City Council meeting videos are part of the public domain. Here is a clip of four community members speaking out. You can also watch the full video on the City of Huntington Beach website (if you have trouble viewing the video on the city website try using Chrome as your browser). Council Members responses take place around 4 hours and 25 minutes into the video.
“I’ve been coming to these meeting throughout my life, and I am repeatedly told that we have limited resources and limited funds…I’m appalled, as a tax payer, that you want to take my tax dollars to litigate something that is already being litigated at a much higher level.”
-Cathey R., HB resident since 1985
“I understand the concerns of some members of the community about the impact SB 54 may have on crime and legality of the of the law. However, repeated academic studies have shown that having immigrants – both documented and undocumented – actually DECREASES crime in a community. I work as a data analyst and have a Masters from Oxford University with an emphasis in statistics, so I know data. Recent academic studies have shown that being a sanctuary county has positive impacts on communities. In addition to increased economic benefits, there are, on average, 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties. This is largely due to the fact that there is increased trust between immigrants and law enforcement, so they are more likely to report crime and cooperate in investigations.”
-Aubrey R., HB Huddle #NoBanNoWall Team (here’s a link to her sources)
“I think there are more of us who are compassionate, who think and who will vote, then there are the hateful ones….be weary of how you vote tonight because your political futures definitely depend on it.”
-Bill M., Orange County resident
“Our country is so tribal right now, you can feel it in the room, there’s so much fear and there’s so much divisiveness and it’s sad to see city officials wanting to stir that up in their hometown… I hope we can get away from that in the future…”
-Cynthia R., 3rd generation Huntington Beach resident
