Salinas’ sanctuary vote may live again, and Seaside considers its own vote.

I spent a little bit of time the other morning helping a friend find a good immigration attorney. She’s European-American, born here, and her husband is Mexican-American – he grew up in Los Angeles and speaks like a total SoCal bro-dude, but he was born on the other side of that infernal border and came to the country when he was 3.

They own their own home. He owns his own business on the Peninsula, contributes mightily to the local economy, volunteers for a few well-known nonprofits and he’s a lot of fun to hang with. They both are. He’s had permanent residency status for years, but they’ve come to find out, that no longer means much – friends with similar status are being swept up and sent back. So now they’re having to decide whether he can travel outside the country, for business or pleasure, and they’re making plans for what happens if he’s detained and kicked out of the country.

“I mean, besides a 401(k), should I be starting a ‘We’re Mexican’ fund?” she says. “If he’s deported, the plan is that he goes to [Distrito Federal] and waits. But it’s not a great plan – that’s why we need a lawyer.”

My friends’ story is being replicated around the country. In the New York Times Feb. 27, there was a story about Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco, a restaurant manager in West Frankfort, Illinois (where 70 percent of voters went for Donald Trump). Hernandez hosts law enforcement appreciation events and brings hot meals to firefighters during multiple-alarm blazes. He takes part in every community charity event. On Feb. 9, he was detained near his home and taken to a detention facility in another state. He has two DUIs from a decade ago, and it makes him a higher priority for deportation.

He had started the path toward getting his documents in order, but never completed it. “I knew he was Mexican,” one local resident told the Times, “but he’s been here so long he’s one of us.” The community, the story reads, is rallying for Pacheco’s release.

Here in Salinas, City Councilman Tony Barrera tells the story of a young undocumented couple who asked Barrera and his wife to act as guardians to their children in case the parents were detained and deported. He also recounted a story told to him by an Alisal Union School District administrator of a parent who said she was going to stop sending her daughter to school. The mother is undocumented and there’s nobody in Salinas to care for the child if the mother is suddenly detained and sent back to Mexico. It was safer to keep the little girl home.

This is how we demoralize a population. This is how we destroy families. Those stories from Barrera came at the Feb. 21 Salinas City Council meeting, where by a 4-3 vote, the council declined to make a mostly symbolic statement in support of immigrants that essentially would turn Salinas into a sanctuary city.

In the end, fear of losing an estimated $13 million in federal funds won out against telling the lifeblood of the ag labor force that the city would do anything in its power to protect them. Councilmembers Kimbley Craig, Steve McShane, John “Tony” Villegas and Mayor Joe Gunter outvoted Barrera, Gloria de la Rosa and Scott Davis.

I found the vote cowardly beyond measure, and said so.

But word came Feb. 27 that the resolution will live again. According to multiple sources, a cadre of Latino leaders staged an intervention with Villegas and convinced him to reintroduce the measure and flip his vote. Villegas plans to reintroduce the original, as proposed by Scott Davis, at the March 7 City Council meeting.

Barrera says hundreds of calls have poured into various councilmembers since the last meeting, but regardless of the last vote, the council needs to act as a team.

“We will be judged by the people we serve. If we start discrediting each other because of how we voted, we will do harm,” he says. “But based on the calls we’re getting, with some saying we need to change the vote, if it’s community driven I can see where there could be a change in that vote.”

On Feb. 17, the city of Seaside voted unanimously to consider becoming a sanctuary city as well. That discussion will take place on March 2. Here’s hoping their path toward righteousness is smoother than that of Salinas.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com