Civil Rights

Though it may sound cliche, the old saying “the United States is a country of immigrants” is completely true and something that I believe wholeheartedly. Because of that, I believe the immigration system needs a complete overhaul. The current method of deterrence used by our country is unconscionable, inhumane, and needs to end. Policies of exclusion have been successfully pushed by racists and xenophobes, who have monopolized the conversation and controlled how our government treats immigrants for far too long. 

The people who claim their ancestors “came over the right way” are ignorant or lying. In the past immigration was much simpler, you bascially just needed to come, say you wanted to be a citizen, and then live here for 5 years. If that were the system today, hundreds of thousands of upstanding, hard-working people would have already become citizens. Instead they have been pushed into a system often similar to indentured servitude, or even modern day slavery. This has even happened in our very own district.

Our current immigration system is unfair, discriminatory, and unnecessarily slow. People who have been living in our country for years, positively contributing to our nation through their hard work and cultural contributions deserve amnesty and an expedited citizenship process. We need many more judges in our immigration courts to make it so that the massive backlogs that have been allowed to build up for years can be rapidly processed. We must get rid of country caps that limit the number of people from an individual country who can become citizens within a given year. Finally, ICE must be abolished and the people who have taken part in ICE's human rights abuses must be punished.

Workers, in our country and across the world, are the people who keep society moving. Yet the vast majority of workers are underappreciated, underpaid, and overworked. The Republican party has fought tooth and nail to ensure that owners, shareholders, and management can reap the rewards from the hard work of the people below them. They point to the past as inspiration for what the world should look like today, but they only want to bring back racism, disempowerment of women, and anti-LGBTQ policies. They have lied about what solutions from the past will fix today. The reasons many more Americans were able to live comfortably on one salary wasn’t because of racial discrimination, it wasn’t because women were forced to the sidelines, and it wasn’t because LGBTQ people were excluded from society. They have tried to say, “if we just bring back manufacturing, then people will be able to live comfortable lives.” But working in a factory doesn’t mean you automatically live well. Sweatshops and factories around the world in places like Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and even here pay their workers poorly and force them to work in horrible conditions. Many people work in manufacturing, but that, by itself, doesn’t mean high wages or a good standard of living. No, what truly ensures good wages are strong, widespread unions, taxing the rich, and making sure that the head of the company and shareholders aren't making 500 times the amount that the lowest paid workers in their company make. Workers deserve strong protections, whether that is workplace safety, reasonable hours, fair pay, or beyond. Without the workers, not a single company would be successful. Without the CEOs and shareholders a company would go on running. Look at examples like Amazon, Starbucks, or Walmart. Companies where the CEOs and shareholders make out like bandits while they sit back and take it easy. Meanwhile their workers spend their days on their feet, doing the work that brings money into the company. On top of that, employers are responsible for the largest theft in the country, wage theft. Wage theft accounts for more money stolen than all other theft combined. These companies must be held accountable and workers must have the tools to wield their collective power.

The US is meant to be a democratic republic, a nation where the people vote for representatives to advocate for their interests. A nation without a king, without inherited power, where power comes from the people. A disgusting inversion of that has taken place because many of our elected leaders have come to believe that they are above the law. They have broken laws, betrayed our nation, and taken one bribe after another from billionaires, corporations, and foreign powers. They haven’t stopped there either, many politicians have made it their goal to make it as hard as possible for people to vote. A variety of tactics from gerrymandering, stripping people of their voting rights for completely absurd reasons, putting ridiculous requirements for what you need to have to be able to vote, and more. These tactics are just continuations of the Jim Crow practices of the past, designed to keep unpopular people in power while stealing away rights that everyone in our country deserves. The laws that have been passed target racial and ethnic minorities, trans people, and women, in an attempt to silence these groups.

Voting is a right that every single American deserves to have. Voting day should be a federal holiday so that no person needs to miss the opportunity to vote because they had to work. No state should be able to decide that some people aren’t able to vote just because they have the wrong ID. This country has incredibly low voter participation, and that needs to change, because when there is low voter participation, the true will of the people is not represented.

This nation was founded on the idea that all people are born equal and should be treated equally. The great tragedy has been that since its founding, the US has not followed through on that promise and that principle. From the horrors of slavery and the genocide of the indigenous population to Jim Crow and redlining, conscious and unconscious racism have made it so much more difficult for minorities to be able to succeed. What this country needs is a new age of reconstruction, a new age of reconciliation, and it needs to take the time to recognize and make up for all the wrongs it has done. The way to move forward is to ensure that the proper resources are given to build up the standard of living for everyone in this country. Communities with large minority populations like Flint, Michigan and many communities on reservations don’t even have access to clean water. Your ZIP code should not determine the quality of your school. This country needs to make right on the promises that it has made whether that means respecting treaties made with  indigenous people, helping to repair the economic disparity that was created by slavery and segregation, or putting in the work necessary to correct the conscious and unconscious racism that pervades our society and laws today.

There has been great progress made from the founding of the country to now regarding women’s rights. With that said, that progress has not been enough and, unfortunately, there has been significant backsliding in recent years. There have been attacks on women’s bodily autonomy, the revocation of Roe v. Wade's protection has done so much harm in the short time that it has been gone. Women continue to be underpaid for the same work that men do. Jobs that are predominantly taken by women such as caregiving and work in education are not treated with the respect they deserve and are not paid the amount they deserve for the benefit they give to our society. Even many women’s voting rights are being put in danger by the so-called “SAVE” Act, which aims to make it more difficult for anybody whose name has changed from what it was on their birth certificate to exercise their right to vote. Women deserve equal treatment and I believe that the Equal Rights Amendment must be passed 

The LGBTQ community has been treated poorly throughout the history of this country, and that cannot be allowed to stand. Your sexual and gender identities should not affect what you have the right to do, how you can express yourself, or how you are treated by society. For years, the most disgusting smears have been levied against people simply for being who they are, and that is unacceptable. Lies and misinformation have been spread by people in power. They have spread hate against innocent people throughout our country, and it is time for that to stop. I will do everything I can in Congress to ensure that laws are passed which keep the LGBTQ community safe.

The indigenous people of this land deserve better than what they have been given by this nation. They have been repeatedly cheated out of treaty after treaty, forced to assimilate or live on reservations. A genocide was actively perpetrated against them in the past and a de facto cultural genocide has largely continued into the present. Reservations are often left without many basic amenities of life. Corporations and the national government continue to disrespect tribal sovereignty and the lives of indigenous people by forcing various toxic and dangerous industries onto their land, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline, which have poisoned the drinking water of numerous communities. There has been an ongoing crisis of indigenous women and girls who have been kidnapped, raped, and murdered, and the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Federal and state laws must be passed to ensure that these crises can be addressed, and the perpetrators of these crimes can be held accountable for the horrific damage they have done.

Although this country has done more than many to make our public spaces accessible through the ADA, it did not go far enough. I believe that much more can be done to further the rights of Americans with disabilities. Greater protections for people with disabilities must be enshrined in law and resources to help people with disabilities navigate their lives should be increased substantially. The current system of disability payments has major issues, forcing many to make the decision to live in deprivation. The current system limits the “net worth” an individual or couple may have while receiving disability to a terrible degree. People are forced to choose between owning the expensive equipment they need to be able to have a reasonable standard of living or receiving the payments they need because they are unable to work. A system that doesn’t recognize something as simple as that is broken and must be fixed. Nobody should be forced into poverty to qualify for the aid they deserve.

We live in a world where we are increasingly under the surveillance of our government, foreign powers, and many major corporations. We lack the privacy that we deserve as a basic right. Although California has taken some steps toward protecting our privacy at the state level, there has not been nearly enough progress made towards this goal. 

The PATRIOT Act was passed with the claim that allowing the government to spy on us would help to keep us safe from terrorism, but terrorism has continued to pervade our country. This government overreach didn’t keep fascist terrorists from taking over our Capitol Building on January 6th. It didn’t keep white supremacist terrorists from going into places of worship like the Poway synagogue shooting or the Charleston church shooting, or areas with large minority populations like Buffalo and El Paso. It didn’t keep our children safe from being murdered in cold blood in one school after the other. This lack of privacy from our own government is a massive betrayal of all Americans and represents a power grab by authoritarians.

Major corporations and even small time app developers have turned our personal information into another resource to be sold. People like Mark Zuckerberg didn’t get rich by creating a digital town square where people can keep in contact with each other, they became rich by selling your personal data to anyone and everyone willing to pay. Amazon didn’t create Alexa to help you, they have Alexa listening to you all the time. When you think it’s weird that an ad appeared for something that you’ve only talked about, that’s because your privacy is not being protected from these oligarchs.

Today, the Trump administration is attempting to create an even broader database of your personal information with the help of big-tech surveillance company Palantir. Each and every day that we do not ensure we have a right to privacy is another day that we are being violated.

Since its inception, this has been a country of many languages, with no single, official language. That is a beautiful thing, but for far too long people who use minority languages have had a difficult time accessing all the resources they need to be able to thrive in our country. No language is more right or more wrong, no accent or dialect is smarter than any other, and nobody should be discriminated against for the language they use. For those who speak minority languages access to official documents, translators, and interpreters is vital to ensure they are given a fair shot in healthcare, education, or legal matters. A multilingual society is an amazing thing, and something that should be preserved and encouraged. Too few people who live here can speak, read, or sign in another language and that needs to change. Beginning second language education at the end of middle school or sometime in high school is a joke. Families and students should have the option to go through dual immersion programs in any and every one of our public schools.

Our society has been built in a way that discriminates against the youngest and oldest at the same time. Young people and old people looking for work struggle to find jobs because neither is given the chance. Young people are told they need more experience, but don’t have the opportunity to build experience because nobody will hire them. Many companies find ways to lay off old people, simply for their age, and when they try to get back into the job market, they find that they are never “the right fit” for the job, all because of their age.

At the same time, the built environment of most of our cities makes life harder for those who can’t drive, whether that is because they are too young or too old. People like to ask “Why don’t kids play outside anymore?” and sure, new technology is partially to blame, but the bigger issue is that there are too few safe places for kids to play outside. The danger of them being hit by a car is too great, there are not enough parks, bookstores, coffeeshops, stores, or anywhere else they could easily get to. The same problem exists for any of the elderly people in our community who can no longer drive. The distances they would need to travel on foot are too far for them to walk. This is because our cities have been built solely to be easy for cars to get around. Our neighborhoods don’t have enough parks or places to meet away from home. Our public transportation doesn’t run frequently enough nor go to enough places to be a convenient option for most people.

When it comes to housing, many young people and the elderly have found themselves at a loss as well. Everything is too expensive for the average person to afford, let alone someone who is just starting out. At the same time, many elderly people are finding it difficult to find a place to downsize to. Their home is too big for them to take care of, but too expensive for them to sell, and they don’t have the savings to move anywhere nearby even if they do manage to sell their home. This is because the prices have risen too much and safe, new housing that is the right size for them isn’t being built anywhere nearby.

Most people don’t view these issues as age discrimination, and that is understandable because it does affect most people. But the people who it has the largest effect on are the youngest and oldest people in our society. It isolates them, forces them into unhealthy lifestyles, and makes them choose between poorly maintained housing, housing that is too far from where they want to be, or housing prices that eat up most of their income. Oftentimes all three.