Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/798666
ByNicholasRiccardi TheAssociatedPress SAN FRANCISCO Before Donald Trump's election, Laurence Berland viewed political protest as a sort of curiosity. He was in a good place to see it: San Francis- co's Mission District, once an immigrant enclave in the country's heartland of radicalism that is increas- ingly populated by people like him — successful tech workers driving up rents while enjoying a daily com- mute to Silicon Valley on luxury motor coaches. Berland regarded the ac- tivism of his adopted city with a mix of empathy and bemusement, checking out Occupy Wall Street dem- onstrations and protests against the gentrification of his own neighborhood. But now there is less dis- tance between him and ac- tivists on the street. On a recent day Berland stood with about 100 others — from software engineers like himself to those who work in tech company caf- eterias — outside a down- town museum for a rally against President Trump. A clipboard-carrying orga- nizer approached Berland to ask if he wanted to join a network of grassroots ac- tivists, but Berland waved him away. He had already signed up. In the place that fought against the Vietnam War and for gay rights and, more recently, has been roiled by dissent over the technology industry's im- pact on economic inequal- ity, an unlikely alliance has formed in the left's resistance against Trump. Old-school, anti-capitalist activists and new-school, free-enterprise techies are pushing aside their differ- ences to take on a com- mon foe. For years, these two strands of liberal Amer- ica have been at each oth- er's throats. There've been protests against evictions of those who can't afford the Bay Area's ever-soar- ing rents. And think back, not so long ago, to the rau- cous rallies to block those fancy buses shuttling tech workers from city neighbor- hoods to the Silicon Valley campus of Google, where Berland once worked. Cat Brooks, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, has seen the toll the tech in- dustry has taken on some. Her daughter's elementary school teacher just moved to a distant suburb after her rent skyrocketed, and Brooks thinks more tech moneymustfinditswayinto local communities. She nev- ertheless welcomes the in- fusion of new energy to the protest arena. "It's not about the busi- ness of we were here first," Brooks said. "We're about the business of how can we support? Division at this time is not helpful." The tech industry oppo- sition started when Trump imposed his initial travel ban on immigrants and refugees from seven major- ity Muslim nations. The in- dustry prides itself on its openness to immigrants, who comprise about one- quarter of the U.S. technol- ogy and science workforce and include the founders of iconic institutions. Nearly 100 tech compa- nies,includingGoogle,Face- book and Uber, filed a court brief urging suspension of the ban, while Google co- founder Sergey Brin, a Rus- sian immigrant, joined pro- tests at San Francisco In- ternational Airport. That was followed by an unprec- edentedcompanywidewalk- out at Google and now, on March 14, nationwide ral- lies are planned for a "Tech Stands Up" day of protest. "People whose pedigree is knocking on doors and calling representatives and waving signs are getting to- gether with people who de- sign apps," said Kai-Ping Yee, a software engineer from Canada who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and who works at a startup to help immigrants send cash home. "People are working with people who do really, really different things because they realize it's an emergency." After the election he helped create an online pledge, signed by thousands of technology workers, against building databases for any potential Muslim registries or to aid depor- tations of immigrants. Some aren't so sure about sharing the streets because they don't think they share the same goals. Franki Velez, an Iraq War veteran on disability, stood outside an Oakland rental office recently with other longtime activists and renters fighting eviction. There was not a technology worker in sight, and she worried that they are miss- ing the point anyway. They want to change, but pre- serve, a system that's ben- efited them, she said, while protesters like her want to tear the system down and start from scratch. "They don't under- stand it's a colonial system that's never meant to be re- formed," she said. Still, while their ap- proaches can be strikingly different, Velez's causes are increasingly being adopted by people not like her. POLITICS Le ies,techieslongatoddsinSF,teamupagainstTrump MARCIOJOSESANCHEZ—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Members of the Orchard City Indivisible Group recite the Pledge of Allegiance during a city council meeting where they would speak against the policies of President Trump on Tuesday in Campbell. By Chris Grygiel The Associated Press SEATTLE More than a half-dozen states trying to block President Don- ald Trump's revised travel ban moved forward Mon- day with a pair of lawsuits while the government asked that the order be al- lowed to take effect this week. Washington state At- torney General Bob Fergu- son, joined in his lawsuit by heavily Democratic Califor- nia, Maryland, Massachu- setts, New York and Ore- gon, asked for a hearing with a federal judge in Se- attle before the administra- tion plans to implement the ban Thursday on new visas for people from six predom- inantly Muslim nations. A hearing in a separate lawsuit by Hawaii already has been scheduled for