by ICE in Houston, Texas.

Just days later, on Monday, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian husband and father, was shot and killed by ice in Maine.

And the day after, on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man whose name has yet to be released was struck and killed by a truck while running into traffic fleeing ICE.

And yesterday, Jesus Manuel Arenas Silva, a 45-year-old Venezuelan man, died while being transported between detention facilities in Georgia, becoming the 26th, the 22nd person to have died in detention this calendar year.

So we will adjourn in their memories.

We extend our deepest condolences to their families, friends, and loved ones.

And I do want to recognize the fear, grief, and uncertainty these deaths create for immigrant communities and all of us here and across our nation.

Every loss of life deserves transparency, accountability, and a thorough investigation.

We also recognize that over the past week there have been reports of ICE activity in at least five cities in Oakland, Berkeley, San Lorenzo, Castro Valley, and Hayward.

And as a county, we must do everything in our power in collaboration with our communities and our cities to keep our residents safe and secure and to ensure that every resident is treated with the dignity, respect, and fairness that they deserve.

Since we last met, I also accompanied a dear friend to their immigration check-in recently.

They have standing deportation orders from the first Trump administration because they are formally incarcerated, and despite serving their time and contributing to our community, they could be picked up and detained for deportation at any time.

And like many others in similar situations, the frequency of their immigration check-ins has increased.

This is not making our community any safer.

And it really harms many of us to know that loved ones, dear ones are living in this type of fear.

So I do hope that today's discussion brings together community members, advocates, service providers, and public agencies to share information, strengthen our partnerships, and continue through our action to reaffirm our commitment to protecting and supporting all residents regardless of immigration status.

In these dark times, it's our duty as public servants to shine light for the people to see what surrounds them, not just what is in front of them, but the full circle and spiral of possibility, choice, and the full expansive capacity of their power.

So let's light the way for each other's path.

Before I get started, I want to briefly share some updates since our April Act for All meeting.

Many of you know because you've also been participating in our county budget process that in June we approved our county budget.

It was very reassuring to see that some of the conversations we've had in this committee, which made recommendations to the full board, resulted in the approval of funding for immigrant justice for the LGBTQ community for food security as well as health care.

Since we last met, the board of supervisors led by President Halbert and Supervisor Marquez also brought forward a resolution, which the board adopted formally expressing opposition to the reopening or repurposing of the former federal prison FCI Dublin for immigration detention or incarceration.

Thank you, Supervisor Marquez, for leading that process.

In addition, my office sent a letter in response to the environmental assessment for FCI Dublin.

And I am supporting the community's requests that it be permanently closed and converted to community a community purpose.

I believe we might hear a little bit more about Dublin as well as Gilroy in Gilroy.

There is also a pending proposal to build immigration detention.

And then, secondly, we've had some conversations on the board regarding technology and public trusts through the contracts for FLOC and Peregrine.

We continue to advocate for stronger oversight of surveillance technologies as well as artificial intelligence and data governance as the board has been discussing these two particular vendor contracts.

We had a discussion in April about these contracts and from those discussions gave direction to the organization, the board gave direction to the organization to improve a number of areas around privacy, cybersecurity, AI governance, transparency and public accountability, as well as to incorporate those improvements into a standard services agreement.

So that work will continue.

However, the sheriff brought forward a consolidation of three flock contracts very recently, requesting an authorization of 18 months for this technology.

On the positive side, the contracts did include improvements from our April discussion and will go out for a competitive request for proposals.

However, I was really hoping, and so as Supervisor Marquez, because I made the motion and she seconded that we would have more time for public participation and scrutiny to really ensure that more improvements could be included.

However, the board did approve that contract 3-2.

So those are some updates since our last meeting.

And on today's agenda, we have four informational and action items.

The first is guidance regarding SB 580, promoting safe and secure government access for all.

A member of office, a member of our state attorney general Rob Bonta's office was scheduled to join us.

However, a last-minute conflict came up and they are not able to join us.

However, I'll briefly share some resources on that topic.

Secondly, we will hear from the immigrant legal resource center for an immigrant and refugee rights landscape update of emerging trends and policy changes at the state and federal level.

Third, we will hear from our county administrators' office for an update on the implementation of our county ice-free zones and readiness plans.

And last but not least, we will hear from our three coalitions for an overview of the current state of work, accomplishments, challenges, and recommendations from the coalition's CELUP Accord and ACUDER.

So we have a very full and informative agenda.

Supervisor Marquez, would you like to share some remarks?

Sure.

Good afternoon and welcome everyone.

It's good to be in community with all of you again.

We were last at this committee in April.

And as Supervisor Fortinano Bass has mentioned, unfortunately, our community continues to suffer significant trauma and impacts by people that are being killed by ICE.

So it's more important than ever that we continue to focus on this work.

Just want to also give my condolences to everyone that is grieving and something that has not been shared publicly yet.

But I want us to be mindful.

So this is something our county has to address and has to tackle.

And it's the reason why we serve on this committee to uplift everyone's voices and do everything we can to minimize the fear and the harm.

When we were last here in April, we heard from our consultants who are working on the implementation study for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Our consultants are going to present to the full board at our work session meeting, invite the community to be engaged in that conversation, which will be on Tuesday, July 28th at 3 p.m.

It is a work session meeting, so those meetings typically take place across the street in the training center.

And we are advancing the work.

We've already funded two positions, and we are in the process of designing the job description for the director of the new office.

So I'm excited about that work.

We have been focusing a lot on immigrants, and we are excited to bring in the conversation and ensure that we are also equally addressing the needs of our refugee community members.

So I look forward to those conversations.

So just thankful that our county uh cares so deeply about our community members and our collective pain right now.

So we're here to be solution oriented and to work in community with all of you to minimize the fear and the harm.

So just honored to serve with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor.

So our first agenda, well, before I go into our first item, for those who are just coming in, uh please feel free to sign up for public comment.

There are slips in the front of the room, and we do have a Spanish interpreter sitting in the front if you need interpretation.

The interpreter doesn't have a transmitter to uh address more than one person, so I don't know how to manage that right now.

Yeah, we have to do that.

Okay, there's actually uh two mics.

So if you want to stand by stand side by side, one mic could be for the interpretation, the person speaking at the podium.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

Um, so our first item is guidance regarding SB 580, promoting safe and secure government access for all.

As I mentioned earlier, um, a member of the Office of Attorney General, Rob Bonta was scheduled to join us.

Unfortunately, um, they are not able to make it.

Um, I wanted to share that uh the attorney general's office had a very, very informative webinar on this topic this morning.

And let me share a little bit about what these resources are.

Okay.

Um there is a webinar that was held this morning that was very informative.

Um, you can find it on uh the attorney general's website, and I will share that with you.

It is oag dot ca dot g-o-v slash care slash community hyphen briefings.

And we will make sure that is also on our Alameda County Together for All Act for All webpage by the end of today.

Um, again, it's the Office of the Attorney General website, OAG.ca.gov, and you can uh go to their uh care community briefings web page.

Um the webinar that happened this morning highlighted California Department of Justice's new policy, new model policies published pursuant to SB 580, uh, which was passed in 2025 that demonstrates how state and local agencies should interact with immigration enforcement officials in a manner that is lawful and consistent with California values.

And for those who are not familiar with this piece of legislation, I'll just share some of the core principles informing the guidance, and I'll read the website again.

There are five principles informing this guidance.

The first is that state and local resources should not be used to assist immigration enforcement activities, except as required by state and federal law.

The second is that agencies should limit or restrict the collection, retention, and disclosure of information that could aid in identifying or apprehending individuals without lawful immigration status unless required by law or necessary to administer a lawful program.

The third principle is where there is no legal obligation to comply, agencies should require appropriate legal process, a judicial warrant, judicial subpoena or court order before complying.

Fourth, all requests for information should be directed to designated agency staff or legal counsel trained to evaluate such requests.

And fifth, agencies should document interactions with immigration authorities, including requests for information, attempts to access facilities, and the presentation of legal process.

So again, the Office of the Attorney General has information on their website, including the briefing that was done earlier today.

That website again is AOG.ca dot G-O-V slash care slash community hyphen briefings.

So apologies that they were not able to join us, but their website and webinar is very, very helpful.

And we'll go to the following three items before we get to public comment.

The next item is immigrant and refugee rights landscape update, emerging trends and policy changes at the state and federal levels.

And I want to thank the immigrant legal resource center for joining us today and for coming back to our committee to share information.

Thank you, Supervisor.

Thank you.

Great.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jayhan Lehner, and I'm a managing attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

And like Supervisor Fortinato Bass said, I'm going to speak about some of the trends we're seeing nationwide.

So first, there's kind of four buckets of trends that we're seeing, and I will discuss all four of them.

And I'll start from federal going into state and then local, how we're seeing that applied.

So the first threat is loss of or barriers to getting legal status.

So since the new Trump administration came into power, they've been terminating legal pathways and legal programs that would grant people status.

And then they authorized the U.S.

citizenship and immigration service, which typically receives these applications for legal status.

They authorized them to begin sending people to immigration court.

So now a pathway that folks would have had for legal status is now landing them in immigration court.

Another thing that we've seen this year in 2026 is federally, there's been the implementation of more travel bans and also adjudication pauses.

So basically, what does this mean?

Banning people from legally entering the country even if they had status, and also pausing those applications processing for legal status.

There's litigation on both of these, but the impacts are very real.

People are losing status.

There's an increased risk for people to come forward and apply to get legal status, even if they're totally, totally eligible.

And then all cases now are requiring more of a defensive plan.

So previously, where someone was eligible for status in immigration attorney, it might be a simple, straightforward case, but now even these simple cases are requiring so much more work to think and navigate these risks.

People are also experiencing loss of work permits and other documentation due to all of these changes.

And folks might have seen the recent Supreme Court decision taking away TPS for certain populations.

So all of that in combination is helping people who already had legal status getting it straight.

Yeah, Han, I know that our clerk is trying to upload the presentation.

Maybe we could pause just to make sure we don't get too far ahead of your slides.

Thank you.

So our next bucket of threats, I'm gonna just lump it together in the category of aggressive enforcement.

But this stems from those threats and losses of status I was just speaking about, because everyone who has applied for an immigration benefit or had status at some point is in the immigration system.

And so those folks are at risk for targeted immigration arrests.

When I say targeted, it means they've come on to immigration and customs enforcement radar.

So that could be arrests at immigration court, arrests at ICE check-ins, so-called absconder arrests where they arrest someone that perhaps didn't know they had an ICE check-in, or court people are reporting not actually getting notices of these.

Sometimes a workplace raid can be targeted.

We've also seen an uptick in arrests at criminal state courthouses at USCIS interviews.

Again, people who are very eligible for status are still getting arrested.

And now we're noticing an increase of arrests at people at airports.

Then there's also the threat of random arrests.

So these are so-called collateral or bystander arrests that happen during a targeted operation.

They could also be traffic stops or checkpoints.

Some workplace raids are also random.

Um, encounters in public areas where we often see racial profiling.

And then in the state of California, we've also seen that ICE is also arresting more people near Army bases and a lot of delivery drivers who are going to Army bases.

So this is at the national level.

Next slide, please.

And then as Supervisor Fortunato Bass was speaking about, we've also seen ICE escalating encounters with individuals during traffic stops.

Um and Mr.

Arajo and Mr.

Duran were both murdered by ICE this month.

And as Supervisor Fortunato Bass said, another person was killed during an encounter with ICE.

But this is happening because we have this federal agency that is not trained in these encounters that is going around in unmarked vehicles and escalating these encounters.

Next slide, please.

So I'll zoom in a little bit.

The Bay Area is in a unique situation where we are not seeing as many of the random arrests I was talking about.

This is largely because we do not have a detention center here.

So in Southern California, they have physical detention centers, and it makes undocumented folks at least six times more likely to be arrested.

Here in Northern California, we are seeing an uptick in targeted arrests.

This was reported this month nationally in the New York Times that behind the scenes ICE has been increasing these arrests.

And we did see the same trend hit the Bay Area.

The Bay Area has a few protections.

One is the litigation known as Garopinci, which blocks redetention of people who were released at the border.

So this does prevent a lot of immigration arrests at our courthouses, our immigration courthouses.

And it could prevent some arrests at check-ins, though we are still seeing an increase of that.

Sacramento is seeing targeted arrests, but overall, again, relatively low levels of random arrests in the Bay Area, though I have to say we did notice the uptick.

The rapid response networks have gotten the uptick that was reported in the New York Times.

And we can go to the next slide.

So it was great to hear Supervisor Fortunato Bass mention AB 580.

A lot of these recommendations are in AB 580 and Alameda County already does much of this.

So these recommendations are to maintain much of what Alameda County already does, but continue to limit cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement, as Supervisor Fortunato Bass mentioned.

There's no need for any voluntary cooperation past what is legally necessary without a judicial warrant.

Limit access to government-controlled buildings, deny access to ICE without a judicial warrant.

And there are also California state laws that require our state and local courthouses to promulgate policies around ICE access to courthouses.

So making sure that our county city courthouses are doing that as well.

And then what we when we talk about data and data safety, especially with as we were mentioning, those flock databases, those automated license plate readers, is really making sure that government contractors and subcontractors do not disclose information to federal immigration enforcement.

So I thank Supervisors Marquez and Fortunato Basque for their leadership when we had the vote this month about the flock sharing.

The problem isn't so much where Alameda County has it in their contract that they will not share information to ICE and the federal government, but other agencies around Alameda County also have access to this.

And while we say they shouldn't be sharing it, we've seen breaches in this data before.

So it's just an outside contractor, it's hard to control when there will be breaches in those data.

And then in AB 580, just as the recommendation was to not collect extra data that is unnecessary, that if something was breached, ICE could use that to try and find folks that are undocumented.

