June 29 2025
As I walked through the gate of my parents’ mobile home park, the sounds of my childhood no longer rang joy through my soul. What once were echoes of laughter, music drifting from open windows, and neighbors gathering after long days at labor-intensive jobs, has been replaced with a chilling silence. This place, once my sanctuary against a world laced with racial biases, now harbors the weight of fear.
Since the inauguration of the new federal administration, this sense of refuge has been eroded across communities like mine. In June, a wave of targeted violence and immigration raids swept across Los Angeles and other parts of California. These raids were calculated attempts to fracture our communities, to isolate, to punish — all under the guise of immigration policy. However, these attacks are not only racially or politically motivated, but they are targeted at the environmental community too.
Our immigrant communities form the backbone of California’s environmental care economy. They plant the trees, clean the rivers, grow our food, and steward the lands we claim to protect. When immigration policy weaponizes fear, it strips communities of the very workers who are vital to our collective environmental goals. At Sierra Club California, we have made it clear: we stand with our immigrant communities. Not just out of solidarity, but out of a clear understanding that environmental justice requires social justice. We cannot claim to protect the planet while ignoring the oppression of those who protect it daily.
Amid this chaos, state budget deliberations pressed on. Echoing the broader climate of exclusion, the proposed budget aimed to silence public input on critical environmental decisions. Our team at Sierra Club California played a pivotal role in defeating rushed proposals, such as attempts to fast-track the controversial Delta Tunnel project, and ensuring that frontline communities remained part of the conversation.
Despite these critical wins, the fight is far from over. The California Legislature is unfortunately using backroom deals to undermine California’s building energy codes and dismantle the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)—the state’s bedrock environmental law. Leaders are abusing the budget process to push these anti-environmental policies, slipping language that was formerly in AB 306 and SB 607, two bills that faced massive opposition from environmental groups, into trailer bills to bypass public input and subvert democratic accountability.
Our communities must raise their voices now, urging legislators to oppose this erosion of environmental protections before the budget process concludes. This moment calls on us all to protect not only ecosystems but the people embedded within them. Our vision for a livable climate must include the recognition that excluded communities across the country disproportionately bear the weight of environmental degradation. A just, equitable, and sustainable future means no one—regardless of immigration status—has to choose between safety and survival.
Sincerely,
Miguel Miguel
Director
Sierra Club California is the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 California chapters of the Sierra Club.
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