Challenging the Trump Administration

This year we have seen more and more attacks and violence from the President Donald Trump’s administration on our rights and our communities. He is a threat to our immigrant community, to our access to health care, our education system, our most vulnerable and so much more. Locally we have been pushing back, making our voices heard and allocating additional funds to offset federal cuts, but we have so much work left to do.

Immigration

We must act to protect our immigrant community. The Trump administration is kidnapping our neighbors and holding them without due process in detention centers rampant with physical abuse and civil rights violations. In the month of January alone, six people died in ICE custody, and we all watched as ICE murdered two U.S. citizens who were peacefully protesting. Congress has, for now, blocked funding for ICE, but we must continue to make our voices heard and support our communities.

Locally, we allocated supplemental funding for immigrant legal defense and to support our rapid response network. We joined the vigil at the Veterans Affairs Hospital to honor Alex Pretti and we have marched in the streets to get ICE out of our community, pushed back against the Trump administration’s threats to our constitutional rights, including birthright citizenship and naturalized citizenship. Immigrants are the backbone of our community and our country, so we must not only defend these rights, but also expand them by creating pathways to citizenship and protecting our sanctuary city status.

Health Care

Trump is also actively defunding and eliminating access to health care all across our county. Health care should be a right and we should be working to expand Medicare for all, to demand more from Medicare, not threatening the health and wellbeing of our communities.

Here in San Francisco, we know that we cannot allow people to lose their access to care, so we set aside $400 million to offset anticipated federal cuts to health care and housing. We must not only protect reproductive care, we must also stand with our transgender, gender-expansive and LGBTQIA+ community to protect access to gender affirming care for our youth throughout our state and across our country.

Education

Last month, our teachers exercised their right to strike for a fair contract for the first time in almost 50 years. We joined their marches for a fair contract and to make sure our educators are paid a fair wage and health benefits. I am committed to push our state and federal government to fully fund education, to hold all school districts harmless and to reform the student funding formula. While the Trump Administration has been actively defunding our Department of Education, San Francisco Unified School District and the teachers’ union reached an agreement to provide health care and the raises that our educators and school staff deserve, but we need more. We must demand our federal government to fund affordable child care, fully fund our K-12 classroom and push for free City College. Investing in our education is investing in a better future.

We all have the power to fight to maintain our hard-won rights, protect our communities and hold our elected officials accountable. Please register to vote, and while you’re at it, please consider supporting the Overpaid CEO Act, that will provide an estimated $300 million for our City to safeguard against more federal cuts to health care, food and housing security services.

Connie Chan represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She can be reached at 415-554-7410 or chanstaff@sfgov.org.