And then continue using our government resources for community education and support.

The rapid response networks, the legal services have been critical, especially as cases have become more complicated, and we are seeing the uptick in enforcement.

So we can go to the next slide, please.

And the third threat is an expanded detention infrastructure that we are seeing in California that is threatening the Bay Area and an increase of laws and policies that are requiring mandatory detention.

So for decades and decades and decades, most people that were arrested for civil immigration violations were allowed to be released, usually even by ICE themselves, but otherwise by an immigration judge bond.

And now ICE has basically greatly expanded the amount of people that they're putting into mandatory detention, that is, detention and civil immigration detention prolonged without a bond hearing.

They are also forcing people to accept rapid deportation, even though they have a right to remain here.

And we're seeing the expansion of detention center capacity across the country.

But is but in the Bay Area, we are seeing some particular threats.

So we can go to the next slide.

One update I'll give that isn't in the Bay Area is the detention capacity increase in California City.

It is the biggest detention center in California with the capacity for 2,500 beds, and it's the third biggest detention center in the country.

So California has that dubious distinction of having that giant detention center.

It's detaining both men and women.

So a district court granted a preliminary injunction addressing some conditions concerns, but we've continued to hear about horrific medical neglect there.

And this detention center also opened illegally without the proper permits.

And there's still litigation concerning those permits.

Just last week, Core Civic, which is the private prison company operating this, announced that they sold it to the federal government, which we believe is an attempt to evade most of the accountability from these lawsuits.

Next slide, please.

And then Supervisor Fortinato Bass mentioned we do have some threats here in the Bay Area.

One is the shuttered Bureau of Prisons facility, FCI Dublin.

So DHS has toured the facility and received documentation from BOP about the structure of the facility, which we believe shows that they've been intent on acquiring that facility.

They've been trying to acquire more facilities here in the Bay Area.

In May, BOP, the Bureau of Prisons, released an environmental assessment, which is the first step to transferring that shuttered property.

And we do thank the board for issuing a resolution saying that they oppose the repurposing of this facility.

And we are continuing to watch, monitor, and try to make sure that the environmental assessment, while it wasn't as complete as it should be, that this facility does not get handed over to DHS because it would be a facility of about 900 beds.

And that would increase the capacity for ICE to conduct enforcement here in the Bay Area.

We also know that ICE awarded a contract to build a facility in Gilroy for a short-term processing center and a training facility for ICE.

Again, this would help with their logistics.

It would be on a corridor of freeways that lead to the five freeway that lead to all the detention centers in California.

And again, would allow ICE to increase their infrastructure to arrest people in the Bay Area.

The California Attorney General and local officials in Santa Clara County have sued over this facility.

And the construction is currently in pause due to the lawsuit.

So again, another threat of further infrastructure that we are monitoring.

Okay, so next slide, please.

I just wanted to mention a term folks might have heard about, but there's a term called habeas corpus petitions that is trying to get a lot of folks who are in mandatory detention in these detention centers free.

It is a result of them expanding this mandatory detention that we now need a lot more legal resources to get people out of ICE detention.

That means going to a federal district court, um, bringing a lot of specialized legal arguments.

And this does take a very intense amount of resources in the Bay Area.

There are folks that are trying to bring habeas corpuses as soon as someone is arrested in the Bay Area so that they can hopefully get released here in the northern district rather than being transferred further south.

Um, but it it does take a lot of resources and does take fast responders from the rapid response networks to know that someone has been arrested rapidly.

And then next slide, please.

And then the fourth um trend that we've been noticing is the fast tracking of deportations.

So the Board of Immigration Appeals is a higher level of immigration court that issues case law that all immigration judges must follow.

And they've been issuing decisions pretty much mostly completely limiting the relief that folks can get in immigration court.

They have become a completely biased and unneutral court system.

And all immigration judges have to follow the biased case law that is coming out from them.

They just one example, they just released this week a request for amicus briefing asking if they needed to follow the constitution and Supreme Court law.

So they're asking attorneys to write them briefs because they're going to issue a decision saying we don't need to follow Supreme Court law or the constitution.

So it's just it's completely bonkers.

Um they've also the DA, the Department of Homeland Security is now saying that everyone, um many people who come from Latin American countries are barred from receiving asylum due to asylum cooperative agreements.

So trying to block eligibility of many people who have strong claims for asylum from actually getting them.

And they are also pre-termitting applications, which just means um throwing out an application, rejecting an application for uh very pretextual and bonkers reasons.

This should be a system and was built to be a system where people anyone could file their asylum application.

It no longer is like that at all.

They're rejecting applications that have been filled out by very um fastidious good attorneys.

Um, so this so basically we have this sham immigration court that is leading people straight again into deportation and detention.

The next slide, please.

Um, some of the reflections, there is an ongoing need for training of people that are helping non-citizens and also for community members to keep pace with these rapid policy changes.

Um, continue the peer learning across counties and the states for systems and resources, shared experiences that we have from rates, and then this all underscores the importance of the good laws and policies that our county has, the importance of the importance of the rapid response networks to document, verify, and provide legal aid when ICE is violating people's rights.

And that is all I had to present.

So I would take any questions that folks have.

Thank you so much.

Supervisor Marquez.

Um, thank you for your comprehensive overview and expertise.

Um I know I'm not alone in thinking and feeling this is very disturbing news.

Um, really appreciate you tracking and giving us guidance as to what we're doing right here in this county and what measures we need to do to strengthen and protect our immigrant and refugee committee members.

Um, can you give us a sense?

I don't know if you have this information, but do we have any communication with um Mexico and do we know how many people are stuck at the border?

Can you um speak to that?

I don't have good numbers right now, and I know there's some other colleagues in the room, um, but I know the Mexican consulate is a pretty good um resource to track that.

I don't know, Lisa, or if you have numbers on that.

Maybe later in the response in the other presentation, if there's any additional um insight to share.

Um and thank you for flagging the importance of maintaining continuity and services, uh, education, legal defense, rapid response.

Um, just in your opinion, is there anything else this county can be doing to strengthen support?

Yeah, I think definitely being clear on data sharing policies that we have.

As you all brought up before as well, there is a public health component to this.

And working together with our public health folks and our immigrant legal service providers to flag that as well.

You had given advice that less information is better, right?

We don't want to give additive additional, just the most pertinent information.

Can you give me an example of like what would be a reach?

Obviously, we wouldn't put someone's immigration status, but can you kind of give some other um examples of what we should not be including or yeah?

I think it's um if we don't, it's hard because sometimes we need data to understand what communities we're serving, but to the extent that it doesn't need to be aggregated with someone's name.

So sometimes it's helpful to know someone's country of birth to know where we're providing services, but to the extent we could use race as an identifier instead or not always link it to someone's name.

Those are helpful starts.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Oh, just a couple questions for me.

Um two questions.

So could you give us a little bit of an update of the capacity and the changes in our immigration courts in terms of San Francisco and Concord and how the closure of San Francisco might be impacting things here in our region?

Such a great question.

There was so much to cover, and I'm really glad you're asking.

So the San Francisco Immigration Court was shut down many, many months earlier than they said they would.

And this has caused a lot of confusion and problems for respondents that had cases in this immigration court.

And troublingly, this was also for folks that were not detained.

So people who you know had every right to walk into immigration court and fight their case and get legal immigration status.

Um, so now cases, folks are getting no hearing notices, some folks are getting two hearing notices.

It is becoming very confusing for people to figure out um what the date of their court has been moved to since that court has gone gotten closed down.

Everyone's case is supposed to be moved toward the Concord Immigration Court.

And unfortunately, people are getting conflicting hearing dates at this moment.

And so a lot of immigration attorneys are, you know, have helping them try to call in and figure out what date they should show up.

But of course, folks are falling through the cracks.

Um there are some people who will be reporting to a detained immigration court in San Francisco.

In the meantime, while the shift is happening.

But again, people are also reporting at that court.

The guards aren't trained on that these people might be coming to their immigration courts.

So people are missing hearing dates.

Um, so I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's definitely a mess.

It's violating folks' due process rights and causing a lot of confusion.

Thanks for the update.

It's very unfortunate.

Um, last question.

So uh recently I know the Supreme Court affirmed, however, by a more narrow margin than should have happened.

Um, the Supreme Court affirmed the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship, such that if someone is born in this country, they are a U.S.

citizen.

I heard that there may be some attempts by Congress to weaken the 14th amendment.

Do you have any information on that?

Yes, I one legislator at the federal level did introduce a bill to basically say trying to sort of in Kavanaugh's concurrence, Kavanaugh invited the legislatures to write bills to weaken that provision of the 14th Amendment.

So I know that someone has introduced that.

Um I don't know actually what the likelihood of it passing would be, but I hope it's low.

Um I think a lot of folks, including Republicans, we'll see.

But um didn't want to disturb that holding.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

And for members of the public, uh, the agenda that is on the county website does have links to the presentations that we will be viewing today.

Thank you to our clerks team for putting those online.

Our third item is uh an Alameda County Ice Rezones and Readiness Plans Implation Update.

So I'd like to ask representatives from our county administrators' office to present.

Thanks for joining us.

Good afternoon, Marita Semora, Director of Human Resource Services.

So I'll just provide you quick summary of the actions we've taken internally relative to our county of Alameda employees.

We concluded the meet and confer with all our employee organizations on the countywide employee uh guidelines.

Uh that was concluded on Friday, July 3rd.

Uh that very next week on July 8th.

Uh the uh chief administrative office uh issued the notice to all agency department heads distributing, asking them to distribute to their employees the guidelines responding to immigration enforcement in the workplace.

Those were issued to all county employees, and that same day, human resource services, our department issued an everyone email or uh launching of the companion training program.

It's an online program uh developed specifically for the guidelines.

As of today, a little over 100 employees have access their training, and then so they've they receive not only the guidelines but the the companion training.

Okay, thank you.

We will hear um, I may have some questions, um, but I want to also note that I believe we have our general services agency director online, um, and we do have a member of our social services agency in the room.

Um, please do raise your hand if you are prepared to present.

Okay, we have director Gasway.

Let's hold questions for all of our uh county staff until we hear from all of them.

Director Gasway, thanks for joining us.

Yes, thank you, Supervisor.

This is uh Kimberly Gasway, Director of General Services Agencies.

So as your board direction, we procured an installed signs at 96 facilities, including county owned or leased properties, fire district owned properties, and surplus property authority owned properties.

If I can um let's see if I can share my screen if it allowed me, I don't see that it feature to allow me to do that.

Oh, now she's director Gasoway, you're muted.

I'm sorry.

So this is a sample of the sign uh that is at one of our home key sites.

Um as I said, these signs have been installed at 96 properties around the county.

I'm happy to answer.

Thank you.

Oh, Director Gasway, do you mind just reading what the signs say in case it's hard for anyone to see?

Certainly.

It says um it has the county logo, and then it says this property is owned or controlled by the county of Alameda.

It may not be used for any civil immigration enforcement activity, including staging area, processing, location, or operations base.

Thank you.

Um, and from the social services agency, is anyone prepared to make any updates or share any updates on this agenda item.

Okay.

Um why don't we go to questions before going to questions?

Just a brief reminder.

Um, the board did pass uh a policy and resolution, uh, essentially ensuring that uh county owned and leased properties would not be used uh for civil immigration enforcement purposes, which is why we've got the signs.

Um we also approved a readiness plan to make sure that we had training and protocols in place so that our staff would be prepared in the event that there was potential immigration enforcement activity.

Um I'll go to uh Supervisor Marquez for questions first.

Um thank you.

First, I just want to thank our HR director, Ms.

Samura, and everyone who worked on this really quickly.

If people don't understand, we have how many labor groups, 20 plus?

So this is a huge lift to um conduct meet and confer with so many different um entities.

So just thank you everyone for um moving so quickly.

The guidelines are comprehensive, it's thorough.

I really appreciate the examples of a judicial warrant, the resources.

This is extremely comprehensive, and I'm really glad that we have it.

Um but my understanding is this is um guidance, but it's not a mandatory training, right?

So it at this moment, this is really up to our employees to take advantage of this information, but we legally cannot uh make it mandatory.

Is that accurate?

Um that is correct, uh supervisors.

Uh we we could take the extra step, but in order to make it mandatory, there has to be a consequence.

And the consequence if you fail to take it, you'd be disciplined.

So this is great information for our employees.

It we've done a I think a really good job notifying the employees, reinforcing that, um, making the training available.

And we have received some questions.

So we're asking answering those questions as appropriate.

And it was I I do have to commend our employee organizations, they really rallied, whereas county policies sometimes can take many, many months uh to conclude this was one of those uh issues that our employee organizations really came, they rallied behind, they asked some great questions in the meet and comfort.

We answered those, and we concluded that and we're able to roll out the employee policy.

That's wonderful to hear.

Um, in terms of the development of the the guided the guidelines, um did we consult and work closely with Santa Clara County?

They've been great partners, they've been an instrumental and sharing their um expertise, they've been ahead of some of these issues, but did we also seek guidance from surrounding counties that are um already have this in place?

Yes, and in fact, we did.

We I looked at my counterparts, uh had a discussions with them about what efforts have they undertaken uh on this issue.

And we incorporate the best of what is out there and work very closely also with our own county council because again, these policies are for our employees to make sure that they, if we had a visit from immigration enforcement, either I-9 audit or where have you, then our employees act in a professional manner, uh, calm and that they remain safe and act in accordance with law.

Okay, thank you for that.

And then who would we have to contact if we have questions, concerns, clarifying questions?

They can reach out to their specific or their own department, uh HR.

Okay.

Um we are HR for the board.

So any questions from either yourself or your staff, you would reach out to me.

I really appreciate the urgency around this.

It really speaks volumes and means a lot.

