Letters to the Editor: Why I am telling my neighbors that Kevin de León must resign from the San Diego City Council.
In case you hadn’t heard, Kevin de León, in his eight-year tenure as San Diego City Council member (he is up for reelection later this year), has been the subject of a recall election campaign, which was spearheaded by a group of anti- de León business and neighborhood advocates. Their campaign, which we were told would entail the filing of almost 75,000 valid signatures by June 25, is based on the fact that de León is a “social welfare” and “pro-development” advocate (note that the city’s tax revenues are funneled to the state, according to a de León staff memo in 2016.)
The anti-de León campaign has claimed that de León signed an executive order declaring the region a sanctuary city and prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from local law enforcement. The group also pointed to a memo by de León’s chief of staff stating that de León was going to sign an executive order to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.
As de León himself has pointed out, the Executive Order “was in preparation for a bill signing ceremony that was set to take place before the city council that evening,” and an ICE representative had been invited to the signing ceremony to discuss the need to protect U.S. citizens.
When you add it all up, however, the Executive Order was not in a bill-signing ceremony but was simply an update of the city’s sanctuary city policy.
In short, de León has never vetoed a single ICE request in his eight years in office. In fact, he signed an executive order in December 2015 that required the city’s police department to work with federal law enforcement agencies to coordinate the exchange of information about the criminal history of its officers and employees.
And yet, the anti-de León campaign, supported by those who are unhappy about de León’s “pro-development” record, is claiming that he tried to
