“California sanctuary policies put the entire nation at risk,” the president said, speaking in front of a homeland security mobile command center not far from eight proposed wall sections towering over his delegation. “They’re the best friend of the criminal.”
Mr. Brown used the president’s favorite medium to fire back. “Thanks for the shout-out, @realDonaldTrump,” the governor wrote on Twitter. “But bridges are still better than walls. And California remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the most prosperous state in America. #Facts.”
Shepherded around in his armored cars and Marine helicopters, Mr. Trump was largely insulated from the dissenters in a state that he lost by four million votes in 2016 and where just 30 percent approve of his performance today. But his trip generated strong feelings that were on display in his wake as he visited San Diego before heading to Los Angeles for a fund-raiser.
A few miles of freeway to the west from the border zone he visited, Mr. Trump’s opponents gathered in the parking lot of a hilltop church overlooking Mexico. His supporters assembled at an industrial park off in the distance.
The separation was by design: Organizers from each side said they wanted to stay apart and avoid clashes. As much as each place represented opposing views of a polarized United States, many of the same emotions were on display — anger, resentment, sadness.
Mr. Trump’s supporters were angry at immigrants, his opponents at a “militarized” border force and the president himself. On each side were woeful personal stories.
Among Trump supporters, the focus was on loved ones lost to killings or drunken driving crashes carried out by undocumented immigrants. Among the opposition, the talk centered on families separated or desperate migrants dying trying to reach the United States.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
It was a day for the bullhorn and the podium, but not for mass protests, as immigrant rights activists, faith-based groups, union organizers and clergymen used the visit to hone their messages before the midterm elections.
At the anti-Trump church gathering, Representative Juan C. Vargas, a Democrat whose district includes part of San Diego, delivered a passionate rebuke of the president. “If we didn’t have immigrants, he wouldn’t have wives!” he said. He added, “We have to resist and we have to let him know that California doesn’t welcome him.”
Neal José Wilkinson, a pastor in San Diego, made a plea for civil disobedience. Saying that Jesus was killed because he broke the rules, Mr. Wilkinson declared, “There’s a higher authority then you Donald Trump!”
There were softer appeals, as well. “I ask you to keep building bridges of love, of kindness to other people,” said José Castillo, the pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, the Catholic church where the rally was held.
Mr. Trump’s welcome committee of a few hundred people, many dressed in the flag, gathered for what was part pep rally and part celebration of what they viewed as the fulfillment of a campaign promise: the construction of a wall to keep undocumented Mexican immigrants away. To a scratchy rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” mixed with clips of Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, supporters cast themselves as “deplorables” and enthusiastic gun owners, and hoped for a glimpse of the president’s motorcade.
“He said secure the borders, build the wall, everything,” said Julie Horn, explaining her support. Her husband, Scott, a retired construction worker, echoed her views. “I think he’s done great,” he said. As Trump supporters in California, they said they were living in the state only to be close to their grandchildren.
“You don’t put a Trump sticker on your car,” Ms. Horn said. “Your car will get smashed.”
Not all of the faces at the rally were white. Kathy Robinson, who is African-American and from Burbank, and who works as a wedding photographer and Uber driver, voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. But after the election, she said she regretted that, and had come to view undocumented immigrants as a menace who take jobs away from American citizens. “Trump is not racist,” she said. “He’s just against illegal immigrants. He loves black people.”
Later in the day, Mr. Trump addressed a hangar full of enthusiastic military service members at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar before attending a fund-raiser expected to raise $5 million at the home of Edward Glazer, a chairman of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Mr. Trump has stayed away from California until now, realizing that the state is beyond his reach in 2020 if he runs for re-election, as he says he will. But he noted that he owns property in the state. “The taxes are way, way out of whack,” Mr. Trump said, “and people are going to start to move pretty soon.”
At the border, Mr. Trump inspected eight wall prototypes, all of them looming over him. The border section he visited is currently guarded by a wire fence and sheet metal barrier, which local border patrol agents said have cut down on crossings since they were first put up. Mr. Trump argued that they need to be replaced by something more permanent and impenetrable. He expressed a preference for the models that have slats allowing border patrol officers to see through them.
As Mexicans watched from across the barrier, Mr. Trump described an epidemic of drugs and human traffickers that he has vowed to stop. He argued that building a wall would cost less than what he said was the price of social ills created by illegal immigration.
“We need safety,” Mr. Trump said. “We need security at the border and we’re getting it like we’ve never had it before. But we want to make it perfecto.”
A teacher who is also a reserve police officer trained in firearm use accidentally discharged a gun Tuesday at Seaside High School in Monterey County, Calif., during a class devoted to public safety. A male student was reported to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
The weapon, which was not described, was pointed at the ceiling, according to a statement from the school, and debris fell from the ceiling.
Seaside Police Chief Abdul Pridgen told the Monterey County Weekly that a male student was “struck in the neck by ‘debris or fragmentation’ from something overhead.’” Pridgen said whatever hit the student was not a bullet.
However, the student’s father, Fermin Gonzales, told KSBW 8 that it was his understanding that fragments from the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and lodged in the boy’s neck. The father said the teacher told the class before pointing the gun at the ceiling that he was doing so to make sure his gun wasn’t loaded, something that can be determined visually.
“It’s the craziest thing,” Gonzales told the station. “It could have been very bad.”
Gonzales said he learned about the incident when his 17-year-old son came home with blood on his shirt and bullet fragments in his neck.
“He’s shaken up, but he’s going to be OK. I’m just pretty upset that no one told us anything and we had to call the police ourselves to report it,” the father told the TV station.
The teen was treated at a hospital.
The teacher was identified by police as Dennis Alexander, who teaches math as well as a course in the administration of justice. Alexander is a reserve police officer for Sand City and a Seaside city councilman.
The Monterey County Weekly, quoting Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante, reported that Alexander had his last gun safety training less than a year ago. “I have concerns about why he was displaying a loaded firearm in a classroom,” Ferrante told KSBW. “We will be looking into that.”
Exactly why the teacher was displaying the weapon at all was not entirely clear. Police said he was “providing instruction related to public safety.”
The father told KSBW that the teacher was preparing to use the gun to show how to disarm someone.
Daniel “PK” Diffenbaugh, superintendent of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, told the Weekly that the incident occurred during the administration of justice class, a career track course offered by the school. “Clearly, we will revisit this incident to ensure that something like this would never happen again.”
Diffenbaugh noted that state law and school policy forbids carrying firearms on campus without authorization. Alexander, he said, was not authorized.
“I think a lot of questions are on parents’ minds are, why a teacher would be pointing a loaded firearm at the ceiling in front of students,” Diffenbaugh told KSBW. “Clearly in this incident protocols were not followed.”
The teacher has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation takes place, according to the school. The Sand City Police Department also placed Alexander on administrative leave.
The incident comes amid a national debate on how to protect students from mass shootings like the one that took the lives of 17 students in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. Among the proposals advanced is training and arming teachers, an approach favored by President Trump, among others but opposed by a majority of the teachers in the National Education Association, including many who said in an NEA survey that it would make them feel less safe.