So thank you.

Um, I have one question for Director Gastaway, was very excited to get signage for our Supervisor Marquez.

Um, we have a little bit of an update, which is that um, in the spirit of collaboration, some of our partners um have interpretation equipment that we can use, and I'd like to pause to make sure everyone has what they need to participate.

Do you want to do three-minute recess?

Just pause.

Okay, why don't we take a three-minute recess.

Okay, we are back.

Uh let's call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Fortinado Bass.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

We'll go back to Supervisor Marquez for questions.

Thank you.

Um, Director Samana, if you don't mind, I just have one more follow-up and then I'll go to Director Cassius.

I apologize.

Um I just wanted to verify with with the guidelines for our employees.

My understanding there's also a video on our HR portal.

Um, is there any way to kind of flag like this is I know we can't make it mandatory and I understand why, but I think it's like identified as like a lower priority in the trainings.

I don't know if there's a way to rank it like strong preference, strongly encourage people to watch that video just to encourage our employees to spend time with the guidelines and watching the video is just a suggestion.

Absolutely.

We can do another email blast encouraging employees to access their training portal and to go to that training site.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Um, director Gasway just had a clarifying question.

I I did receive uh signage for my um district office, which is in Hayward by Southman Mall.

I was really excited that it came in so quickly.

It's such a large sign, very clear, large font.

Um, but it appears that the sign I have looks different than the one that you showed us.

So is the language consistent or is there a different variation depending on the location?

I know like the main message is there that we don't um participate in enforcement, but just wanted to see if um you could talk to whether or not there was a different type of signs being um put up.

Um I thought there was only one type of sign.

So if you could have one of your staff send me a picture so we're can see what's going on, because we approved uh language.

So if something else was delivered to us, I need to follow up on that.

Okay.

Do you mind um reposting the sign?

I'll just verify right now, really quick because I I have it on my social media account.

And maybe I'm wrong, so let's verify.

Um, so this is the sign is it up.

Take me one second, share my screen.

Oh you zoom in.

I think there was some discussion that some signs might have um sign um braille on them, but okay.

The wording should be this okay, maybe it's just the style.

Um yeah, I'm just gonna read my signs.

I'm not looking back and forth.

So the one um that's posted at our office says this property is controlled by County of Alamida, County of Alameda, it may be used, it may not be used for any civil immigration enforcement activity, including staging area, processing location, or operation base.

It is the same.

I think it's just the formatting.

Okay, appreciate that.

Just wanted to make sure we're consistent.

And then you had mentioned some we were going to add braille.

Is that for more of the public facing facilities?

There was some discussion of potentially ordering some of Braille, but I need to again follow up if that actually happened at any of the locations.

Okay, and then uh what is the protocol if a sign gets damaged, if there's graffiti?

Um, who do we contact if there are any concerns with the signage?

Um, you just you can email me personally, but departments always um they have facility managers too, and they contact our staff, or sometimes I'm contacted directly for anything.

We monitor facilities on a regular daily basis.

So it's not unusual if you see a sign or anything that needs repairs.

All the buildings, if it's an own building, also has a BMD phone number posted where you can call in with any concerns.

Um, if it's a leased property, we have to go through the um property ownership.

So okay.

And then can you confirm are we have we completed um posting all signs in all of our um controlled buildings, or is are there still some outstanding that need to be placed?

Um we have completed.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh, really appreciate the update from both of our department directors.

Um, I wanted to just share a little bit of information for members of the public.

Um, so we are talking about the employee guidelines for responding to immigration enforcement at the workplace.

Um, there are just a few key principles that are part of these guidelines and the training, and I wanted to read them just so that the public is aware of them.

One of the principles is safety first, do not obstruct or engage.

Move to a safe location if needed.

Another principle is notify immediately, notify immediately your agency department head, HR security, or your immediate supervisor.

Follow the chain of command, never act independently.

Know your rights, employees have rights during law enforcement interactions, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

Communicate counties protocols and maintain professionalism, treat all federal immigration agents professionally while asserting the county's rights and document and report accuracy and consistency protects everyone.

So thank you to our HR director for doing another e-blast to our staff to remind them of the training that is available as well as the guidelines.

So there is a notification and communication protocol.

And it says to ensure timely awareness and coordinated response.

Staff recommend the following executive level notification procedures when immigration enforcement activity occurs at a county facility.

Depending on severity level of the enforcement activity, board members can alert the mayor and or city council president of the impacted city and the county administrator's office can alert the city manager.

If needed for escalated situations, the agency department head should alert the local law enforcement for assistance and notify the sheriff for situational awareness.

And for tracking coordination and community response, the county administrator's office will inform the social services agency, which manages community partner contracts and the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

SSA will facilitate coordination and information sharing and connect impacted departments with appropriate community resources and partners.

These protocols are intended to reinforce a clear chain of command, support operational coordination, and ensure the county responds consistently and lawfully to immigration enforcement activities.

So thank you again to our staff for working on this relatively quickly, given that we had only passed this policy or this resolution just a few months ago.

Okay, we will now go to our fourth and last item.

This is an overview of the current state of the work, accomplishments, challenges, and recommendations from our three community coalitions, a CLIP, Accord, and ACUDIER.

We will first hear from a CLIP, and I believe that is Malik Monique Berlanga with Centro Legal de la Raza.

Good afternoon.

There are two of us.

I'm actually joined by my colleague.

Hi, boy.

My name is Anke Rivara, one of the co-leads of the Clip Project.

Do you want me to wait?

Okay.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and get started while they're loading the slides.

So as a reminder, a Clip was relaunched last February, February 17th, to be exact, and it consists of five core partners, Centro Legal de la Rasa, Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation, Street Level Health Project, Faith in Action East Bay.

And there's a slide that I will wait and refer to.

I'm the executive director at Centro Legal de la RASA.

And number three.

That one.

Oh, yeah.

That one.

Yes, sorry, it looks like yes, there's some formatting issues, but this is great.

Thank you so much.

Um, yeah, where you work well under pressure.

Um as a reminder, the services provided by the Clip Rapid Response Program um are kind of in two buckets, direct legal support.

Uh, the hotline which operates every day of the week, six AM to six PM for folks to report potential ice activity or rest, seek accompaniment or get referrals to other resources, outreach and education, emergency rapid response, legal competition legal consultations, as well as arranging accompaniment.

Uh, then there's also the advocacy and support bucket where we provide public information, deportation defense for individuals in and out of detention.

We as support folks with family support, um, navigating ice impacts, and we also work to convene stakeholders across the county to share timely accurate information.

Um, and as part of this, we connect with folks all across the county, different neighborhood groups, faith groups, school groups, uh, the entire ecosystem to try to create more of a coordinated effort and be able to scale a response in the event of mass enforcement.

Uh, next slide, please.

Sorry, a little order.

Uh so together, I think these numbers reflect the continuum of support.

Uh just a second.

Um, the next slide we have in our packet is the hay.

You switched it.

Okay, just making sure it's a different version.

Yeah, that's and that's why we're struggling a little bit.

So we will catch up though.

Do you have the other versions available?

Yeah.

And then when you guys switch speakers, do you mind you could adjust the mic just to make sure that we could hear you online?

Thank you.

So it's fine to use the slides that we have unless they're they don't work for you.

I don't know which ones you have.

Should we go?

Go ahead.

Okay.

Or I can also propose we switch the order.

Um if another speaker would like to go first, if or we can just go without the slides as well.

Thank you everyone for your patience and collaboration.

Um why don't we hear next from Accord?

So we have Lisa Knopps with us here today.

He's the director of the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.

And we should have your slides, right?

This is Accord.

Okay, there we go.

Um okay, looks like the slides are up.

So um first I just want to say thank you all so much to this committee for um we're our collaborative exists because of you all because you have moved um this this money forward and recognized the urgency of this moment.

Um, so we're super grateful.

Um and so we can move on to the next slide, and I'll tell you a bit about who we are.

So Accord, we provide removal defense, so legal services for immigrants who are fighting deportation for Alameda County residents.

And we started with four organizations and we're now up to eight.

We're CCIJ, East Bay Community Law Center, Oasis Legal Services, Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, Pangea Legal Services, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, African Advocacy Network, and API legal outreach.

Next slide.

And so this is uh a bit about the flow from community service providers.

So um we are very committed to utilizing the community infrastructure that already exists and coordinating with the other funded collaboratives to receive referrals.

So um as the chart shows, uh, both Aquitir and a Clip can make referrals directly to Accord for removal defense services.

They go to CCIJ, and then cases are organized and referred to all of our accord partners.

Um, and of course, also to the public defender's office.

Um, and then Accord provides immigration legal services that can range from an initial legal consultation to what we call pro se support, so short-term limited services to full representation in entire case.

Um and that flexibility has really allowed us to to pivot and meet urgent needs as they arise.

Now we'll go to the next slide.

And so in our first year, we were four organizations and we we made a measurable impact countywide.

This is our annual goals for services and our actual numbers.

And so you'll see that in every area we met and mostly far exceeded those goals.

And I'll also note that services and education and outreach were delivered in every Board of Supervisors district.

We'll go into more detail in the next slides about our services.

So again, this was with just four organizations.

We were already to make able to make a huge impact and serve nearly a thousand community members through our services.

Next slide.

And so where we are now is with the extension, we were able to expand to eight organizations.

Again, we we chose to expand our reach to diverse communities, both to ensure geographic diversity, but also other types of diversity.

And we've also focused on expanding deportation defense capacity, especially for detained residents.

As you heard earlier, we are seeing an uptick in ICE arrest locally, and we're also potentially looking at more detention facilities.

So we want to make sure that our organizations are ready to meet the need and can represent residents if they are detained by ICE.

And the other thing that we've really been focused on is increased data sharing and streamline referrals, both internally and with other partners.

And you know, our goal there is we don't want a community member to have to knock on five or six doors to get the services they need.

We want an organization to be able to directly refer us an individual, and we can then figure out how to best provide them with those services.

And so we can move to the next slide.

Okay, so this is our most recent quarter.

And so again, we've now expanded this rather is our overall total.

So our original contract plus the extension.

And so you'll see that we have really provided a high level of critical removal defense services, but also education and training to meet or exceed our targets.

So again, we are focused on providing trainings and technical assistance to help within our collaborative and externally organizations build their deportionation defense knowledge.

We you'll see that for community education events, we are at 2,000% of our goals.

And that's because with all of the changes in law and the in the urgent need, we have really been focused on getting information out to the community.

And you know, uh our legal services have also exceeded our goals, um, although not quite at that level.

So I think that just shows the urgency of this moment and the fact that there is such a continued need.

Um it's not on the slide, but roughly a third of this quarter's clients were in ICE detention when we serve them.

Um so again, detained work and supporting residents of this county in detention is core to our services.

And we'll go to the next slide.

Okay, and um, this just breaks down that the number of individuals serves by individuals served by um uh ethnic group if they they've identified.

Um, you know, again, we are um committed to providing services to diverse communities and having those those resources available, um, but we continue to see the the Latinx community has been um uh most targeted by um ICE enforcement and ICE terror in our county.

Okay, and it's um in our we do tell it in our report, but we actually did provide services um in 12 plus in 12 languages this quarter, um, including Tegrenia, Mharik, Cantonese, Mandarin.

So, you know, we are again committed to and providing services to all of the diverse communities of this county.

Okay, and we'll go to the next slide.

Okay.

And, you know, foundational to this has been our collaboration with Akuri, who will present on their work.

But they their organizations are community organizations that have long-standing relationships with communities across Alameda County and have established trust.

And so often folks are going to them first.

And so we're leveraging those relationships through coordinated outreach and direct referrals.

And then they are able, when community members come to them seeking help to refer them to us.

And again, we are also partnering with ACUDIER on the community education piece, especially with all of the changes that we're seeing and the new attacks that are coming every day from this administration.

Okay, next slide.

So I I want to do a case study and talk about how that slipped for one community.

And that is the Southeast Asian community.

So since 2025, Southeast Asian communities have seen a 900% increase in ICE detentions and deportations.

And what that has looked like is that individuals who've been living and working in our community for decades and who were told that they couldn't be deported because their countries were not accepting deportees, are suddenly facing deportation either to their country of birth or sometimes to a third country that they've never been to, or they may not even speak the language or know the culture.

And so we have sprung into action.

And again, here our partnership with Akuir has been crucial, particularly with Syri and Asian Prisoner Support Committee who serve the AAPI community and many Southeast East Asian individuals.

So they have been the first to learn of folks in this situation.

Many of their members are facing deportation.

And because of the established relationship that we have, they've been able to come to us in many cases before the person was in detention and facing imminent deportation.

And so we've provided 23 emergency legal consultations and legal services in recent months to folks from that community.

And because we've we've been able to learn about them early enough, often we can reopen their deportation case before they're they're facing detention or imminent deportation.

And a PILO in particular has been filing habeas petitions, so going to federal courts to stop imminent deportations.

And they recently took on two individuals who I believe are brothers and stopped their deportation and won their release.

So this is what we're up against, but this is also how we are collaborating to be able to fight back and to respond.

Okay, and I will move to the next slide.

Okay, so as far as what we're seeing, um I think some of this was covered in the previous presentation.

We are seeing increased ICE arrest nationwide and locally.

But a lot of those folks are in detention for an extended period of time.

And even once they get out of detention, are needing longer term support to fight their deportation.

So again, just taking more resources.

And the other thing I'll note is just people losing legal status.

Earlier it was mentioned TPS.

A lot of DACA holders are at risk of detention and being detained despite that status.

So these are all barriers that we're seeing.

And there was a question earlier about the US Mexico border.

Migrants are essentially stuck in Mexico, who would have crossed to the US and sought asylum as is their right under other circumstances.

Next slide.

Just want to highlight ICE arrests have greatly increased in north the Northern California region since 2025.

And we uh July data is not on here because the month's not over, but it's it's another spike.

So even though you know we have been lucky, we're not Minnesota yet, um, we are still seeing these huge spikes.

Um, and actually just got word that in far Northern California, there's been um uh a lot of ICE enforcement happening in Mendocino County, um, which typically doesn't see you know many arrests at all.

So um it is happening um regionally um as well as in the county.

And then the next slide I'll just show is um our regional numbers also show that if we look at uh uh detention center intake data by uh county of residents, Alameda County is among the top five counties as far as number of residents detained in the Central Valley.

Um so again, that just shows that um our county is seeing an uptick in enforcement and is is being impacted.

I'll go to the next slide.

So what do we need?

Um we need continued funding um long term, right?

Uh we want to be able to plan and to strategize through the end of this administration to make sure we have the resources to defend our communities.

Um, and we also uh need support from an Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Um, you know, I think uh we have regionwide data, we have some county data, but more could be done to establish shared indicators and data to inform our services and also to strengthen resource and referral navigation systems.

Um we're building those internally, but you know, there are many more CBOs within the county and a lot of players in the county.

Um, you know, we want to make sure that everyone can access our resources and also that we can smoothly make referrals to folks for other resources um beyond our collaborative.

Um so again, I just want to thank you for standing with immigrant residents in this time and happy to answer questions or share additional data if it's helpful.

Thank you, Lisa.

Supervisor Markins.

Uh, thank you so much, Lisa and your team for being here.

Really appreciate the strong partnership.

Um, thank you for getting that the um unfortunate information with respect to how many migrants are at the border.

And I believe I heard you say between 200 to 275,000 people.

Yeah, those are the estimates from advocates at the board who have the right to seek asylum and come to their country and they're being prevented from doing so.

Okay, that's uh really difficult to hear and um process.

Um but thank you for that information.

It's important that we understand the full context.

Um, with respect to, I think it's like the third slide, your chart.

Um just gonna flag for those that aren't tracking because we love our acronyms, but under a CLIP, the KYR is ours is know your rights, correct?

Just making sure clear on that acronym.

Yes, that's correct.

And I'm I'm sure they can explain their exact services better than we can.

I just want to make sure.

And then um, in terms of your role with the referral coordination, can you give me a sense of um how many people are like reviewing the intakes, what's like the timeline, and you're obviously have all these partner organizations.

And you're obviously have all these partner organizations.

So you're really trying to identify the appropriate fit, kind of do some matchmaking depending on availability.

Can you just help me understand the referral process a little bit better?

Yeah.

So we have our coordinator April Newman here, who is the person who's receiving referrals and then uh referring them out.

And um, you know, she's been uh working as a legal advocate for over a decade now, and so has um experience and knowledge to triage and for example, if someone is in detention, um, we usually would refer them out within a day to get uh legal support.

If someone is not in detention, um it may take a bit longer.

So um, yeah, April is is really looking at the each individual case and making sure that we are um seeing the the most urgent cases first.

Um I will say now that we have uh a larger group of individuals providing services, um, you know, we we uh with a few exceptions are usually able to provide the individual services.

Um, you know, there have been some individuals who were deported before, unfortunately we were able to um reach them, but um yeah, we're other than that.

We're tracking that data.

Um you would have to we we we have that info.

We didn't include it in our recording, but we we could provide that.

Multiple transfers.

If you want to come up, or Lisa, you'll have to repeat what she's saying.

I can just repeat, um, but it yeah, it's a it's it's not always clear.

Uh sometimes people are transferred to another detention center.

Um, but uh we we could provide an approximate number.

That would be helpful.

And then how many detention centers do we have in California?

And people from our community, are they going outside of California?

Yes, good question.

So um we primarily people who are arrested in this region are going to now four detention centers in the Central Valley.

Uh California City is the largest, but there's um others in Kern County, Mesa Verde, Golden State Annex, and the Just Open Central Valley Annex.

Um, and then there's four additional detention centers in in Southern California.

Um most people are detained in California, um, but people are sent out of state.

Primarily we see to um Texas right now or to Tacoma, Washington.

And um, can you please remind us when the immigration court closed in San Francisco and when the court opened in Concord?

Yeah, so the court in Concord has been open for two years now.

This San Francisco court technically closes in September of 2026, um, but it stopped hearing cases in the spring.

So it's you can go, it's the building is there, but they're in the process of transferring all the cases.

Okay.

Um I think those are all my questions for now.

And I appreciate um the last uh slide in terms of what is needed, appreciate that and um appreciate the expansion and partnership as well and addressing uh our diverse ethnicities, language needs, and calling out um the impacts on our South Southeast Asian community members.

So thank you for their your work.

Thank you.

And um I likewise want to appreciate the expansion of the coalition to include uh representation to serve the LGBTQ community, the AAPI community and the African immigrant community.

Um I think in terms of the last slide and what's needed, um, establishing shared indicators and data to inform services.

This is an example of where a future Office of Immigrant Affairs could help us track the community members who are being impacted, their home countries, and make sure that we're able to serve those communities who are most impacted.

Um also appreciate lifting up the very specific um impacts on the Southeast Asian community and glad that there are partnerships with Siri, the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants and APSC, the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, among others who were really serving um that community.

Um I know they've been impacted since the first Trump administration and have slightly um unique circumstances, um, including the deportations to countries that are not familiar with or third um countries.

Do you have one question?

As I understand it from a couple cases I'm familiar with.

Some people who are going for their immigration check-ins will end up losing their work permits.

Is that correct?

And when you lose your work permit, you're not able to work.

So what recourse do people have outside of some of the mutual aid or the San Francisco Foundation Stand Together Fund?

Yeah, that's a good question.

And we're we're actually seeing a broader assault by the Trump administration and an attempt to strip uh groups, including asylum seekers of work authorization.

Um I think there, you know, um sometimes there can be a bit of legal strategizing about what uh is this another route for the person to receive work authorization.

Um, you know, individuals can still be self-employed.

Um and there are actually great resources in our county about starting cooperatives and um alternatives to uh employment that requires work authorization.

That's really interesting.

Um I don't know exactly how much of a need this is, but is that something that the three coalitions or a court in particular since you provide legal services could track in terms of whether there's a need to help community members strategize around employment?

Yes, definitely.

Um, and I will say this is an area where also uh, you know, material resources for folks impacted is really crucial to ensure, you know, that um families can survive while they they sort this issue out.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And myself and Supervisor Marquez were um among the initial contributors to the Stand Together Bay Area Fund run by the San Francisco Foundation.

And I know they still have a 10 million dollar goal that they are working towards.

So supporting um their efforts to provide resources to the community for the basics like rent and food is so important.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna go back to a CLIP.

So we'll put um the slide on the screen, the slides on the screen.

And if you don't mind starting from the beginning so we don't miss anything.

Okay, my name is Monique Berlanga, executive director at Centro Legal de la RASA.

And my name is Angeli Barra, uh, one of the co-lead co-leads of the ACLEP program.

And thank you.

Uh next slide, please.

Okay.

And these are the organizations that uh compose a Clip.

We have Street Level Health Project, Centro Legal, Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation, Faith in Action East Bay, as well as Eden United Church of Christ in uh unincorporated.

Next slide, please.

And these are the services that the program provides.

So we provide direct legal support.

Uh, we operate the rapid response hotline Monday or every day of the week, 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

We conduct outreach and education.

We provide emergency rapid response legal services as well as legal consultations.

We coordinate accompaniment.

Um, and then there's the advocacy and support bucket where we also provide public information and make sure that folks are aware of any changes um in laws or trends locally.

Uh, we provide deportation defense services for individuals in and out of detention.

We also have added on a new component to the program, which we'll hear more about later, where we provide uh support for families post-arrest in navigating the impacts of having a family member detained or deported.

And then lastly, we uh have a stakeholder convening function where we uh bring folks together on a regular basis to share timely accurate information and facilitate coordination across the county across different sectors.

Next slide.

Next slide, please.

Can you hear me okay with this angle?

Awesome.

Uh so we wanted to walk you through what uh a caller could experience when when they reach out to the hotline.

This is an example that we uh or a case that we uh that happened in May, for example.

Uh this response began uh before the detention uh through the hotline and legal consult.

A CLIP identified that the client was at high risk in a range of company accompaniment for uh their ICE check-in.

Uh when the detention occurred, uh we found out about that at 10 in the morning.

Uh, the response activated immediately immediately.

Uh the accompanier notified the hotline and a CLEP coordinated across networks.

Uh, real-time tracking uh was critical, just data and information.

Uh while the client was being transferred, our legal teams were coordinating with the habeas network along with our attorneys uh to monitor the case, uh, gather information and prepare filings without losing any time.

Uh the legal intervention moved within hours, an emergency habeas petition and temporary restraining orders were filed, sorry, were drafted, reviewed, and filed uh the same day and overnight.

This level of coordination produced concrete results.

Uh the court granted the TRO, I think it says what is it at 2 30 in the morning.

Um the client was released the following morning by 12 p.m.

Sorry, by the afternoon at 12 p.m.

Uh this model works, you know, early risk identification, trusted accompaniment, rapid communication, and coordination across legal networks uh where were really important when every minute mattered.

Next slide, please.

Uh the case that that I just shared uh shows you know what a CELA can do for one person during a critical moment.

Uh these lifetime figures, this is uh information that we had since we've launched, um, show you know the broader scale of the same coordination uh across Alameda County.

Uh together, these numbers reflect a continuum of support from preparing uh communities, committee members before crisis to providing legal and rapid response intervention when enforcement occurred.

Um work begins with prevention and education.

Uh as we can see here, 8500 people uh have received know your rights education, and almost 25,000 red cars have been distributed across all of Alameda County.

Uh and of course, a CLIP continues to be a trusted verification source with over 120 reported sightings investigated and verified.

Uh next slide, please.

Uh quick overview of our legal services, uh legal services.

Uh here we can see how a CILA responds at different stages of risk from preparation through emergency litigation.

Um, from preparation through emergency litigation.

Uh, by providing preemptive legal service, uh legal consultations, legal services and limited assistance.

Uh, we're helping community members understand their options and prepare for high risk encounters.

Uh we facilitated 85 accompaniments so clients that not have to attend appointments alone, and so that we can monitor status and activate legal intervention if necessary as quickly as we can.

Uh, when urgent legal intervention was required, attorneys uh completed 75 substantive filings, including habeas petitions, TROs, appeals, stays, um, et cetera.

Uh, this level of coordinated work helped secure the release of more than 50 clients from custody or had their deportation uh prevented altogether.

Next slide, please.

Uh a quick overview of the hotline.

Um, and on the left side, you could see kind of a lifetime uh data of calls that we received.

Uh, one thing that I really do want to highlight is the spikes that we see here, both in May and October.

I think some of us remember Coast Guard Island, of course, uh, which I think really just highlights how quickly demands can uh rise when enforcement activity or just general public concern increases.

Uh more recently, uh on the right side, now we could see the information from last quarter.

We saw we've been see we've been seeing how the calls have stabilized a little bit more, uh, but the demand itself remains consistent.

Uh this quarter, for example, the largest need were legal consultations, verifications, accompaniment, um, and together all these categories represented, I think a little bit over half of the hotline calls that we received.

And uh, like Lisa just mentioned, you know, we are seeing a large uptick of uh targeted arrest within Alameda County, folks that have um that have arrests without convictions, which is a trend that we're seeing.

Uh, and something that I do want to emphasize here is uh, you know, that these calls are often just the beginning of a response.

And it illustrates as illustrated in the previous slides, uh, one call can lead to legal screening, verification, accompaniment, referrals, and an ongoing support for the individuals and their families.

Uh gap that we saw was that after, especially for mixed status families and uh immigrant families, when somebody is affected, the family is left to fend for themselves.

And so we are incorporating, you know, the uh community care component, which one you could tell you a little bit about uh next.

But um, it is kind of uh part of the holistic approach that we're uh that we're uh trying to reach here with a CELA.

And I'll pass it over to Monique.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

So we wanted to give a bit of an update.

We've reported uh to this committee a few times about the progress of a CLIP, and we have not um given a report since the expansion of the program.

So we wanted to talk a little bit about what the expanded funding uh that was approved in October looks like now in terms of uh as now that it's been deployed.

So again, in October, the board approved expansion of funding so that we could fill some of these gaps that we had identified in the first year of the Clips operations.

The contract amendment was ultimately executed in March of this year.

And so now we've had some time to be able to deploy those funds and to start rolling out the expansion program.

Um, and it's allowed us to really build a much more robust rapid response system than we had just a year ago.

We're now able to fully staff the hotline seven days a week.

Um, and we have seen increased enforcement on the weekends lately.

So we it's it's been really amazing to be able to have a full staff of supervision, communications attorneys, as well as the hotline dispatchers available on the weekends.

Um, and then we also have enough capacity where if there were to be a surge that we would be able to shift resources enough to hopefully do our best to meet that.

So we're in a much different place than we were a year ago.

Um, we've added the community care staff who are housed at a few of our organizations who specialize in working with special or certain distinct populations and have some type of social services element already or component already in their programming.

So they know what they're doing and they're able to staff up and have dedicated community care coordinators to follow up families who of folks uh who were impacted by ICE enforcement and make sure to help them navigate whether it's moving their belongings, whether it's plane tickets, whether it's financial resources, whatever it is, we make sure that they have somebody who can follow up with them and help support them.

Um we are also one of the partners distributing the Stand Together Bay Area Fund from the San Francisco Foundation.

So any Alameda County resident who contacts a CLIP is we do our best to make sure that they uh kind of get fast tracked, and it's a very low barrier uh to entry to get those financial resources to them.

Uh and that's worked really well.

And we want to thank you both for your support and advocacy with that fund.

We've also strengthened coordination across Alameda County by convening monthly a CLIP briefings with community organizations, legal services providers, rapid response partners, government agencies, elected officials, schools, clinics, faith communities.

Um we've expanded our communications capacity, allowing us to provide more timely know your rights education, community alerts, and multilingual information as enforcement patterns change.

Uh and then another big thing that we did was to expand our legal capacity by hiring more attorneys, more paralegals.

And now we have capacity such that our attorneys are able to conduct regular visits to detention centers to locate Alameda County residents on a regular basis, and they're providing legal consultations, evaluating potential relief, and connecting folks with ongoing representation whenever possible.

That's a new federal litigation strategy that we've really taken on.

Actually, the case got opinion, which uh is preventing the re-detentions.

Ms.

Gado Pinchy is a was a Hayward resident who is detained and supported by a Clip.

And that was the first habeas petition filed successfully in the Northern District, uh, which then turned into a class action and is now making a big impact.

So a CLIP has filed um, I want to say around 15 habeas petitions uh in the past year with 100% success.

So that's been um another benefit of the increase in capacities.

We're able to take on more complex and time-consuming uh cases.

Uh we are also in the process right now of adding in another legal services provider to help us uh uh expand our rapid response legal services at Jewish family and community services.

We'll be joining the coalition.

And lastly, we've strengthened our collaboration with rapid response networks throughout California.

Through funding from the California Department of Social Services, we're able to regularly convene and coordinate more than a dozen regional partners to share information, develop best practices, and ensure that our response is aligned with what is happening across the state.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so what's next?

Uh I think it was also mentioned earlier too that the administration originally set a goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day.

For a period of time, actual enforcement average closer to a thousand arrests daily.

At the end of June, we saw a surge of enforcement activity increasing in a period of five days in the country.

More than 10,000 people were arrested, which averaged around 2,000 arrests a day, which we are told is the new target daily target of the administration.

As they have more uh resources that have come online now, we are seeing this escalation here in Alameda County as well, with more targeted immigration enforcement occurring in our communities.

And of course, as enforcement activity increases, so do the risks of traumatic encounters, um potential for violence and collateral harm to community members.

The target enforcement we are seeing locally has primarily focused on individuals with prior orders of removal or where there are criminal allegations, but these operations often affect others who are present, including family members, coworkers, bystanders, um, you know, folks who might be in a car or just nearby when something happens.

Also, a proposed ICE detention facility has been mentioned or uh processing center in Gilroy would significantly expand enforcement activity in the Bay Area by reducing current transportation and logistical barriers.

We wanted to encourage Alameda County and the Board of Supervisors to continue supporting regional efforts to mitigate the impacts of any expanded detention capacity, including um, you know, whether that's joining an amicus brief or uh joining any other coordinated opposition to the proposed girl detention facility.

Um it's really hard to see okay.

It's hard to get out of this to tell them just okay.

And I have one line left, so I think you're almost out of uh out of the danger zone.

Okay, thank you.

And last but not least, uh sustained funding, as we as we all will reiterate is critical.

It's taken us 18 months to build out this infrastructure, and we are just getting going.

And um, but our current county funding expires in September, right?

So we just wanted to reiterate that continued investment's gonna be essential to maintain emergency response capacity as enforcement increases.

We can't afford to slow down or to have gaps in funding right now, or we would be right back to the drawing board of where we were a year and a half ago.

So thank you again for your your uh hearing today for your support, and we are happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Monique and Angel, uh Supervisor Marquez.

Um thank you so much for the great work and the strong partnerships you had from a Clip 1.0.

So I'm glad to hear uh you're back stronger.

Um, can you tell us when you um trying to recall?

We added seven we were Monday through Friday from the beginning.

You added the weekends.

When did that occur?

The weekend line.

That happened in October.

October fully won.

The amendment to the contract, you're able to extend the two days.

Okay.

Um, and then with respect to um the Stand Together Bay Area Fund.

Um, I believe I've gone to the San Francisco Family Foundation's website.

I did see you listed.

I think you could click on a link, but just um, how are we promoting that?

Because I don't know if the general public is aware of that resource.

Yeah, so the need is huge.

Um, and so we're working with uh outreach partners who are giving us uh referrals at the same time.

I think we're close to 75% of spend down at this point of the funds that we received.

Um so we don't want to advertise it because it will probably lead to a flood that we won't be able to cover.

And the outreach partners that Anhell's mentioning are uh that is the model that is the design of the program by the San Francisco Foundation.

They're the distributors, and then they are contracting with outreach partners to go out and make sure that they are getting into um hard-to-reach communities and making sure folks are aware of that piece.

Okay, I um understand the sensitivity around that.

So I appreciate that um explanation.

Um, can you elaborate?

You mentioned um establishing a relationship with the Jewish Family Center.

Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, through our work uh leading the regional hub through the California Department of Social Services, where we're able to convene folks.

Um we've developed a relationship uh and some coordination with that organization, and they are building out their uh rapid response and uh we practice.

And so they've got that skill, they've got the capacity, and so we would like to bring them on board so that they can help uh with some shifts for us to cut for coverage, um, particularly as we've expanded into weekends and we see the enforcement increasing right now.

Okay.

And you mentioned being able to hire additional attorneys and paralegal staff.

Can you give us a sense of um what the workforce recruitment looks like right now?

I am sure there's the needs exceed availability.

Can you just give us a sense?

Is it people from the Bay Area or people relocating, just kind of what's the job market right now?

That's a really good question.

Um, so I'll say we we've not had difficulty hiring or filling these positions, right?

I think for a lot of us, um, it's the supervision and the training and the capacity, right?

There's a lot of newer attorneys who are eager and who are who do come from this community.

We've just hired, I think, three attorneys who do come from Alameda County and you know are very familiar with our communities.

Um, but we can only move at the pace of supervision and training and all of that too.

But I've been very, very pleased with the folks who are applying to do this work and who do come from these communities.

That's impressive and congratulations on that progress.

And I think those are all my questions for now, but thank you.

Thank you.

Um, I certainly appreciate the work and the expansion to seven days a week and into um several areas of work.

I do have a few questions.

Let's see.

Um set of questions.

Uh, you know, just given the data that we had received, um, one of the last times you reported to us, there's obviously the um Mexican and Central American community is largely impacted here in the Northern California area, and there's some impacts on our Asian American as well as African immigrant community.

How are you serving those communities and potentially expanding the CLUP coalition?

Yeah.

With strategic partnerships.

We're working with informal uh partnerships, like we're we've been working with the Asian Health Services in Oakland to figure out how to better create a referral process between our both of our coalitions or organizations.

Um similarly, uh we are trying to do as much outreach to different communities via the um KYRP so that we are also reaching communities uh from that initial stage all the way to the end.

Um, I'll also say I think too at the beginning of uh creating a Clip, it was really, really, you know, difficult with with a very, very small health staff across each of the organizations dedicated to this project to go out and meet people where they're at across the entire county, right?

It was you know a 24-7 job.

I think now that the change is also that with the expansion, we have more staff.

We have more folks available to be out there conducting outreach and building relationships and identifying gaps and partnering and providing that technical assistance to folks and doing more train the trainer work and making sure that we have that network build out because we can't be all things to all people, you know, nor should we, but we should be there to listen and be present and build those relationships.

So we're better able to do that with just more capacity now.

And do you um can you share what your language capacity is, sort of like the number of languages that you may be communicating in providing rapid response services or know your rights?

I don't have that data right in in front of or right now.

We may have reported it to SSA in terms of like the callers and the languages.

Um we use the same uh language line services to make every single language uh under the sun available to any callers or anybody who needs legal services.

Uh, we actually just recently did have a conversation with Asian health services and others just to make sure that we are adopting best practices and we found out we are all using the exact same systems.

Um so I I feel confident that the language the hotline is linguistically accessible uh in terms of like what live presentations are being conducted right now in other languages.

Do you have that information?

No, I don't have the numbers, unfortunately.

Yeah, we can follow up with that though.

Okay.

Um, well, certainly with the expansion of the current contract through September and an additional expansion that the board has approved through our Measure W Essential Services Funds.

Um, I do want to make sure that we're looking at the communities or who were impacted and have the ability to really partner um with those, especially in the API and the African immigrant community.

Um, just a couple more questions.

Um representing uh Berkeley as well as parts of Oakland.

I know each of those cities have their own task forces, and I believe you're participating in both.

And now there's the collaborative calls.

Can you just talk a little bit about where cities might have their own coalitions or task forces, how you're relating to those?

Yeah, again, I think um it has gotten, you know, with five organizations, we are able to try to spread ourselves out a little bit more and be more present and be more involved, particularly now that it's no longer just, you know, us two on the weekends monitoring the hotline or doing the social media, we're able to better distribute those relationships.

So I'm not sure exactly what kind of information you're looking for, but we we aim to have somebody consistently present at each one of those meetings.

And we are, you know, working very closely with the city of Oakland to help kind of design their task force and implement it.

Um and we have staff who regularly attend the Berkeley task force as well.

Okay.

That's that's a question that you're very engaged in both of those cities as they're they've got their own um activities happening.

And uh last question.

Um, you know, we're doing our best to um ask everyone to report to the hotline if they see activity that could be immigration enforcement.

Say, for example, and there was a recent example.

Um something that might be reported in the paper is not directly reported to a C-Up.

Is there a protocol for how you follow up on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

We're actually working, I was actually just messaging the news reporters so uh we can connect with the individuals, the people that were interviewed.

Um, we also work with a lot of volunteers who help us do canvassing after an abduction happens so that we can find out from community themselves what's happening and we can uh connect with their families and therefore activate legal support and or whatever other assistance may be needed.

And also that's a lot of what we do, right?

If we hear of something, somebody sees something, it's inconclusive, we're not able to verify it, but we you know see some type of evidence that some an abduction may have occurred.

We work with like like on how various adoptive corner groups, foot patrols, community groups, face-based groups, and we're able to pretty quickly get folks on the ground to you know collect ring doorbell footage sometimes, or so yeah, store surveillance or just you know, knock on doors.

Um it's it's it's been really, really amazing the community response when we put it out there and we say we need that type of support.

Absolutely.

I think it's amazing how many volunteers are participating in foot patrol and other activities.

Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you.

I just have a follow-up question.

Um, I know when we've spoken in the past, uh, there is a need to strengthen communication with local law enforcement just because they are present within the community, just to verify is that truly ICE or is it an undercover operation?

Have those communications improved?

I know we had talked about kind of like a phone tree where there's contact information for the city manager, the chief of police, um, if it's a city proper uh potentially the mayor, council member have those communication lines improved.

Yeah, I'll say I think in every city we have a point of contact.

Um, Oakland, I think uh it took us a little bit of time because there was a lot of transitions, but we have a point of contact now with an OPD and directly within the city administration to make sure that things happen very quickly.

Um so I do feel confident that we have that uh infrastructure in place.

I think right now a lot of cities are not getting notification of ICE enforcement.

So there's really, you know, not much that they can they can help us uh confirm that something was not ICE if it was their operation, but they're not able to necessarily get advanced notice.

Um and luckily we have not had a situation where there has been random community enforcement or some type of mass enforcement in the community, other than I uh last year there was a door knocking operation, I believe in Fremont, and we were in close coordination with um, you know, the elected officials and local government there to coordinate there, but I do feel confident that we have those channels of communication in place should something like that occur.

Okay, and then can you speak to, I know in the past when you've presented to us, um, it seems like you have a good working relationship with our sheriff's department, which oversees unincorporated as well as some of our cities.

They are the contracted law enforcement as well as AC Transit and the Port of Oakland.

Um, what's the re communication relationship with the sheriff's department?

Yeah, oh, I'll also say to you, since you just mentioned it, Port of Oakland, we're in regular communication with the port.

Um, and we are, you know, sharing resources.

We we are sharing resources and coordinating and making sure that um, you know, if we hear of something happening at the port or at the airport, that we are uh, you know, verifying it with them and um they've connected us with some of the truck driver groups to do know your rights trainings, and we're in very, very close coordination there.

Similarly, AC Transit as well.

Um we're in coordination and communication with uh them.

Um, and you're oh, the sheriffs, yes.

Uh just yesterday, for instance, we had a potential report of a sighting of ICE activity in Castor Valley.

Um, but it didn't sound quite right from what, you know, like it like it.

We had we suspected that it might not be ICAC activity.

So we reached out to the sheriff's PIO.

They were able to quickly tell us, no, that's actually uh a warrant operation that the uh Alameda County Sheriff's Office was conducting, and then we were able to kind of mitigate any kind of rumors or false information getting out there really rapidly.

Okay, and I do appreciate um your touch points on social media.

Your templates are very consistent.

It's easy to process the content and to share it.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

So we're going to hear next from Aku Dear, and I believe we have Andres and Iris.

I like your branding and your uh your gear.

Okay.

Hello, I'm Andrés Pomar.

I'm the administrative specialist at Road Sunidos Workers United, and I'm here accompanied with my colleague Iris Barrera Hurtado.

Um they are the field director at the Valoros Unidos Workers United, and we are here on behalf of uh the coalition that we are members and a part of, which is Aquudit, Alameda County United in Defense for Immigrant Rights.

And then I'll wait till our I guess slides load up.

Thank you.

Oh, right.

Should I introduce myself again?

Oh, all right.

Okay.

ACUDEED.

This slide right here is on the general overview of services.

ACUDED provides community members with the tools to be informed about the rights and gather their peers and community to respond to emergent needs and threats.

Our services include in-person outreach, in which we do in-depth one-on-one conversations with community members in places where they gather their workplaces, their churches, at their schools.

We also distribute educational resource information, do community trainings, connect community members and impacted families to local resources, organizations and mutual aid initiatives.

