Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Imperial Beach right-wing backlashed

Welcoming Cities Proclamation grist for biased media mill

John Loudon in his Missouri Tea Party days
John Loudon in his Missouri Tea Party days

The Imperial Beach city government's passage of a Welcoming Cities Proclamation in mid August was a positive and benevolent occasion, but it is has generated a backlash among local right-wing voices recently.

"This means a lot to me," said mayor Serge Dedina during the presentation of the proclamation. "My dad came to this country in 1939 as a refugee. He escaped the Nazi occupation of Europe. My mom was bombed by the Germans and ended up coming to America."

The proclamation was intended to officially welcome immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Imperial Beach.

Other speakers remembered times closer to home.

Councilmember Ed Spriggs, councilmember Lorie Bragg, San Diego Immigrants Rights Consortium chair Ginger Jacobs, mayor Serge Dedina, and councilmember Robert Patton

"I remember the days of long ago when what we called the skinhead surfers used to pick fights with kids from my area, the Del Sol area," said Pedro Rios of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the organizations supporting the proclamation. "This is definitely a step forward, I certainly commend you, the mayor, and city staff for recommending that Imperial Beach should be a welcoming city."

"I actually grew up in the middle of the country, in rural Indiana, and it was not a very welcoming city, it was one of those cities that had been a hotbed of Klan activity," said Ginger Jacobs of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium, "and everybody knew that if you were a person of color, you didn't live in my town, you lived in the next town over."

Sponsored
Sponsored

"Our beach has become the Ellis Island and town square of America," Dedina continued. "If you look at beaches now, especially our beach, they are places where people express themselves with joy, and more important, they come together regardless of race, religion, background, class, ethnicity, whatever differences, and have a beautiful time with their families...you can see that in kids that find themselves immediately and play together."

Despite these testimonials, the support of many local community and human rights organizations (including the Anti-Defamation League, Alliance San Diego, International Rescue Committee, SEIU Local 221, Survivors of Torture International, and Interfaith Center for Worker Justice of San Diego) and the fact that the proclamation is intended for legal immigrants, a right-wing reaction has been growing. The critics are erroneously equating the proclamation with the Sanctuary Cities movement and are calling to have the proclamation rescinded and put to a popular vote.

("Sanctuary Cities," which have legal policies to not prosecute people solely for their non-legal residency status and are designed to encourage them to be able to report crimes and otherwise participate in society, have been targeted by right-wing talk shows and other conservative outlets.)

Gina Loudon

The backlash in Imperial Beach is led by a former Tea Party activist couple from Missouri now living in Imperial Beach — John and Gina Loudon, best known for Gina Loudon's 2013 participation in the reality TV show Wife Swap, on which she called President Obama a “communist.”

Gina Loudon published an article on World Net Daily on September 11th about Imperial Beach's proclamation. The right-wing website is known for proclaiming President Obama "Muslim of the Year" in 2015 and for debunked allegations that Obama is not a native-born American citizen.

Gina Loudon charged that the Imperial Beach proclamation was "worse" than a Sanctuary City.

"The cabal pushing the proclamation on Imperial Beach was headed by the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium.... 'Welcoming Cities' is a scheme to flood communities in the United States with as many immigrants as possible, legal and illegal, without regard to resist public safety and public health," Loudon wrote.

Jacobs of the Immigrant Rights Consortium said she wanted to focus on the value of the proclamation and did not want to respond to Loudon's article directly.

"Other people may have whatever perceptions that they have," Jacobs said, "even though those perceptions are not necessarily based in reality."

(According to the Wall Street Journal, immigrants commit less crimes and are incarcerated less often than native-born Americans.)

Video:

Imperial Beach Council Welcomes Terror / Drug 'Refugees'

Then, on September 12th, a video entitled "Imperial Beach Council Welcomes Terror / Drug 'Refugees'" and featuring Gina Loudon's husband, former Missouri state politician John Loudon, appeared on the Youtube channel "Stop Obama Now San Diego."

The channel's website, run by Roger Ogden of San Diego, features articles such as "Obama’s Tax on White People" and "Satanism 101 — Obama's Luciferian Belief System." Ogden organized an "Impeach Obama" protest in 2013 that caused a ten-mile traffic jam on Interstate 5.

Ogden alleges in the video that "Leftist groups" are "pushing for cities like this all around the U.S. to promote unvetted Muslim refugees from areas dominated by terrorist groups and to promote illegal immigration in general." He also said "subversive groups" are behind the resolutions with "the left-leaning city council approving it on the sly without any input from opposition at all."

Ogden's video includes John Loudon's comments to the city council on September 7th, when Loudon proposed that the Welcoming Cities Proclamation was part of a "hidden political agenda" to bring refugees "from Africa" into the city.

"My suspicion is Imperial Beach was drawn in as kind of a pawn role," Loudon said.

Actually, the proclamation stems from a White House effort launched in 2015 called the Welcoming Communities Campaign, according to David Murphy, executive director of the International Rescue Committee's San Diego office. Other Imperial Beach residents spoke against the proclamation at the September 7th council meeting, some erroneously equating it with Sanctuary Cities.

"At least the citizens of the city should get a chance to vote on this," said Ernie Griffes. "Don't make a foolish jackass city out of us by making us a Sanctuary City."

However, Imperial Beach city manager Andy Hall clarified during the meeting that "there was no language that included 'Sanctuary City'" in the proclamation, "and it did include that all of the immigrants you're supporting must be in the country legally."

