Afghan refugees in San Diego at risk of being sent back
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Monday, May 19th.>>>>
Afghan refugees in San Diego are at risk of being sent back.
More on that next. But first... the headlines….#######
The City of San Diego is preparing to put the old central library building downtown up for sale or lease.
The half-block property on Eighth Avenue and E Street has sat empty for two years.
Bidders on the property will have to set aside at least a quarter of any proposed residential units for affordable housing.
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San Diego County Animal Services is rolling out a mobile veterinary bus.
The county says it will be used to bring affordable pet health services to communities where it's most needed, including Ramona and Fallbrook.
It offers vaccines and microchips for 20 dollars, and spaying and neutering services for under 150 dollars.
It also offers dental work and other outpatient care.
And it’s equipped with a surgery table.
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San Diego is heating up this week.
High pressure will bring dry and warming weather through Thursday.
The National Weather Service says temperatures will likely be 10 to 15 degrees above average for this time of year.
The highs in the county’s inland areas are expected to be between 84 and 90 degrees.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IS TERMINATING PROTECTIONS FOR THOUSANDS OF AFGHAN REFUGEES, EFFECTIVE JULY 12TH.
VIDEO JOURNALIST MATTHEW BOWLER SAYS MANY AFGHANS LIVING IN SAN DIEGO ARE NOW AT RISK OF BEING SENT BACK TO A COUNTRY… THAT IS STILL UNDER TALIBAN RULE.
Desperate Afghan civilians were fleeing for their lives about 3-and-a-half years ago. Many were granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to stay in the United States. It’s a special form of deportation protection for people from countries experiencing war or other dangerous conditions. Now, the Trump administration may be sending those refugees back to Afghanistan. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said quote, “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.” Shawn VanDiver from the San Diego based organization AfghanEvac says during Trump’s first term the president appeared to be very supportive of Afghan refugees. “I thought surely pres trump would protect this bipartisan beloved effort to help allies who have stood beside us. And what I thought was an unintended consequence seems like is a deliberate strategy to throw our wartime allies under the bus and cause real irreparable harm to our veterans community.” VanDiver says about 200,000 Afghans have resettled in the United States since 2021. An estimated 11,700 Afghan nationals in the U.S. currently hold TPS, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Matthew Bowler KPBS News
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THE SAN DIEGO POLICE DEPARTMENT HAS — FOR YEARS — STRUGGLED TO RETAIN OFFICERS AND HIRE NEW ONES.
THE RESULT? ITS OVERTIME BUDGET BALLOONED.
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER SCOTT RODD SAYS SOME OFFICERS WORK SO MUCH OVERTIME THAT THEY’RE NOW THE HIGHEST-PAID CITY EMPLOYEES.
IT ALSO RAISES SAFETY CONCERNS FOR OFFICERS AND THE PUBLIC.
San Diego’s police chief for many years made the most money in the department. But something changed about a decade ago. Cops were leaving the department…and those vacancies weren’t being filled. So officers started working more overtime. “A lot of overtime. Like thousands of hours of overtime.” Paul Parker is the former executive director of San Diego’s civilian police oversight commission. He worked as a police officer and death investigator for decades. “That I I don't understand unless they're on some kind of special assignment, but even then thousands of hours of overtime seems to be uh excessive.” Take for example officer Jason Costanza. A KPBS investigation found he worked over 3,000 hours of overtime in 2023…the year with the most recently available data. That’s equivalent to adding another full-time job…plus another part-time job…on top of his regular police duties. For Parker…that’s a red flag. “I can speak from experience…when you're working 14-16 hour days and then you put a couple of those days back to back…you're exhausted. You're absolutely exhausted.” Costanza had to work very long hours to hit that overtime total. We’re talking 17-hour shifts…sometimes 19-hour shifts…with short breaks in between. He earned over $400,000 in 2023…the majority of it from overtime pay. That made him the city’s highest-paid employee. A KPBS analysis of department data found Costanza was among several officers who earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay in recent years. And it’s mostly the same group, year after year. The department’s skyrocketing overtime budget is one concern. There’s also the issue of officer well-being…and public safety. “You have to consider that these folks are armed and they're tasked with making split second decisions to save their lives and the lives of the members of the community.” There’s research to back up these concerns. Studies and audits show fatigued officers are more likely to face complaints from civilians. And overtime can result in more of use of force incidents. “Officers who are particularly tired — they're less likely to de-escalate.” Lois James is director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane. “They're less able to kind of manage crisis encounters or interact with people who might be impaired in some way.” James has worked with police departments around the country. She understands that overtime gives departments flexibility. But relying on it too much can cost cities more money in the long run. “It's what we call the fatigue tax…It's easy for it to get into this vicious spiral.” Working tons of overtime can lead to burnout…which means officers taking sick leave or time off…which means more shifts to fill. There’s also the public safety risk of fatigued officers making mistakes on duty. That can result in costly lawsuits or settlements. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl says he isn’t bothered by the huge amounts of money officers are making in overtime. “They put in a tremendous amount of hours. They earn the money that they've made. And they’re committed to putting in that time.” And he pushed back on the notion that excess overtime increases the risk of negative interactions between his officers and the public. “I don't think that the right way to answer that is to give you a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’...I think there are so many factors that depend.” Wahl says he isn’t aware of any complaints against the officers working the most overtime hours. “If they're not out there being respectful, treating people right, making good decisions, then they're going to be pulled back from working over time.” But the chief says he is open to imposing some limits on overtime. “We do need to have some guardrails in place.” He supports capping shifts at 16 hours with a required 8-hour break. He also supports mandating one day off a week. But those changes would need to go through what’s called a meet and confer process with the police officer’s union…which can take months. In the long term, Wahl says the department needs to redouble its efforts at hiring and recruiting new officers. Scott Rodd, KPBS News.