And we support impacted families with navigating systems and locating their loved ones.

Collectively, the coalition has also distributed over 12,500 materials to community members on their rights and local resources.

Community members who have been detained are able to connect with a legal team, or if they have if their families already have a legal team or able to connect with a court for additional support and updates.

This partnership has also increased access for community members as we're able to have legal consultations and updated information at events and at town halls with the court.

We have also been partnering with a court to connect impacted families to mutual aid and resources and support them with navigating systems through our organizing committee.

So far today, ACULED's organizing committee has connected 37 impacted individuals and families to resources and/or mutual aid.

This number does not include the many referrals and resources connections that are happening on the ground by each coalition member organization with community members.

ACUDIER, another update is Aquudit has also grown in member organizations.

We now have five new organizations which span AAPI communities and youth organizing.

Among them are Asian Health Services, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, Center for Empowering Refugee and Immigrants, New Light Wellness.

67 Swan.

Next slide, please.

In our highlights, we're building community power.

We've been able to increase the number of community members developed as leaders.

We are now at a total of 56.

One of the member organizations from South Alameda County reports that they recently had a community member who showed up timid and afraid initially.

But after attending trainings, becoming informed, she's now become active and is now organizing around the issues of immigrant rights.

She now leads support groups, is facilitating sanctuary workplace trainings and is active in her community.

She is one of the many community members who continue to stay up to date on rights and resources, are asserting the rights, overcoming fears, and continuing to build strong support networks with their peers and community.

We've also seen an increase in civic engagement among our immigrant and refugee community members.

Community members have been leading and joining various efforts across our county to promote community safety and uplift rights.

Many community member leaders are active in advocating for ice-free zones and local sanctuary policies.

Such as, for example, recently in Union City, where we had youth leaders who were mobilizing to provide public comments before the Union City City before the Union City Council on Sanctuary Policies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

Um that we've been having through Aquudir.

So through Aquudid, we've been able to support families impacted by the ICE kidnappings through community-led organizing campaigns, meaning that if a loved one is kidnapped and the family is wanting to organize and fight for the liberation of their loved one, uh, this is a pathway that they can take.

Or they're looking to be connected to just resources and services.

We support making those connections, whether it's through mutual aid, community support at the courts, writing letters and provide emotional support.

Um, and really showing community that they're not alone and that they have a county and community that backs them up, especially during these times of crises, such as with a community member and leader, Leo, uh world-class drummer, educator, and organizer whose campaign we continue to support and organize towards his uh liberation, and have had a strong partnership uh, like Andres has shared with a CORD, as we continue to hear of impacted community having their loved ones be kidnapped by ICE.

Uh, they as they need that long-term support, um, and as they continue to be in detention and liberated for their continued legal support.

Um next slide, please.

So some trends that we are seeing are community members are being pressured to sign their self-deportation rather than respecting their Fifth Amendment right to go through a legal process.

We've heard directly from family members of the horrible conditions community members in detention are going through with no proper meals, water, or medical treatment due to the fast changes in immigrant immigration policies.

This has left many community members and their immigration cases at risk or in a state of uncertainty, while others lost their status completely, such as TPS holders from Yemen and Syria have been among the most affected.

On the ground, community members have reported issues with landlords being unrespond unresponsive to repair and habitability requests more so than before.

We've also heard from community members working under employers who are committing wage theft and undermining labor rights.

Community members are facing food and economic insecurities, struggling with the costs of living, uh being amongst a major concern that comes up besides concerns around their safety around ice.

We've also seen a rise in the kidnappings from community members.

Just in the last two months in the Eden area, three community members were kidnapped at their residences.

And just last week, four community members throughout Berkeley, Hayward, Castro Valley, and Livermore were targeted at their homes or on their way to work.

Due to a referral, we are currently in communication with the impacted family member from Livermore.

And in being in contact with this family member, we are activating our referral process and also supporting the family member navigating the car the carceral system.

So for the needs, there is a big need for emergency relief towards impacted families by the ICE kidnappings.

A lot of the kidnappings are heads of the household and families are left to struggle.

Through our partnership with the county, it really has allowed for the county to have a deportation defense organizing, which is crucial is a crucial part for the legal services portion.

We really want to uplift that this is not a time when we pull resources away as people are suffering, and we really want to uplift, you know, that uh we continue as a county to provide more, especially from what we are hearing from on the ground.

Um, immigrant communities uphold our county, and it's important that we continue to uplift and support these services and funding and immigrant community uh funding immigrant community and refugee rights defense.

Ummigrant and uh refugee rights defense for the long term, as well as additional funding for support towards expanded partnerships with our AAPI organizations such as Center for Empower Empowering Refugees and Immigrants or Syri, Asian Prisoner Support Committee or APCSC, Asian Health Services, AHS, and New Light Wellness.

And that is the end of our presentation.

We really appreciate y'all's um support and partnership with our coalitions.

Thank you.

I'm not sure if there's any questions as well.

Thank you so much for that great work as well as the presentation, Supervisor Markins.

Thank you.

Thank you for the good work and good to see you both.

I see you a lot in the community.

So just thank you for everything you're doing to bring our community together.

Um, how are you keeping in touch with everyone?

Is there like an email distribution list?

Is it mainly communicating through social media or just give me a sense of how people would be aware of your services?

Yeah.

So through our outreach, um, we've been doing a lot of outreach, um, whether that's in the streets in Oakland, Hayward, Union City, uh, Cherry Land, Ashland throughout.

We've been focusing a lot in South Alameda County, especially.

Um, and also Dublin, Livermore.

Um, and so a lot of our outreach, we have one-on-one conversations with community.

Um, and a lot of the times, because we are very focused in building relationship with community.

We do um ask for their contact.

Um, and then also we'll they'll have our contact information.

We distribute um flyers as well.

So they have our office number.

They have a contact number that they can reach out to.

And also in the materials that we've been distributing, we've also been uplifting the rapid response line so that folks are aware that ACLIP exists, that there's this a rapid response line.

And so we have those contacts in our organ organizations.

Okay.

Thank you.

And appreciate you uplifting just the trauma and the challenges and the need to connect people to more resources and support.

So I really appreciate that.

I I know we still have public comment, but um supervisor, I just wanted to give an update and I just I wanted to wait until we heard from our coalition partners, but I just wanted to just share we had talked earlier about the um implementing the office of immigrant and refugee affairs.

Just wanted to acknowledge Charles Sanchez is here.

He is our first position, our first hire in our interim department.

So just really uh want to uplift his tremendous work.

And I was looking at our social services website.

If you go to that and you click on services, you will see detailed information for our immigrant refugee and a Saley community members.

So thank you for the tremendous work around that and hearing everyone's comments about how important and how vital it is that we maintain these services.

That also was called out in the implementation study, which we heard presented at this committee on April 30th.

And again, we will receive another presentation to the full board on Tuesday um July 28th.

We're shooting for a set matter, hopefully at 3 p.m., but did want to let the community know and the coalition know that SSA will be working on extending the contracts through June of 2027.

So we will be taking that action up in the fall.

And so I just wanted everybody to know that.

And um currently there is a process to work on launching an RFP.

So Social Services Agency, specifically the interim office of the uh Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs is working with counties general services agency to develop a request for proposals and RFP that will strengthen and coordinate the county support for immigrant and refugee residents.

This process can take up to four months.

The scope of work is still being developed.

Once it's finalized, the RFP will be released for the county's standard competitive procurement process, and all interested organizations will have equal opportunity to respond.

Given the scope development period, the RFP is anticipated to be released in no less than four months of this notice.

Specific milestones, including the release date, question period, proposal due date, and anticipated award date will be included in the solicitation itself once it's published.

Um Alameda County representatives cannot discuss the specific contents of the RFP while it's still being developed.

Um this is standard procurement practice, and it protects the fairness and integrity of the process for every organization that we want to apply.

The Social Services Agency and Interim Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and the County's General Services Agency recognize the urgency of this work and to that end is exactly why we're taking time to develop the scope before its release.

And again, the three coalition partners that we're hearing from today, their contracts will be um extended through June of 2027.

So just wanted to share that for everyone that would be um bridge funding as we go through the RFP process.

So our goal is to maintain the amazing services you guys are doing.

So that I just wanted to share that status update.

And then once the solicit solicitation is posted, you'll anyone from the community can find it at the county's general social services agency website, which is GSAACGov.org.

So just want to make sure everyone had that information.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

I have a couple questions and also wanted to have a little bit of conversation about that.

And thank you, everyone, for being patient regarding public comment, which will be very soon.

I believe Andres, you wanted to um respond.

Wanted to ask if there's time to still be able to discuss briefly our organizing model for our coalition.

Um, just briefly because I do want to make sure we uh get to public comment and it's um 530.

It's been a rich discussion.

Yeah, go ahead and briefly do that.

Um, yeah, so through our organizing model, it also supports us to be able to track um the development of our members of our community members as well.

Um, and also uh for each of the steering committee organizations.

Um, we are each in charge of two districts where we're also able to um hold and like uh uh dive deeper and doing our outreach.

Um, and that it's also uh a way for us to um be able to focus uh within different areas in um Alameda County.

Thank you.

That was very brief.

Um just a couple questions and and comments.

Um my office had the opportunity last year to have some interns work with ACUDIER in doing in terms of doing outreach to businesses.

So I definitely appreciate the role that you play.

Um just a couple of quick questions.

You mentioned um several organizations that you will be adding to the coalition, um, Asian Health Services, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, New Light Wellness, 67 Sueños.

Could you mention who are the existing organizations in the coalition?

Um, yes, so part of the um organizations that exist within the coalition, besides the steering committee, which is Trabajadores Unidos, Workers United, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, My Eden Voice, Arab Resource Organizing Center, and Filipino Advocates for Justice.

Uh, there's also um organizations uh that have joined, um, which are uh East Bay DSA.

Um also um sorry, I'm trying to remember off the top of my head.

Let me just look at my that's okay.

I am wondering if there's any immigrant um any organizations that are part of the coalition serving the African immigrant community.

Hey, yeah.

Sorry.

Um also so other organizations are also East Bay DSA, uh Parent Voices, um, the new organizations that we just named.

In terms of folks who are supporting Black community, black immigrant communities.

Historically, we usually have worked with Bhaji.

Bhaji is um statewide organization.

It's what's the acronym?

It's Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Um currently they're not present in the Bay Area, but we have been participating in their campaigns and their meetings that they have each month.

And Anti-Police Terror Project has been a co-lead working really closely with Bhaji in the Bay Area.

So, for example, for the Free Leo campaign, one of the organizations that we reach out to has been Bhaji and APTP because of constraints and resources.

Um, different organizations haven't been able to join the coalition, but in the Bay Area, um, that those are the two organizations that have been focusing in the support liberation of Black immigrants in California that we have been meeting, checking in with, and making sure that we're updating them on uh Leo's campaign, for example.

Thank you.

Um, and I certainly appreciate the focus on serving communities who might be underserved.

I remember at the beginning of last year, we had a conversation about how historically this work can be concentrated in North County.

So I appreciate the intentionality around serving South County and the unincorporated areas.

Um, my last question is regarding volunteers.

Um, if people are interested in volunteering, say they want to do a community foot patrol or mutual aid, is ACUDER able to um receive an interest from volunteers for your coalition or through uh referring them to other organizations?

Yeah, just a reminder our acudir, we have monthly ACUDIR coalition meetings that are open to all community members, whether you're part of a nonprofit, maybe you're part of a church, or maybe you're just an individual.

Um so those meetings are open to the public.

It happens every Wednesday at noon from 12 to 1.30.

We're really grateful to also have community members who join us during their lunch.

And there's also our anti-deportation organizing committee that's fully led by volunteers.

It's co-led by Mujeres Unidas y Activas and TUBU, but the folks who help us do the referrals, the mutual aid, the house visits are all community members, and that committee meets more on a working class time, which is at from 6 to 7.30, sometimes at 6 30.

Um we are literally engaging with community members who are joining us right after work.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Um before we go to public comment.

Okay.

Yes.

So we'll take uh a three-minute recess.

Um, I do want to come back and just engage a little bit about the contract extensions, and then we will go to public comment.

So thanks for your patience.

We will recess for three minutes.

And thank you to our interpreter, Christine.

You are uh doing a great job.

Okay, let's call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Fortinato Bass.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Okay, we're just gonna have a little bit of discussion and then we are going to go to public comment.

So please make sure that you sign up now if you want to speak because we will be closing public comment uh very soon.

And if the clerk or my staff don't mind letting me know how many um speakers' cards we have, that will be helpful.

You don't have to do it now.

We have 13.

13.

13.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um, so I just wanted to follow up one thing after hearing from our three coalitions who are doing amazing work under very challenging circumstances with the law that keeps changing, etc.

Um, supervisor Marquez I appreciate the status update.

So I do remember an act meeting where I believe we talked about extending the contracts beyond the Trump administration's term so that we could have continuity.

Um I wanted to just hear was it the um the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs Implementation Study is the recommendation for the nine-month extension and the RFP?

Is it coming from that report in that process?

Um my understanding is the need is to maintain um in concept what we currently have in place, and I'm gonna be very careful because this is all gonna come to an RFP, and we have to be careful to protect the entirety of the process.

But the goal is to um maintain in concept the existing services that we have in place, but also we've received a lot of feedback that there's some gaps and unmet needs, which also came up through the implementation study.

And so this is why we wanted to hear a status update from the coalition, find out what's working, what are the gaps?

When we announced when we launched the initial RFPs, it was really out of urgency.

You know, we kind of fast tracked these, they were all done in sole source.

It was very rushed, and that was to respond to the immediate need.

But now that we've had time, we've had data, we're able to see what's working, what's not.

So the intent is to sustain and expand, I think is the best way I could frame it.

