Immigrant rights activists block morning traffic on Golden Gate Bridge

Immigrant rights activists on Thursday blocked morning traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge demanding that U.S. Democrats fight for the citizenship of all immigrant families.

SAN FRANCISCO - Immigrant rights activists on Thursday blocked morning traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge demanding that U.S. Democrats fight for the citizenship of all immigrant families.

The event was organized by the Bay Area Coalition for Economic Justice and Citizenship for All.

Activists gave speeches and chanted in English and Spanish on the bridge about 7 a.m., causing cars on the bridge to slow to a halt. They also unfurled banners. The protest lasted 45minutes. The California Highway Patrol towed several cars away and made five arrests.

All lanes of traffic were reopened at 8 a.m.

The protest was timed to coincide with a possible vote in Congress on the budget reconciliation bill, demanding Democrats override the Senate parliamentarian who excluded immigration provisions from the $3.5 trillion bill.

In a statement, they described their action is taking place as the Senate is poised to vote on a "watered-down" reconciliation bill, down from its $3.5 trillion goal and "which excludes a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants."

They noted that the Senate parliamentarian recommended against this pathway again on Wednesday.

The decision by Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate’s nonpartisan interpreter of its often enigmatic rules, was a damaging and disheartening setback for President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats and their allies in the pro-immigration and progressive communities. Though they said they’d offer her fresh alternatives, MacDonough’s stance badly wounds their hopes of unilaterally enacting — over Republican opposition — changes letting several categories of immigrants gain permanent residence and possibly citizenship.

Estimates vary because many people can be in more than one category, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says 8 million people would be helped by the Democratic effort, MacDonough said. Biden had originally proposed a broader drive that would have affected 11 million immigrants.

Each year, federal, state, and local governments receive approximately $120.7 billion in taxes from undocumented immigrants, including $79.7 billion in annual federal taxes, the groups said. And each year, undocumented workers "buoy" the country’s social safety net, paying $17 billion to Social Security and $4 billion to Medicare.

Yet these government programs "unjustly" exclude undocumented immigrants from receiving benefits they’ve paid into, as was "grotesquely demonstrated when undocumented families were omitted from federal stimulus relief in 2020 and 2021, despite immigrant families, in particular Black and Latinx immigrants, being disproportionately impacted by the pandemic," the organizers wrote in a statement.

Among the demands: Citizenship for all, free community college tuition, paid family leave and expanded MediCare rights.

The activists are demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris and top Democrats in Congress override the decision by the unelected Senate parliamentarian which excludes undocumented immigrants from the budget reconciliation process.

But it will be a steep road to achieve that.

Left vulnerable to those bill-killing delays, which require 60 Senate votes to defuse, the immigration language has virtually no chance in the 50-50 Senate.

Republicans have already signaled that they will use immigration, linking it to some voters’ fears of crime, as a top issue in next year’s campaigns for control of the House and Senate. The issue has gained attention in a year when huge numbers of immigrants have been encountered trying to cross the Southwest border.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Immigrant rights activists blocked morning traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge demanding that U.S. Democrats fight for the citizenship of all immigrant families. Photos: Bay Area Coalition for Economic Justice and Citizenship for All. Sept. 30, 2021

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