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Holiday Experiences

As soon as Halloween is over, it's Christmas time in my mind
Next Article

Barrio Logan’s very good Dogg

Chicano comfort food proves plenty spicy
John Loudon in his Missouri Tea Party days
John Loudon in his Missouri Tea Party days

The Imperial Beach city government's passage of a Welcoming Cities Proclamation in mid August was a positive and benevolent occasion, but it is has generated a backlash among local right-wing voices recently.

"This means a lot to me," said mayor Serge Dedina during the presentation of the proclamation. "My dad came to this country in 1939 as a refugee. He escaped the Nazi occupation of Europe. My mom was bombed by the Germans and ended up coming to America."

The proclamation was intended to officially welcome immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Imperial Beach.

Other speakers remembered times closer to home.

Councilmember Ed Spriggs, councilmember Lorie Bragg, San Diego Immigrants Rights Consortium chair Ginger Jacobs, mayor Serge Dedina, and councilmember Robert Patton

"I remember the days of long ago when what we called the skinhead surfers used to pick fights with kids from my area, the Del Sol area," said Pedro Rios of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the organizations supporting the proclamation. "This is definitely a step forward, I certainly commend you, the mayor, and city staff for recommending that Imperial Beach should be a welcoming city."

"I actually grew up in the middle of the country, in rural Indiana, and it was not a very welcoming city, it was one of those cities that had been a hotbed of Klan activity," said Ginger Jacobs of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium, "and everybody knew that if you were a person of color, you didn't live in my town, you lived in the next town over."

Sponsored
Sponsored

"Our beach has become the Ellis Island and town square of America," Dedina continued. "If you look at beaches now, especially our beach, they are places where people express themselves with joy, and more important, they come together regardless of race, religion, background, class, ethnicity, whatever differences, and have a beautiful time with their families...you can see that in kids that find themselves immediately and play together."

Despite these testimonials, the support of many local community and human rights organizations (including the Anti-Defamation League, Alliance San Diego, International Rescue Committee, SEIU Local 221, Survivors of Torture International, and Interfaith Center for Worker Justice of San Diego) and the fact that the proclamation is intended for legal immigrants, a right-wing reaction has been growing. The critics are erroneously equating the proclamation with the Sanctuary Cities movement and are calling to have the proclamation rescinded and put to a popular vote.

("Sanctuary Cities," which have legal policies to not prosecute people solely for their non-legal residency status and are designed to encourage them to be able to report crimes and otherwise participate in society, have been targeted by right-wing talk shows and other conservative outlets.)

Gina Loudon

The backlash in Imperial Beach is led by a former Tea Party activist couple from Missouri now living in Imperial Beach — John and Gina Loudon, best known for Gina Loudon's 2013 participation in the reality TV show Wife Swap, on which she called President Obama a “communist.”

Gina Loudon published an article on World Net Daily on September 11th about Imperial Beach's proclamation. The right-wing website is known for proclaiming President Obama "Muslim of the Year" in 2015 and for debunked allegations that Obama is not a native-born American citizen.

Gina Loudon charged that the Imperial Beach proclamation was "worse" than a Sanctuary City.

"The cabal pushing the proclamation on Imperial Beach was headed by the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium.... 'Welcoming Cities' is a scheme to flood communities in the United States with as many immigrants as possible, legal and illegal, without regard to resist public safety and public health," Loudon wrote.

Jacobs of the Immigrant Rights Consortium said she wanted to focus on the value of the proclamation and did not want to respond to Loudon's article directly.

"Other people may have whatever perceptions that they have," Jacobs said, "even though those perceptions are not necessarily based in reality."

(According to the Wall Street Journal, immigrants commit less crimes and are incarcerated less often than native-born Americans.)

Video:

Imperial Beach Council Welcomes Terror / Drug 'Refugees'

Then, on September 12th, a video entitled "Imperial Beach Council Welcomes Terror / Drug 'Refugees'" and featuring Gina Loudon's husband, former Missouri state politician John Loudon, appeared on the Youtube channel "Stop Obama Now San Diego."

The channel's website, run by Roger Ogden of San Diego, features articles such as "Obama’s Tax on White People" and "Satanism 101 — Obama's Luciferian Belief System." Ogden organized an "Impeach Obama" protest in 2013 that caused a ten-mile traffic jam on Interstate 5.

Ogden alleges in the video that "Leftist groups" are "pushing for cities like this all around the U.S. to promote unvetted Muslim refugees from areas dominated by terrorist groups and to promote illegal immigration in general." He also said "subversive groups" are behind the resolutions with "the left-leaning city council approving it on the sly without any input from opposition at all."

Ogden's video includes John Loudon's comments to the city council on September 7th, when Loudon proposed that the Welcoming Cities Proclamation was part of a "hidden political agenda" to bring refugees "from Africa" into the city.

"My suspicion is Imperial Beach was drawn in as kind of a pawn role," Loudon said.

Actually, the proclamation stems from a White House effort launched in 2015 called the Welcoming Communities Campaign, according to David Murphy, executive director of the International Rescue Committee's San Diego office. Other Imperial Beach residents spoke against the proclamation at the September 7th council meeting, some erroneously equating it with Sanctuary Cities.

"At least the citizens of the city should get a chance to vote on this," said Ernie Griffes. "Don't make a foolish jackass city out of us by making us a Sanctuary City."

However, Imperial Beach city manager Andy Hall clarified during the meeting that "there was no language that included 'Sanctuary City'" in the proclamation, "and it did include that all of the immigrants you're supporting must be in the country legally."

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

La Clochette brings croissants—and cassoulet—to Mission Valley

Whatever's going on with this bakery business, Civita Park residents get a decent meal
Next Article

East Village Tree Lighting & Holiday Market, Holiday Gondola Cruise

Events November 30-December 4, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader