Overpass protest spotlights immigration issues

Dozens of North Bay residents Saturday joined protesters nationwide who took to highway overpasses to call for changes to immigration policy, spurred by a mass migration, including of 57,000 children, from Central America nations torn by violence.

As a steady sound of horns sounded from the highway beneath the overpass just south of Highway 12, George Moretto said of the children streaming to the southern U.S. border: “Of course they need help, but their own countries should help them. They should figure out other means than America; it’s not the only place to go.”

A glazier from Santa Rosa, Moretto, 43, held a sign that said “Secure Our Borders,” and he criticized money spent on housing and otherwise addressing the circumstances of the Central American children.

“If they spent that on our own problems rather than other people’s, we’d be better off,” he said.

Beside him, Brittany Salm, 27, of Santa Rosa held a sign that said “If I broke the law, I’d go to jail.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s a lot of children here who are citizens, who don’t get the help they need,” Salm, a pharmacy technician, said, citing Medicaid, the health insurance plan for low-income Americans as a particular example.

The law bars undocumented immigrants from Medicaid coverage, though the program does cover some costs to hospitals for care provided to that group of patients.

Salm, and others with that complaint on Saturday, said fraud was rampant, though.

While some signs criticized President Barack Obama, other protesters said responsibility for policies they considered faulty began before his watch.

“It actually started with President (George W.) Bush, but this loophole needs to be cut right back out,” said Ann Jordan, a Santa Rosa resident and stay-at-home mother.

She was referring to the 2008 law that requires the government to take into custody and care for unaccompanied foreign children who illegally enter the United States from countries not bordering the United States - before deciding how to resolve their situation.

That, Jordan said, attracts women and, in particular, children to try to enter the country illegally.

“We’ve created a climate that draws them here, and it’s very dangerous,” she said, referring to the perilous route north for undocumented immigrants form Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“And if they get here, bless their hearts, then they’re on our tax dollars,” said Jordan, who declined to give her age.

Various immigration and conservative activist groups joined in Saturday’s protest, including Overpasses for America, North Bay Patriots, Americans for Legal Immigration and Bay Area Patriots San Francisco Tea Party.

“The government doesn’t have the resources to support the social services for our own citizens; we can’t afford to let millions of people in - I mean, how many here already live in poverty?” said Heather Flick, 43, a Tiburon lawyer.

She said the Obama administration is “encouraging” illegal immigration of people drawn by hope of work, safety and social services.

Asked how, she said: “They’re certainly not discouraging them. I don’t know how they’re encouraging them.”

As he pointed a sign at traffic that said “Deport Illegals Now,” Tim Dugan, 58, a Sonoma County bus driver, said he supported the sort of legal immigration his wife, a Filipina, had undertaken.

“It’s not a racist thing at all - but it’s a national security and a national identity kind of thing,” he said. “People who come here should be American, and not saying ‘Celebrate our diversity.’ Because I think diversity separates us.”

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.