Politics
Column: What's behind those 'Shame on you' billboards in the Coachella Valley
There are so many billboards on each side of the 10 Freeway through the Coachella Valley that they bleed into one another like a deck of cards being shuffled. They come at you so fast that you begin to think the headliner this weekend at the Coachella festival is attorney Jacob Emrani.
Even in this cluttered landscape, two billboards featuring Desert Community College District Board trustee Bea Gonzalez stand out.
They’re at opposite ends of the valley — one near Fantasy Spring Resort Casino in Indio, another just east of the Indian Canyon Drive exit in Palm Springs — and feature the same photo of the spiky-haired, bespectacled trustee.
“Bea Gonzalez. Shame on you for voting against COD [College of the Desert] students!” the billboards blare against an orange background. Below that is the name of the group that funds them, Promises Made Promises Broken.
The hundreds of thousands of concertgoers who’ll pass by most likely won’t give the billboards a second thought. But they tell a story of a political brawl that has consumed the Coachella Valley.
Supporters say a long-planned College of the Desert campus in downtown Palm Springs, which is expected to break ground this year, will bring prestige and new programs such as hospitality, engineering and film to an area that needs it. Opponents such as Gonzalez say that the estimated $400-million cost is exorbitant and that the funds should be spread across underserved areas of the Coachella Valley.
When Gonzalez beat a two-term incumbent in a 2020 election, she joined two other trustees in trying to limit the scope of the Palm Springs project, if not scuttling it altogether.
Soon came the attacks: An unsuccessful 2021 push for a faculty vote of no confidence against Gonzalez and her trustee allies. A 2022 election that saw former college president and Gonzalez critic Joel Kinnamon join the board and flip the majority to his favor. A threatened recall that never materialized. Whispers that Gonzalez is a puppet of Latino politicians based in the eastern portion of the Coachella Valley who have increasingly clashed over resources with pols in the wealthier, whiter western communities.
And, of course, there are the billboards, which have shifted up and down the 10 since the beginning of 2023. They’ve become such a part of the region’s life that Gonzalez recently told me she’s used to having strangers stare at her before asking if she’s that woman.
“I have to laugh,” the 55-year-old said as we enjoyed bowls of split pea soup at a diner in Desert Hot Springs, “because what else can I do?”
The brawl has grown so contentious that the city of Palm Springs sued College of the Desert in 2022 for failing to turn over documents related to land use decisions, in alleged violation of the California Public Records Act. Kinnamon got into a physical altercation in January with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1167 President Joe Duffle, a Gonzalez ally, with each accusing the other of starting the fight.
Kinnamon didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview. Meanwhile, Promises Made Promises Broken — which the Desert Sun, the local newspaper, has described as “worrisome” for its refusal to disclose its members or donors — has flanked its anti-Gonzalez billboards with mailers and video ads as the group seeks to defeat her at the ballot box in November.
“If you know an election is coming, the smart thing to do is to create a negative perception far in advance,” Promises Made Promises Broken spokesperson Bruce Hoban said. “This Bea thing with ‘No, no, no, no, no’ at every trustee meeting is nerve-racking. It’s just relentless.”
Gonzalez is warm and self-effacing, with a good laugh. She said of the long campaign against her: “I think [opponents] are scratching their heads and thinking, ‘OK, we’re attacking her. We’re shaming her, and she won’t stop.’ But I really think these people have no clue the investment that I made into my community for years.”
Born and raised in Indio, Gonzalez is a College of the Desert alumna and has worked as an administrator for the Coachella Valley Unified School District for nearly 30 years. A longtime community activist, she ran for the community college district board in 2020 after hearing complaints from former students about shoddy facilities and a lack of classes and majors.
“You and I know,” Gonzalez said, “that if you want to change something, you have to be inside. And that there’s no other way.”
When she assumed office, the mother of two went through staff reports on the long-proposed new campus project. It was originally planned for northern Palm Springs, but Kinnamon announced in 2014 that the district wanted to take over a long-abandoned mall downtown and build there. Two years later, voters passed a $577-million bond to help fund that project and other improvements for existing facilities.
Gonzalez said that she’s not opposed to a new campus in principle but that putting it in Palm Springs makes no sense since there’s already a smaller facility there, and far more students reside in cities such as Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs, which she represents.
“And so to me, I was, like, ‘Wait a minute, what is going on here?’ And all of a sudden, there was this outrage from the entire West Valley, and all these attacks started — and I mean, they went all in. Every time I would vote no on a contract or ask a lot of questions — boom! Billboard No. 1. Boom! Billboard No. 2.”
She smiled. “I figure by now, I should have at least 20.”
Hoban, the Promises Made Promises Broken spokesperson, said he didn’t “know anything about College of the Desert, anything about community college” until attending a breakfast meeting in 2021 and hearing Gonzalez criticize the Palm Springs project, then finding out the board was going to cancel a proposed Cathedral City campus.
“All the plans that had been promised for 17 years were getting heavily modified or canceled and we said, ‘Wait a second. Why isn’t anything being built in the West Valley?’”
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Promises Made Promises Broken doesn’t need to disclose its members or how it spends its money. Paperwork filed with the California secretary of state lists its officers as Palm Springs restaurateur John Shay, jeweler Theresa Applegate and Cary Davidson, a Los Angeles-based attorney and trustee at Claremont McKenna College.
An email to them requesting an interview was instead returned by Hoban, who co-chaired the campaign that defeated a 2018 measure that sought to ban short-term rentals in Palm Springs of single-family homes. Asked who else belongs to Promises Made Promises Broken, Hoban said it’s “made up of people who have always been very involved in political issues and causes, so we know our way around.”
