Two San Diego elected officials have joined colleagues across the country calling for President Barack Obama to issue a blanket pardon of immigrants with green cards who have committed minor crimes.

San Diego Councilman David Alvarez and San Diego Unified School District Board President Richard Barrera, along with 57 others, signed a letter organized by Local Progress, a network of progressive municipal elected officials, that was sent to Obama this week.

The group wants to undercut President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to deport individuals who, without their minor criminal histories, would not be deportable. Between 100,000 and 200,000 families could be affected by such a pardon, according to the letter.

“From literally the day after the election, we started hearing concerns from teachers that students were worried and were afraid that they were going to be deported, that their parents were going to be deported, just based on the rhetoric from the campaign,” Barrera said by telephone. “What we’re trying to do is look for every avenue that’s available to us as elected officials to protect our young people and their families.”

The letter suggests that it would be within Obama’s power to make such a blanket pardon because of former President Jimmy Carter’s pardon of draft evaders in 1977 on his first day in office.

“We must protect the legal permanent residents of our city,” Alvarez said via email.  “President-elect Trump proposed a deportation plan modeled after Operation Wetback from the 1950s.  Dividing families by recklessly deporting hundreds of thousands of legal permanent residents would be morally wrong and economically destructive.”

Since 2014, the Obama administration has not prioritized minor convictions for immigration enforcement, as a matter of policy not any change in law. By law, green card holders can be deported for committing offenses that would not incur jail time in today’s criminal court system, like low-level drug offenses.

Trump campaigned on the idea of deporting millions of unauthorized immigrants, particularly criminals. His transition team has yet to set forth details about which immigrants and which criminals.

By Kate Morrissey

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