“Comply or die” has always been my country’s operative motto, especially when “compliance” has been a priori impossible:
On May 14, 1854, six Missourian explorers crested a steep ridge, some 150 miles north of San Francisco. After days of hard travel through mountainous, broken terrain, they encountered a stunning sight. Spread below them was twenty-five thousand acres of lush, flat land. The next day, the six horsemen descended to the floor of what is now known as Round Valley, in northern Mendocino County. According to Frank Asbill, son of one of the six, “they had not gone far when the tall, waving, wild oats began to wiggle in a thousand different places all at the same time.” The group’s leader, Pierce Asbill, then called out: “We’ve come a long way from Missouri to locate this place . . . an’ be damned if wigglin’ grass ’ull keep us away! Git a-hold of yer weapons—we’uns are goin’ in!” Reaching a creek bed, the six horsemen reportedly encountered three thousand Yuki Indians. “A war hoop went up from the Missourians [who] just lay over the horse[s’] neck[s] and shot. . . . They just rode them down. . . . It was not difficult to get an Indian with every shot. . . . When the shootin’ was over, thirty-two dead and dying [Yuki] lay scattered.” By the end of the day perhaps forty Indians were dead. The massacre was a prelude to an American genocide.
Source: Benjamin Madley, “California’s Yuki Indians: Defining Genocide in Native American History, California History, Vol. 96, Number 4, p. 11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2019.96.4.11. Image source.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. will seize control of Greenland “the easy way” or “the hard way” and warned that he won’t miss out on the opportunity to Russia or China.
“We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not,” he said. He brushed off naming a price to purchase the land from Denmark but also didn’t describe what any potential military action would look like.
“I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” Trump said.
He made the comments during a press availability Jan. 9 as he met with some of the top oil companies in the world to discuss investment in Venezuela, where the U.S. just a week earlier captured leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug charges.
Trump said if the U.S. hadn’t gone into Venezuela and attempted to reinvigorate their oil industry, Russia or China would have. He also referred to Venezuela as a next-door neighbor because of its location in the Western Hemisphere.
“And by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which if we don’t take Greenland, you’re going to have Russia or China as your next door neighbor,” Trump said. “That’s not going to happen.”
Trump said there are Russian and Chinese destroyers, Russian submarines and larger Chinese ships, already sitting outside of Greenland.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark that has about 31 billion barrels of oil in reserves, about three-quarters of what the U.S. has. But the territory banned drilling in 2021, citing environmental concerns.
White House aide Stephen Miller questioned Denmark’s right to control Greenland in a Jan. 5 interview with CNN.
California State Education Resources California Department of Education: Chief Deputy Superintendent: David Schapira Reminder of Obligation to Protect Immigrant Families’ Rights to Access Public Education
The letter from the California Department of Education (CDE) reminds schools of their obligation to protect the rights of immigrant families to access free public education, regardless of immigration status. It highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe ruling and California laws ensuring non-discrimination and safe school environments. The letter includes resources for training staff, legal guidance, and mental health support.
CA Office of the Attorney General: Promoting a Safe and Secure Learning Environment for All: Guidance and Model Policies to Assist California’s K-12 Schools in Responding to Immigration Issues
With the inauguration of President Trump at hand, Monterey County officials and community stakeholders showed a united front in their support of all immigrants who live, work and attend school in the region at a press conference.
On Jan. 15, Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue, Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto and Monterey County Supervisors Luis Alejo, Kate Daniels and Chris Lopez joined leaders in education, agriculture, hospitality, health and social services to announce the passage of a resolution on Tuesday affirming the county’s commitment to protecting immigrants’ rights and launch a public “Know Your Rights” campaign.
The resolution reestablished the county as a “Welcoming County” for immigrants and refugees, reaffirming key provisions of various state laws including the California Values Act (Senate Bill 54) and is the product of an Ad Hoc Committee formed by the board of supervisors in December.
Monterey County’s resolution came the same day the Salinas City Council, at their first meeting of 2025, issued a statement reminding residents the city has been a “Welcoming City” since June 2017.
The city “is steadfast in our dedication to serving the entire community, ensuring public safety and fostering trust regardless of immigration status, citizenship status or nationality, said Mayor Dennis Donohue at the Tuesday council meeting.
The majority of immigrants in California are documented residents, according to California’s Public Policy Institute, in 2022, 83% of immigrants were either citizens or had some other legal residency status.
While California has 1.8 million immigrants that were undocumented in 2022, according to Pew Research, it is down from 2.8 million in 2007.
Many undocumented individuals live in “mixed-status” households, which includes people with legal status.
According to the California Immigration Data Portal, in 2021, more than 3.3 million people in California and one in five children lived in such “mixed-status” households.
After recent immigration enforcement in Kern County spurred online rumors of similar activity occurring locally that turned out to be false, Sheriff Nieto told the crowd outside the Monterey County Government Center on Wednesday, that her office had been fielding phone calls from concerned residents.
“My family’s afraid to go to the store, my family’s afraid to send their children to school, my family’s afraid to go outside of the house,” said Nieto, describing some of the calls to law enforcement. “I want to assure you that here in Monterey County, the sheriff’s office and your chiefs of police know what the rules are and understand with the Trust Act is, and we’re going to follow those rules.”
Enacted in 2014, the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools (TRUST) Act (AB 4) defines the circumstances in which local law enforcement agencies may comply with immigration detainer requests.
Monterey County Office of Education Superintendent Deneen Guss said she wanted to reassure parents that schools are safe spaces for students.
“Our administrators, our educators, and our school staff are dedicated to creating welcoming environments where students and their families feel seen, heard and safe,” Guss said. “I want to assure parents that under current federal laws, schools are considered protected areas and are generally prohibited from voluntarily granting access to campus, by immigration officers, in the absence of a judicial warrant or a court order.”
“I urge you to please keep sending your children to school every day and to also create an emergency plan, including designating someone who can care for your child if needed,” she added.
During the pandemic, workers in agriculture and the service industry were lauded as “essential workers” as many continued to work onsite while workers in other industries got to work remotely and shelter-in-place.
Executive Director for the Monterey County Farm Bureau Norm Groot said local workers in the county’s $4.3 billion agriculture industry should still be considered essential.
“Our fresh food supply and local economy are fully dependent on this workforce and we consider this a national security priority in a time of agricultural labor shortages — farming depends on a stable and reliable workforce not one under threat,” Groot said. “[The county agriculture industry] depends on 55,000 farm workers to harvest our crops each year — primarily immigrants.”
“We appreciate the farmworkers’ vital contributions to the national food supply as essential workers,” he said.
The second largest industry in the county, hospitality, employs 25,000 people.
Rick Aldinger from the Monterey County Hospitality Association said the local immigrant workforce are “hardworking individuals” and “part of the fabric of our local communities” and thanked Supervisors Alejo and Lopez for spearheading the county’s Ad-Hoc Committee.
“Huge progress has been made in a very brief period of time,” Aldinger said. “Avenues of communication have been established among key players and industry leaders and a comprehensive portfolio of resources has been put together that will help our workforce navigate, whatever might lie ahead.”
Individual rights under state and federal law is also something employers with an immigrant workforce must also understand.
“We are trying to not only educate our immigrant workforce but also trying to educate the employers and what their rights are,” Groot said. “It’s a much larger circle than just saying we need to inform immigrants what their rights are.”
“We are trying to work through that and understand how much information we have to push out at this point — it really depends on what happens after next Monday,” Groot said, referring to President Trump’s inauguration, “and how many Executive Orders we’re going to start seeing.”