TUNE IN TOMORROW TO HEAR MORE FROM THE CHIEF OF POLICE ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT’S PLAN TO CHANGE ITS OVERTIME POLICY…AS THE CITY GRAPPLES WITH A HUGE BUDGET DEFICIT.
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NEARLY A HUNDRED SAN DIEGANS HAVE BECOME SICK FROM FOOD POISONING.
SCI-TECH REPORTER THOMAS FUDGE SAYS THE SALMONELLA OUTBREAK HAS BEEN LINKED TO A POPULAR RESTAURANT IN CLAIREMONT.
A lot of people got sick after eating at Aladdins Mediterranean Cafe late last month. And yesterday some of them gathered to announce they were suing. The San Diego County health department said 98 people who ate at Aladdins had confirmed or probable cases of salmonella poisoning. Salmonella is carried by chicken feces. But food safety attorney Bill Marler says mishandling of chicken can transfer it to other foods in a restaurant kitchen. “Sometimes outbreaks in a restaurant setting are really hard to figure out because people have eaten the evidence.” County health says 12 people were hospitalized. Salmonella poisoning can cause vomiting, high fever and dangerously low blood pressure levels. SOQ.
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A San Diego-based submarine is back home after seven months at sea.
Military reporter Andrew Dyer was at Naval Base Point Loma for the homecoming.
Like any ship homecoming, there were celebrations and happy reunions for the crew of the USS Alexandria. But submarines aren’t just any ships. They call it the “silent service” — submarines operate out of sight and their missions are closely-guarded military secrets. The ship’s captain, commander Christopher Rose, did … what he could … to shine a light on what this 140-man crew were doing. “And, what we were doing out there day in and day out is making sure that the sea lanes remain open, that U.S. goods, that our allies goods are able to move through the western Pacific and, you know, just providing a presence that, some people know we're out and some people don't, but their presence matters day in, day out. After spending seven months away – most of it underwater – the crew had reintegration training before getting home. Rose says they miss a lot and are pretty insulated from the world when they’re gone. But he already had plans for the day he returned. I have a baseball game for my, ten year old at 5:00 tonight. And so I think that's the first thing I'm doing is going to watch a Little League baseball game. Andrew Dyer, KPBS News
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A MAN WHO SPENT YEARS HELPING OUR AUDIENCE UNDERSTAND SAN DIEGO BUSINESS HAS DIED.
MIRO COPIC WAS A MARKETING EXPERT, A SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY LECTURER… AND A FREQUENT GUEST HERE ON KPBS.
MORE NOW FROM REPORTER JOHN CARROLL.
MIRO COPIC DIED LAST WEEK AT AGE 62, LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER. WE SPOKE WITH HIS SISTER, DANILA COPIC DE GRANDA. We would be sitting at Thanksgiving dinner as a family, and he's like, I have to go to the station and do the Black Friday report. He was really excited about it. It's something that was in his blood, and he loved it. “So it’s a good entry point for the Fed meetings later in September.” IN ADDITION TO TEACHING AZTECS AT THE SDSU FOWLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, COPIC HELD DEGREES FROM U-S-C AND HARVARD. THAT EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE LED HIM TO FORM HIS OWN COMPANY… BOTTOMLINE MARKETING… WHICH HE CO-FOUNDED HERE SAN DIEGO. “We’ve gotta close it there. Miro Copic of SDSU and BottomLine Marketing, thank you so much for joining us.” A CELEBRATION OF LIFE IS IN THE WORKS. JC, KPBS NEWS.
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Monday.
