Thoughts on protecting immigrants as the ACLU launches a new tack.

n three parts, thoughts on protections for immigrants – locally and elsewhere – as the cheeto-hued vulgarian-in-chief issues a new travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries and yammers on about building the wall.

One: It wasn’t quite a mic drop that Salinas City Attorney Chris Callihan executed at a hastily arranged press conference March 7, just after the City Council’s mysterious closed session and just before its regularly scheduled meeting. But it was close enough.

As protesters chanted and drummed outside City Hall, reporters were shuttled into a conference room where Callihan announced the council, in that closed session, had directed him to sue Donald Trump over threats to yank federal money from cities that provide so-called sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.

Keep in mind, the city of Salinas has refused to declare itself a sanctuary city – thus the presence of the protesters. The city says since it doesn’t devote time or resources to enforcing federal immigration policy, it already functions as a sanctuary city.

If they’re already acting as such, would it kill them to use the word? No. But the city contends that some $13 million in federal grant funding is at risk. Thus the pre-emptive lawsuit – and a seeming 180-degree shift in policy. Just a week earlier, the City Council voted 4-3 refusing to declare Salinas a sanctuary city. Councilman Tony Villegas, who voted against, was counseled by a bevy of Latino leaders, including former county supervisor Fernando Armenta, to reintroduce the sanctuary resolution and change his vote. A re-vote seemed to loom on the horizon, but instead, here they were, suing the Donald. Mic drop.

Two: Under the heading of “no good deed goes unpunished,” the council is drawing ire from both sides. First from pro-sanctuary activists, who just want the city to declare it officially, and from KSBW President and General Manager Joe Heston. Heston strode onto camera and said, “[Salinas] took the bait this week” when, after showing a modicum of restraint by refusing to declare itself a sanctuary city, it opted instead to sue.

“What a waste of taxpayer dollars and city staff time,” Heston intoned. “Salinas has plenty of potholes, storm damage, gang crime and other local challenges to worry about. This suing the feds is just an impractical distraction.”

What else does Salinas has plenty of? Immigrants. What does the county has plenty of? Undocumented immigrants – an estimated 50,000, the largest undocumented population in the state. And right now, they’re terrorized at the thought of what might come next. People over potholes, Joe. People over potholes. Besides, if the undocumented immigrant population disappears, the other thing that will disappear is the Salinas Valley ag industry. If you can’t think about this with empathy and sense, then think about it in terms of dollars and cents.

Three: With the click of a button a few weeks ago, I agreed to host an ACLU event on resistance training. So it was that I found myself on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, frantically sweeping up dog hair (enough to make an entire third dog) and badgering my kid to make the printer work as I waited for 19 people to show up.

In the end, closer to 40 came, and they gathered in the hallway, the living room and the dining room for a live-stream of the ACLU training. A focus: how to defend our friends, families and neighbors from Trump’s mass deportation agenda. A handout outlines nine model rules for what the ACLU is calling “freedom cities,” and they include things that cities like Salinas, Monterey and Seaside are already doing – requiring warrants from federal authorities, not detaining anyone based on immigration status alone, requiring federal agents to identify themselves as such.

The attendees ranged from a young Latino couple from Soledad to old-school white activists to people who had never been politically active before. We broke into small groups and talked about our reasons for being there. One man – a middle-aged white professional – gave as his reason: “Because I’m scared shitless.”

If that’s not a good enough reason for getting involved in the resistance, nothing is.

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