Okay, I definitely appreciate that.

Um I just want to make sure that that's happening with board direction, whether it's at the work session on the 28th, where we will hear the implementation study.

Well, actually, I think that would be ideal because I certainly would want to hear make I would want to make sure now that we have staffing through our social services to support these coalitions, that those gaps are being communicated and that they have an opportunity to address those gaps.

For instance, you know, very clearly a couple of the coalitions have integrated and brought on more coalition partners to outreach to the AEPI community, somewhat to the African immigrant community.

So I just want to make sure that the coalition partners know very explicitly um what is happening because I know they're doing the work on the ground, they're invoicing, they're doing quarterly reports, so an RFP on top of that potentially takes away from the work.

So I'm hoping we can discuss it further to make sure it's um the full board's direction.

Okay, great.

Um, well, let's go ahead and go to public comment.

I certainly appreciate everyone being so patient.

Um, and you have up to two minutes to speak.

Laura Coello and then Samuel and then Miriam.

Okay, that's fine.

My name is Laura Quellen.

I'm with the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, SARI.

We are a community-based nonprofit in Oakland and have been serving Alameda County residents for the last 20 years, working primarily with Cambodian Afghan, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Apali, Tibetan, Eritrean, and Iranian communities.

We are supportive of the recommendation to fund contract renewals for AcuDear, a CELIP and Accord.

We actively work alongside each of these important coalitions.

We are a proud member of ACUDEAR doing critical community organizing and outreach.

We look to accord for legal representation, and we appreciate a CLIP lifting up community needs at local task forces.

But we want to urge you to consider increasing funding for new member organizations during this bridge funding period.

Now is not the time to scale back on efforts to organize community and defend rights.

There are still unmet needs that require trusted linguistic and culturally responsive service providers like SARI, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, New Light Wellness, RIT, and others.

And we want to ensure that adequate funding is directed to support Southeast Asian community organizing and deportation defense right now.

We are also supportive of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, but we urge you to improve transparency of the process and ensure genuine inclusion of diverse refugee and immigrant voices.

While it is essential that resources go toward deportation defense, we urge you to also hold a long-term vision for the office that extends the mandate of the office beyond legal defense to encompass a broader set of essential services, including wellness and behavioral health, education and employment.

I was happy to hear you mention refugees today.

Refugees have unique needs, challenges, and opportunities, changing federal policies and efforts to de-document our since statuses that impact eligibility and access to services combined with reductions and funding at the federal and state levels.

If you can support our services, sorry, I'm just trying to have my two minutes.

Yeah.

Services is more complex and resources are disappearing.

We urge you to include refugee voices, newcomer supports, and refugee-specific resources as part of the work of the office.

This can start by adding seats on the community advisory board to represent the needs of refugees, such as including East Bay Refugee and Immigrant Forum.

Thank you.

We want to partner with you and we'd like to meet with you.

I'm so sorry.

And please feel free to also email us your comments.

We're happy to take them over email.

Please do slow down.

It is really important for language access that we're able to hear everyone.

So yeah.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Miriam Alain Myers.

I'm the lead organizer with Trabajadores Unidos Workers United.

And we are supportive of the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugees Affairs and support contract renewals with Aquileid, ACILIP, and Accord.

We're actively involved in these important coalitions, such as Aquilead and Community Organization and Outreach.

We have this summer many of our interns doing door knocking and outreach across South Alameda County in Hayward, Fremont, Union City, just talking to people at their doorstep and making sure that they know that these programs and resources exist.

We want to uplift the needs of Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees facing deportation and other communities facing a high risk of ice targeting and deportation.

And we urge additional funding for consideration for communities fighting against ICE detention and deportation, such as SARI, APSC, and New Light Wellness.

And I just wanted to reiterate what my colleagues shared earlier around our organizing efforts and campaigns for families who have been directly impacted by ICE.

Leo is a close friend of mine.

I met him only a month after he moved from Bahia, Brazil, Salvador Bahia to Oakland.

He was my dance and drumming teacher.

I know that Leo is one of many people who is still waiting and uh also may not be the last that is impacted by this um carceral system.

And so we need to support our families and communities before that even happens.

So thank you for your attention and um energy towards this process.

And from Giali.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Samuel Trabajo de los Unidos Workers United.

Yes, here in support of the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in the support of contract renewals for Aquile, La Silep, and the CORD who actively are involved in important cases in this coalitions, such as in Aquileid, as my colleague mentioned, in being very active in throughout the community of Alameda County to conduct outreach, to uh let families know that wouldn't otherwise be aware of the organizing and uh resources that would be able to provide for folks.

Um I just want to uplift um one thing that was mentioned in one of the presentations, right?

Of like the uh activity of ICE that happened this past October, where there was a big scarcity from community of uh seeing uh videos and pictures of ICE being here in the area.

Um, and one of the things that we saw within our organization too is that folks didn't have the privilege, a lot of folks didn't have the privilege to stay home.

They had to risk themselves to continue to go to work, to continue to provide for their families.

Um, and we just feel that it's just like a very important um process for us to be taking here with the coalition with the office so that families can also know about just that the county is looking out for folks and that there is a place that people can come out and also use as a resource as well.

Um, we I urge as well for additional funding, collaboration with communities fighting against ICE detentions and deportations, such as uh Southeast Asian organizations like Firi, APSC, and New Light Wellness.

Um, just given that the increase, right, which is what's mentioned about 18% of ICE arrests in the San Francisco region right now, right, are the communities of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

So it was just wanted to be bring that up and really uplift the importance of being able to be sure that we are in support of our communities who are being affected.

Thank you Good afternoon.

My name is Esmeralda, and I'm a field organizer at Trabajal de Sunidos Workers United and a resident of Deep East Oakland.

A majority of my time is spent speaking with our base of Spanish-speaking immigrant workers in our communities here in Alameda County.

During these conversations, one of the topics that comes up most frequently is the fear that our communities are experiencing due to the ICE attacks.

With everything going on, our most vulnerable community members are afraid to go outside, to go to work, grocery shopping, and even to the doctor.

People are almost always asking for legal guidance or resources to support them in navigating immigration concerns, as they frequently tell me that they do not know where to go or even where to start.

Um, this is often compounded by by the fact that a lot of our community members are often working two to three jobs to like even stay afloat.

This shows the need for continued education and outreach.

As we have seen with recent and historical events, these attacks are not new or isolated.

Having access to resources and legal guidance is a matter of life or death for our immigrant communities.

This is why I want to uplift and speak in support of the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and for the continued support of coalitions such as Aquileid Accord in ASILEP.

We also urge additional funding consideration for communities fighting against detention and deportation, such as SARE, APSC, and New Light Weltness.

Thank you.

And during countless conversations while doing outreach across Alameda County, it's clear that our community is feeling the fear, the uncertainty, uh, and the powerlessness with increased federal attacks on immigrants.

Uh in my day-to-day life, I'm also talking to my neighbors, and this truth is also echoed there.

I'm eager for the Board of Supervisors to move forward with passing of an Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and continuing to resource and expand support for ACILEP, Accord, and Aquile.

This historical moment, the ever growing moral cost of immigration enforcement, demands that the county resource the programs that support our work to inform our neighbors, to connect them with the lifelines that allow them to thrive and to meet the community defense needs in those moments of deep crisis brought by federal kidnappings.

Also want to highlight the importance of resourcing organizing work that uplifts our community's leadership to protect their families and their neighbors.

Thank you.

Paola Christopher Andres.

We are going as far as Livermore, Dublin, Fremont, talking to community out there regarding their immigration rights.

And I'm also in full support of keeping slow.

And I am also in support of the creation of the immigrant and refugee affairs office.

My husband, Fernando Cruz Sanchez, was kidnapped by immigration agents while at work on Saturday, July 11th.

They did not present a warrant.

They simply took him away, and we heard nothing from him for four hours.

From me, his wife, and from the baby we are expecting.

My daughters and I depend on him.

My daughters are devastated and have been and have held on to the hope that he will be released ever since they found out he had been detained.

Today I ask for your support as representatives of Alameda County to continue backing organizations like Aquileid who fight and organize to secure the release of our loved ones, like my husband, and for you all to see that these kidnappings are happening in your communities right here in Alameda County.

Hello, I'm Andres Pomar.

I'm with I'm the administrative specialist at Torvaldores Workers United.

And I'm here giving public comment in support of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, as well as to support the renewals for all the active coalitions in the Act for All, which is like Aculir, ACILEP, and Accord.

Also want to continue to uplift the needs as well of the Southeast Asian immigrant communities and who are also impacted and facing deportation.

Regarding the RFP.

My input there would be if there's a possibility to be able to include in those conversations organizations that are actively on the ground and doing the work for context.

So there's still a lot of um and it would be helpful.

It would be good to have an opportunity to for organizations and community to provide some level of input with like RFP.

Thank you.

Iris, Adriana, Alana Good afternoon, supervisors Christopher Martinez with the Spanish speaking citizens foundation, uh proud partner in Silep, but also just very proud to be part of Alameda County, and really just want to echo what's already been said to thank you both to thank the county for investing resources in our community because it matters, it really does matter.

Um I am one of your 6 a.m.

Sunday dispatchers.

Uh I'm also coordinating accompaniment on weekends, but I'm not complaining.

I'm just showing you the level of commitment that all of us have to this work to make sure that our community is protected, safe, thriving, feeling that they belong, they have every right to feel that way.

As we know, enforcement doesn't have a predictable schedule, and so making sure that this these services are sustained, continuous, absolutely essential to the work we do.

But I also want to share with you a couple of things that we do that haven't been talked about already.

Um we're working with people who are choosing to go home to their home country.

Um, not the outcome we want, but also important for us to work with them to make sure they travel back safely and with their dignity intact.

Let's not forget about our unhoused immigrant communities.

We're working with several community members who are unhoused.

We simply cannot do this work without volunteers.

Hundreds of volunteers have stepped up, raised money, supported people with mutual aid efforts, services navigation, accompaniment.

Um it's absolutely one of the best things that that has come out of this nightmare that we're living in.

And also lastly, connecting people with other resources.

I recently took a call from someone who is a resident of Hayward, but her partner is a resident of San Joaquin County who is detained.

I was able to connect her with the Valley Watch Network, but I mostly spent about 45 minutes just talking to her, just reassuring her that everything was going to be okay.

So again, thank you so much.

Really appreciate your leadership and continued support of all of our networks and services.

Thank you.

Good afternoon again, supervisors.

Um, Nikki Fortunato Bas and Marquez.

My name is Iris, I'm part of Trabajadores Unidos, Workers United, and Acudir.

Um, and as we've heard, there is a processing center that is um that is going to be opening up in Gilroy.

It's confirmed.

Um, there is a high chance of an ICE detention center that would open up in Dublin.

Uh, and it's really important that that the county does not scale back and continue to support the most vulnerable communities, as we are seeing ice rampantly scaling up and not down.

We are engaging day to day with community, really having those one-on-one conversations with them, meeting people where they're at, whether uh that's in their homes, in their workplaces, at churches, um, where they shop in parks, and they should really share with us and open up about their struggles and fears of being kidnapped and also being kidnapped by ice.

Our communities deserve more than living in fear, and our communities can't face any more gaps.

We urge you to continue long-term funding for accoudir accord in the SILIP as well as additional funding consideration for communities fighting against ice detention, such as Siri, APSC, Asian Health Services, and New Light Wellness to continue filling the gap of getting to our AAPI communities.

Thank you.

Hello, good afternoon.

Uh to the uh the directors of uh uh the county.

My name is Adriana.

So organizador contubu, Trabajadores Unidos, Workers United.

I'm an organizer with uh United Workers United.

See, as an organizer and immigrant speaking to my community, I know.

I understand and I listen to the concerns about the community.

I am not even safe.

I'm have to be out in the street, you know, going to work and working with my community.

But conosco my derechos, I'm sorry, but but I know my rights.

Acudir has helped me understand my rights, and um but loser so to know my rights.

And I know that acudir is there to help to to be able to organize and to help families that have been separated.

Um it's also hard to listen to close friends because husbands are being uh uh kidnapped, violent violated solamente because they're going to work, they're walking to work.

And that's why I'm here.

I'm asking a larger place that you keep supporting acudir long term.

As you nostalgia that way, our communities at the same time can uh be uh uh supported la información, siendo apoyados and organizar, getting the information being supported and organizing to be able to defend their their loved ones and then I perd the society and to organize and defend um uh protege so that they can know how to uh to uh defend their the rights with the community um with the county of Alameda.

Gracias por su liderazgo y apoyo nostras communidades menos protegidas, and thank you for your leadership and your support in our um in our community in our uh the less protected communities.

Gracias, thank you, Alma, Marcos, Cynthia.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Alana.

I work at Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, and I'm also a community member.

I'm here to urge supervisors to approve the creation of an office of immigrant and refugee affairs, an official office would provide the systematic infrastructure to manage the surging demand for services.

It would provide a permanent and scalable solution for legal services, deportation defense, and know your rights and community outreach.

In the meantime, continuing to fund acudir accord and a CLAP is essential.

Along with this, federal data reports that around 18% of ICRS in the region have been Asian or Pacific Islander community members.

As you can see, there's a lot of um you know gaps in our population.

So I'm so grateful to see that the you know there's a lot of growing Latino communities in here, and to see the Latino communities are getting the support they need, however, and there's also a gap, you know, how important is language as you see how she you know she has to deal with all this issue, how language to be translated, so language access is an issue, and then as um we see that as maybe doing a great job, but that's not all communities are not accessing the resources.

Um I'm not aware of all this organization that everybody's calling, as you can see.

Did you see the whole African or community or other immigrant communities in the whole in the room?

You don't.