Wednesday. Ferguson said the re- vised ban is still uncon- stitutional and harms res- idents, universities and businesses, especially tech companies such as Wash- ington state-based Micro- soft and Amazon who rely on foreign workers. "No one is above the law, not even the president — and I will hold him ac- countable to the Constitu- tion," Ferguson said in a statement. "Cutting some illegal aspects of President Trump's original travel ban does not cure his affront to our Constitution." Ferguson filed new court documents after the judge who put Trump's origi- nal order on hold said last week he would not imme- diately rule on whether his decision applies to the new version. U.S. District Judge James Robart told the federal government to quickly respond to Fer- guson's claims but said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday. California Attorney Gen- eral Xavier Becerra an- nounced the most populous U.S.statewasjoiningWash- ington state's challenge, saying the order, despite its changes, is an attack on people based on their reli- gion or national origin. In Hawaii, which is alone in its lawsuit, the U.S. government asked a federal court Monday to deny the state's request to temporarily block the ban from going into effect. A judge will hear argu- ments Wednesday, with the heavily Democratic state claiming the new order will harm its Muslim popu- lation, tourism and foreign students. Ismail Elshikh, a plaintiff in Hawaii's chal- lenge, said the ban will pre- vent his Syrian mother-in- law from visiting. The government says Hawaii's allegations that the ban will negatively af- fect tourism and universi- ties are pure speculation. It also says neither El- shikh nor his mother-in- law have been harmed be- cause she has not been de- nied a waiver for a visa to visit the United States. Trump's revised ban applies to Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Ye- men and temporarily shuts down the U.S. refugee pro- gram. Unlike the original order, it says people with visas won't be affected and removes language that would give priority to reli- gious minorities. Ferguson acknowledged the changes to the order but said it still "bars entry for virtually all other in- dividuals from the listed countries," including rel- atives of U.S. citizens and students who have been admitted to state universi- ties and people who might seek work at schools and businesses. LITIGATION States aiming to block Trump travel ban from taking effect By Sophia Bollag The Associated Press SACRAMENTO Califor- nia lawmakers have an- nounced what they call the most ambitious proposal in the country to reduce stu- dent loan debt. Assembly Democrats on Monday proposed a plan that would create a new scholarship for students in the University of Cali- fornia and California State University systems. Ac- cording to the Democrats' plan the scholarship pro- gram would cost $1.6 bil- lion and would be phased in over five years. The Legislative Ana- lyst's Office reported this year that more than half of California college stu- dents graduate with stu- dent loan debt. The Democrats say their plan aims to significantly reduce the amount of debt students have to take on to afford college. Their proposal would also expand aid for com- munity college students and maintain the Middle Class Scholarship program that Gov. Jerry Brown has called for eliminating. SACRAMENTO Lawmakers plan to reduce student debt By Alan Fram and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar The Associated Press WASHINGTON Fourteen million Americans would lose coverage next year un- der House Republican leg- islation remaking the na- tion's health care system, and that figure would grow to 24 million by 2026, Con- gress' nonpartisan budget analysts projected Monday. The figures dealt a blow to a GOP drive already under fire from both parties and large segments of the medi- cal industry. ThereportbytheCongres- sional Budget Office flies in the face of President Donald Trump's aim of "insurance for everybody," and he has been assailing the credibil- ity of the CBO in advance of the release. Administration officials quickly took strong issue with it. It also undercuts a central argument that he and other Republicans have cited for swiftly rolling back former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul: that the health insurance mar- kets created under the 2010 law are unstable and about to implode. The congressio- nal experts said that largely would not be the case and the market for individual health insurance policies "would probably be stable in most areas either under current law or the (GOP) legislation." Even though Republican tax credits would be less generous than those under "Obamacare," the combi- nation of those credits and other changes to lower pre- miumswouldattractenough healthy people to stabilize markets under the new plan, the report said. In a talking point em- braced by Republicans, the budget office concluded that the bill would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the coming decade. That's largely because the legisla- tion would cut Medicaid and eliminate subsidies Obama's lawprovidesmillionsofpeo- ple who buy coverage. The budget office attrib- uted the projected increases in uninsured Americans to the GOP bill's elimination of tax penalties for people who don't buy insurance, its changes in federal subsidies for people who buy policies and its curbing of Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps low-income peo- ple buy coverage. 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