Climate change and immigration seem like unrelated issues, but Coleen Anderson sees them as cause and effect.
Anderson, with 350 Yakima Climate Action, said that as the Earth’s climate changes, more people will come from the southern regions to America to escape the effects of increasing average temperatures and environmental damage it causes.
“The people who are coming to our southern borders are not seeking jobs,” Anderson said at a rally Saturday at downtown Yakima’s Millennium Plaza. “They are fleeing climate change.”
More than 100 people turned out for the rally, which started at Millennium Plaza and then moved to Performance Park next to the Yakima County Courthouse, protesting President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration and climate change, as well as the efforts by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to dismantle government agencies.
Along with stepped-up raids targeting people Trump says are in the country illegally, his administration is also seeking to roll back environmental regulations and shift the country toward fossil fuels that contribute to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which further fuels climate change.
Anderson said Saturday’s rally was timed in connection with Earth Day, which will be observed Tuesday.
Among the signs people carried were “Save our planet. Send Trump to Mars”, “Immigrants make America great” and “The only immigrant ruining America is Elon Musk.”
Other groups represented at the rally were Northwest Justice Project, Poder Latinx and Between the Ridges.
David Morales, an attorney with Northwest Justice Project and part of the Yakima Immigrant Response Network, urged those in attendance to exercise their constitutional rights in response to the administration’s immigration raids and other assaults on civil liberties.
“This B.S. works only if we silence ourselves,” Morales said. He urged everyone, whether they were immigrants or not, to have a red card that outlines people’s rights to not speak to police or to allow government agents into homes without a warrant.
David Hacker, an Episcopal priest at St. Michael Church in Yakima and co-chair of Between the Ridges, said the current situation is actually creating the unity in the community that Between the Ridges has strived to create before.
“We are coming together in a way like we never did before,” Hacker said.
Anderson and Maximiliano Torres, with Poder Latinx and Ella, a Latino-based social justice group, said the rally was a success with the turnout.