So there's a gap, and then you have to be inclusive, inclusive to all community organizations and community resources, community services, because there's a lot of um, you know, Africans.

When I see the data that they were representing, I mean uh presenting, I can compare it with our organization data.

Uh since our data is more than their data.

And then we also do like, you know, uh immigration, uh, deportation defense.

We do, you know, immigrant representation in uh courts.

We do immigrant rights training.

We do so many wraparound services.

We have over 23 houses.

We do benefit support too.

We do a lot of work, but we are not rich out.

Actually, we have a meeting with the you know, with the community navigators, a court is coming over there, and then you see our organization, but they didn't reach out to us to AB inclusive.

And we've been really um, there's a lot of issues, but I will keep speaking, and then please check my letters that I sent to all the supervisors.

The only person who would respond was supervisor Nikki Bass.

But I think you should check your email because we've been sent in emails about um you know what's going on in the community and uh what we need the African community to be involved.

Thank you so much.

I know I have a lot to say, but I don't have time.

I appreciate your listening to me.

Hello, uh, my name is Marcos Santos.

I'm an outreach organizer for Trabajadores Unidos, Workers United, um, and part of Aquile, and I'm here today in support of the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and continuing the resource to continue to resource ACILEP Accord and Acudir.

I, including many of my compas, are out talking to our community every day, and every day our community is scared, scared to go to work, scared to see friends and family, scared to live.

Many not knowing of their rights, not knowing of the critical and life-saving resources provided, or at least what we try to provide in Aculir, Asileb and Accord.

Twenty people have died in ICE-related incidents this year, four of which occurred this week.

Whether it be shot down in the street, forced to flee into oncoming traffic, or dying of tuberculosis due to unlivable conditions in detention centers, one of which we are trying to open here in Richmond.

Uh Dublin, sorry.

And our community refuses to live in fear in our own backyard in our own community, which is why we demand for emergency relief for impacted communities.

We demand for a sustained commitment to resources to resource immigrant rights and defense now more than ever.

Thank you.

My name is Cynthia Salazad.

I am a resident of Alameda County and a field organizer for Drahabad Sony, those workers united.

Through my role as a field organizer, I am directly having one-on-one conversations with our community, letting them know about their rights, along with what to do if they encounter ICE.

Fear and confusion is at the forefront of their faces when I talk to them.

First, because to them at first, I am a stranger, but with talking to them, we get to know each other the way that we would with any friend or family.

They share that they have fear and confusion with disappointment because our community doesn't get the luxury of being able to stay home.

As mentioned by my fellow organizers, our community is juggling multiple jobs with even one day of missed work not being available to them.

Um I uplift that and want to also uplift the support of the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

I also want to uplift the needs of Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees facing deportation and other communities at high risk of ice-targeted deportation.

I also want to urge additional funding consideration for communities fighting against ICE detention and deportation.

Thank you.

April and Chiawee.

Hi, I'm April Newman, Accord Program Manager and resident of District 5.

Over the last 16 months, we've built infrastructure and processes to coordinate our services, streamline processes to connect residents with legal advocates, and support people in pursuing immigration protection.

Our strength and coordination allows us to reach more people throughout our county with educational events and legal services.

I strongly support both the continued funding for AQUDIR, a CLAP and Accord Coalitions and the Alameda County Public Defender's Office Office's immigration unit, as well as the development of an Alameda County office for immigrant and refugees affairs to work with our coalitions and other CBOs and make sure our services and county resources can reach even more people and be more coordinated with other county and CBOs work.

As we've heard today, it is essential to strengthen community connections to build trust and combat fear so that our residents can access their due process and pursue legal options that they have rights to.

We're grateful for the continued support from this committee and the board of supervisors for our three coalitions.

I do want to point out and agree with the point that going through the process of responding to an RFP would take resources away from the direct services we provide, the coordination and administration of the collaboratives we operate.

And as always, we're happy to answer questions, provide further information about any of the work we do, the context in which we work, anything like that.

We're available.

And in the context of steadily aggressive, even fatal ICE enforcement with no signs of abating during the remainder of this federal administration's term.

And in the interest of stabilizing and continuing the support for immigrants and refugees in our county, I'd like to request the county's uh multi-year funding for the work of Acoira.

I'm nicknaming it already, Aquaira Accord, Acudir, ACILAP, and the Alameda County Public Defender's Office Immigration Unit.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

My name is Itlali.

I am an organizer with Trabajada Sunidos Workers United and also organized with Alameda County United in Defense for Immigrant Rights Aquudid.

I support the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and the renewal of contracts for Aquudid, A Silap, and Accord.

These organizations provide critical services, and we are proud to participate in coalitions like AQUD that strengthen our community organizing outreach and support for immigrant families with like organizations like Syri Asian Prisoner Support Committee and Ulite Watness who uplift the urgent needs of Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees facing deportation, along with other communities at high risk of ICE targeting under this anti-immigration administration.

In this moment, our communities are experiencing heightened fear in Alameda County due to seven kidnappings across our county, including Crash Rivale, Hayward, Emmerville, Berkeley, and even an individual in Daly City who is a Livermore resident over the past two weeks.

Whether families are worried about immigration enforcement or other public safety threats, the result is the same.

People are afraid to go to work, take their children to school and seek essential services in our county.

This is why I support the Board of Supervisors to continue supporting and pushing for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for frontline organizations fighting for detention and against detention and deportation, including ACODE and organizations like Siri, APSC, and ULEG Bonus.

Thank you for your leadership and investing in organizations that protect and strength and strengthen Alameda County's immigrant and refugee communities, and we cannot wait to see how we continue to grow the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs here in Alameda County.

Thank you caller.

We're on item four.

You have two minutes.

Unmute your mic, Sulaysha.

Greetings, Board of Supervisors.

Thank you, Supervisors Bass, Supervisors Marquez for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Sila Jasaresh.

I'm the deputy chief of strategy and partnerships with the Alameda County Office of Education.

And I wanted to share some support for the work you have been discussing today and updates from ACOE as well.

First, thank you for your steadfast stance around ensuring the county property is not being used for immigration enforcement activities.

There's new reporting by EdSource out today about the number of children who have been detained and deported from California since this new federal administration has come into office.

The article states that ICE has detained more than 650 California children between October 22 and March 26.

This is obviously very concerning and upsetting, and we can only imagine that the numbers would be even higher if there were facilities within the county that were accessible to ICE.

Second, thank you for the continued support of Asila Pacord and ECDER who provide such critical community support.

You'll remember that last year ACOE began distributing kits with red cards, CLEP hotline information and safety tests and whistles to school sites to set up volunteers at school start and end times so that our families feel safe coming to and from school each day.

Since we started this project, we've distributed these kids to more than 70 schools across the county and have distributed more than 100,000 red cards in seven different languages.

Finally, we've also begun coordinating with districts to ensure they are referring families who need legal support to local aid agencies, such as the ones you want them today.

We're happy to come back at another date and share more about how they are working to support our immigrant students and families, but we're incredibly grateful to have your support and leadership in this area.

Thank you.

Caller, we're on item four.

You have two minutes.

Are we speaking on item five right now?

No, uh, we're on item four.

You'd like to speak on public comment.

Yes, on item five.

Okay.

Okay.

We have no more speakers for item four.

Okay.

Thank you everyone for your participation.

I know this meeting has gone long, but there has been just tremendous, tremendous information.

Um, I'll just make some summary remarks uh to summarize the material that we covered today, and then I'll hand it over to my colleague for additional remarks, and then we'll go to public comment on items not on the agenda.

Um, so certainly today's meeting had a very rich discussion.

I think one of the things that's really clear to me is that the federal administration's mass deportation program is brutal, unaccountable.

Hearing that the goal is to arrest 2,000 people per day.

We know that our families are being torn apart.

There's fear, there's trauma, and even 22 people have died so far this calendar year.

So I hope that as a county will continue to partner with all of you to reaffirm our commitment to protecting and supporting all of our residents regardless of immigration status and to ensure that our residents are treated with the dignity, respect, and fairness that everyone deserves.

So at today's meeting, we had a review of the Office of the State Attorney General's guidance regarding SB 580, promoting safe and secure government access for all.

I want to again share that the Office of the Attorney General has a website where you can access today's webinar and community briefing.

That's at OAG.ca.gov.

We also discuss the county's ICE-free zones policy and immigration enforcement response plan.

And we have completed the installation of 96 signs on county-owned and county-controlled property, and those signs discuss restriction of ICE civil immigration enforcement activity.

And made a request that they ensure that that information is conveyed to all of our employees by email so that the guidelines and the training are very accessible and widely known.

And then we had updates from our three coalitions that are working to support immigrants and refugee communities.

Now that we have staff from the Social Services Agency supporting this work, um, we did discuss ensuring, well, one of the recommendations to ensure that data informs our strategies, in particular demographic data.

I would add to that also looking at trends such as the loss of work authorization when our community members are in detention and how we can address that.

In the same way that the county has developed a communications protocol when there is potential immigration enforcement, I would also like us to look a little bit more closely to protocols for responding to when ICE takes people away, specifically if that information is not reported to our rapid response hotline so that there is consistency about how we can all work together to ensure that we're caring for the family members that might be impacted.

We also talked about long-term funding for all of this work, which is incredibly important, especially under this current political and situation in the federal government that we have now.

So just as a reminder, through our board's budgeting process, the board did approve $3.3 million for this current fiscal year out of the Measure W Essential County Services Fund for continuing to support our immigrant and refugee community.

So Supervisor Marquez provided a status update.

So that we can have board-wide discussion and direction around the length of the contract and the RFP.

We certainly need to fill the gaps, but I do want to be mindful of what it will take to do that.

And then lastly, because I know that there are many, many community members who want to be engaged in all of this given the impacts on our community.

Just want to reiterate, I appreciate the organizing, the outreach, the power building that was described by our coalition partners today.

For those of you who are listening who want to volunteer to support our community, thank you, Aku Dear, for sharing with us that you have open community meetings as well as meetings around anti-deportation.

So do encourage people to reach out to our coalitions, including AkuDIR for those volunteer opportunities or referrals that they do have.

And they're working in solidarity with the Gilroy community, which also was facing a potential processing center around immigration.

And finally, because resources are sorely needed for people in detention, want to lift up again the Stand Together Bay Area Fund where people can make contributions of any amount to support direct financial assistance to people in need who were impacted by immigration enforcement.

And my team will work to update our Alameda County together for all websites so that this information is also accessible there as well as on our social media over the next few days.

And then finally, I wanted to announce that Pangaea Legal Services, which is a partner with Accord, is hosting a half-day clinic to help people apply for or renew work permit applications.

And I believe that is happening tomorrow in San Francisco.

The first free the first 15 people who register will have their work permit fees covered by their clinic partner.

So again, that is Pangaea legal services.

And then at the appropriate time, we will adjourn in the memory of those whose lives have been lost very recently.

Supervisor Marquez.

Yes.

Thank you everyone for your engagement today.

I learned a lot from all of you, and this is the reason why we have this meeting because clearly we're doing a lot of tremendous work that is much needed in our community, but we have to be honest, there are a lot of gaps.

So that is the intent behind the RFP, as I mentioned earlier, to sustain and expand.

Yes, we responded quickly, but we're not addressing all of the needs within this county.

And I think we have a responsibility, and I think it's been really clear to everyone too.

We're very fortunate in this county that we don't do this work alone.

We have a lot of philanthropy partners that have consistently been at the table.

So I am committed to finding a path forward to address the gaps that were uh outlined today.

And then just as a reminder, we will have a similar presentation that was brought to this committee on April 30th.

That will come to our work session.

It is just an informational item.

It is not an action item, and that will be on Tuesday, July 28th.

We're hoping to, it will be a STEP matter, but the time still needs to be confirmed.

But we are shooting for three o'clock.

So once the agenda publishes, we'll be able to give certainty to the public.

So just I want to acknowledge we heard a lot about the needs of our Southeast Asian community members, our Afro American community members.

It wasn't mentioned today, but it's been said in the past in District 2 and District 1 have a high concentration of our Afghan refugee committee members as well.

We also want to acknowledge the Jewish community, appreciate the partnership there.

So we just, this is a very diverse county, and we got to make sure we are doing our best to uplift everyone and address all the needs.

So really appreciate everyone shedding light to what's working and what the gaps are.

So I'm committed to working with everyone to address the unment needs and sustain what's already in place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's go to public comments, not on the agenda.

Caller, we're on public comment.

You have two minutes.

Good morning, board of good morning, Board of Supervisor.

Can you all hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Good morning, Board of Supervisor.

My name is Kise Fine, Program Director Maru, formerly KCCE meaning.

Like similar to other, I am here to raise concerns about organization funded to provide no-year rights training, education, outreach, legal referrals for immigrants and refugees community.

In reviewing the services, we found that Asian communities and Asian languages are mostly absent.

Alameda County is home to 1.6 million residents.

One third are born outside the U.S.

and 46% of immigrants speak the language other than English at home.

AA and HPI residents are the second largest population in the county.

One in three residents with the highest concentration in District 1, 2, and 3 at 35%, 40%, 31% respectively.

More than 1557 Asian languages are spoken here, including Cantonese, Manarin, Vietnamese, Tagala, Kindi, Mom, and Kmai.

In spite of this organization funded to reach immigrants and refugees community are not staff or resource to serve these communities in the threshold Asian languages.

It's a failure to reach the people most in need of protection.

We urge the board to provide additional fundings to API organizations such as AHS series, new lights, APSC to provide to prioritize Asian language access, started with Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese Tibala, Kindle, Mom and my in current and future contract.

Thank you.

We have no other speakers for public comment.

Okay, thank you everyone for your patience and participation today.

As we said earlier, we will adjourn this meeting in memory of those whose lives were lost over the past week.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, Jesus Manuel Arenas Silva.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.