Trump Faces Massive Rallies on First Visit to California
SAN DIEGO (Dispatches) -- Rallies against Donald Trump's "big beautiful border wall" with Mexico were expected to mark his first visit to California as president amid growing tensions between his administration and the state over immigration enforcement.
Trump was to visit eight towering prototypes of his planned wall Tuesday before addressing Marines in San Diego and attending a fund-raiser in Los Angeles.
Protests were also being planned across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, when Trump was to examine the 30-foot-tall prototypes built along the international border to fulfill his signature campaign promise. Trump has insisted Mexico pay for the wall but Mexico has adamantly refused to consider the idea.
San Diego is the largest city on the U.S.-Mexico border to formally oppose his plans, passing a resolution in 2017.
Immigrant activists, church leaders and elected officials held a news conference at the city's historic Chicano Park to call for demonstrations to show border communities do not support a wall. Standing in front of murals of Mexican revolutionaries and other Latin American icons, they chanted "We reject your hate! We don't need your racist wall!"
"It's really important that as a region, as a city that has firsthand understanding of what the border wall means for our communities that we stand against (this) and we send a strong message to DC to say this is something that we don't welcome," City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez said.
Gomez sponsored the resolution opposing the wall, calling it detrimental to the city's environment and tourism. It also expressed the city's intent to divest from the companies involved in the construction, financing and design of the wall.
The president will not be swayed by California Republican lawmakers concerned the wall is a waste of money, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Monday.
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday invited Trump to also visit the state's high-speed rail construction projects. "You see, in California we are focusing on bridges, not walls," Brown, a Democrat, said in a letter sent to Trump.
Trump's visit comes just days after his Justice Department sued to block California laws designed to protect people living in the U.S. illegally and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed up with a speech in Sacramento that was immediately denounced by Brown, who said the Trump administration was "full of liars."
Trump was to visit eight towering prototypes of his planned wall Tuesday before addressing Marines in San Diego and attending a fund-raiser in Los Angeles.
Protests were also being planned across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, when Trump was to examine the 30-foot-tall prototypes built along the international border to fulfill his signature campaign promise. Trump has insisted Mexico pay for the wall but Mexico has adamantly refused to consider the idea.
San Diego is the largest city on the U.S.-Mexico border to formally oppose his plans, passing a resolution in 2017.
Immigrant activists, church leaders and elected officials held a news conference at the city's historic Chicano Park to call for demonstrations to show border communities do not support a wall. Standing in front of murals of Mexican revolutionaries and other Latin American icons, they chanted "We reject your hate! We don't need your racist wall!"
"It's really important that as a region, as a city that has firsthand understanding of what the border wall means for our communities that we stand against (this) and we send a strong message to DC to say this is something that we don't welcome," City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez said.
Gomez sponsored the resolution opposing the wall, calling it detrimental to the city's environment and tourism. It also expressed the city's intent to divest from the companies involved in the construction, financing and design of the wall.
The president will not be swayed by California Republican lawmakers concerned the wall is a waste of money, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Monday.
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday invited Trump to also visit the state's high-speed rail construction projects. "You see, in California we are focusing on bridges, not walls," Brown, a Democrat, said in a letter sent to Trump.
Trump's visit comes just days after his Justice Department sued to block California laws designed to protect people living in the U.S. illegally and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed up with a speech in Sacramento that was immediately denounced by Brown, who said the Trump administration was "full of liars."