He wouldn’t disclose how much the group spends on billboards, although he claimed the going rate in the Coachella Valley for one billboard was $500 to $4,000 a month. Whatever the amount, he said his group is “100% completely” satisfied with their investment.
“People see them, and people will talk to us, and say, ‘I didn’t realize this problem with Bea Gonzalez,’” Hoban said.
Gonzalez acknowledged that she was angry when the billboards first went up, but she has made her peace with them.
“I’m getting this because I’m doing my due diligence — I ask these questions because I want that clarity,” she said. “And when the attacks started, it just made me even more curious.”
She pulled out a letter from a manila folder that she sent to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office asking that he investigate the use of College of the Desert’s bond money over the last 20 years.
“How can I vote yes, if a yes vote would be simply because of the intimidation? I can’t do that,” Gonzalez said.
A spokesperson with Bonta’s office said it’s “unable to comment on, even to confirm or deny, a potential or ongoing investigation.”
We finished our breakfast, then drove toward the 10 to see her billboard near Indian Canyon Drive. We parked on the freeway divider and admired it from afar as traffic sped by just feet away. I told her I vaguely remembered seeing the low-slung orange thing last summer.
Gonzalez waved at the billboard, as if to say hi. Then, she cracked up.
“Well, at least they used a good photo of me!”
The Biden administration declassified one last piece of information about how it has helped Ukraine: an account of its once-secret support for the country’s military drone industry.
U.S. officials said on Thursday that they had made big investments that helped Ukraine start and expand its production of drones as it battled Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.
Much of the U.S. assistance to the Ukrainian military, including billions of dollars in missiles, air defense systems, tanks, artillery and training, has been announced to the public. But other support has largely gone on in the shadows.
That included helping Ukraine develop a new generation of drones and revolutionize how wars are fought, according to U.S. officials.
The innovations in Ukraine’s drone industry have been hailed as transformative, but the U.S. support has been less well understood. In addition to technical support, the U.S. has spent significant money, including $1.5 billion sent last September, to boost Ukraine’s drone production, officials said.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said the support had “a real strategic impact” on the war.
“We saw how UAVs were becoming increasingly central to the fight in Ukraine and will be central to all future fights,” Mr. Sullivan said in a statement on Thursday, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles.
The U.S. effort included money to support drone makers and to purchase parts. The United States also sent intelligence officials to Ukraine to help build its program, according to people who know about the effort.
In an interview this week, the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, referred indirectly to his agency’s support for the drone program in Ukraine.
“I think our intelligence support has helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves,” Mr. Burns said. “Not just in the sharing of intelligence, but support for some of the systems that have been so effective.”
The White House declassified information about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine ahead of the invasion. During the war, officials have regularly declassified information about Iranian and North Korean arms shipments to Russia.
Mr. Sullivan said the drone effort began after the Ukrainians’ first counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 as the limits of Ukraine’s conventional capabilities became clear.
The efforts accelerated, Mr. Sullivan said, in the preparation for Ukraine’s second counteroffensive. That push, in 2023, was ultimately less successful. Ukraine did not gain as much ground as it had wanted, in part because of Russia’s use of drones.
That 2023 counteroffensive was a hard lesson, U.S. officials said. Russian drones attacked U.S.- and European-provided tanks and armored vehicles as they tried to navigate minefields.
After the counteroffensive, U.S. officials said they rapidly increased support to Ukrainian drone makers, building on Kyiv’s efforts to grow its own industry. In addition to financial aid, the Biden administration worked to build ties between American technology companies and Ukrainian drone makers.
Last fall, the Pentagon allocated $800 million to Ukraine’s drone production, which was used to purchase drone components and finance drone makers. When President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the White House in September, President Biden said another $1.5 billion would be directed to Ukraine’s drone industry.
American officials said on Thursday that they believe the investments have made Ukraine’s drones more effective and deadly. They noted that Ukraine’s sea drones had destroyed a quarter of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and that drones deployed on the front lines had helped slow Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine.
Mr. Sullivan said the drive to build Ukraine’s drone industry had provided “invaluable lessons” that the Biden administration had started to integrate into America’s own defense industry.
Politics
DeSantis' chosen Rubio replacement Moody wants to tackle inflation, spending, border: 'Audit the Fed!'
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who is slated to become a U.S. senator, is calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve, pledging to vocally oppose government spending, and declaring that she will fight to bolster the border and remove individuals who enter the U.S. illegally.
With Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., poised to soon leave office to serve as Secretary of State in the new Trump administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Moody as his pick to replace Rubio in the U.S. Senate.
And with even some Democrats planning to support confirmation, Rubio is likely to sail through the confirmation vote.
“Here’s a priority of mine in the Senate: our inflation has been fueled by the Federal Reserve. We must audit the Fed!” Moody declared in a post on X.
DESANTIS ANNOUNCES CHOICE FOR SENATE APPOINTMENT AFTER RUBIO’S EXPECTED RESIGNATION
“As Florida’s next U.S. Senator, I will work tirelessly to reduce the bloat of Washington and speak out loudly against government spending,” she noted in another post. “Like we’ve done in Florida, this country needs to cut spending and get fiscally responsible. I look forward to working with DOGE, and I will work hard to leave the next generation of our country on a much stronger financial footing.”
When discussing her role in confirming judges and justices, she specifically mentioned Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“As a former judge, I will take my role confirming judges and justices seriously to ensure that, like Justices Thomas and Alito, they share the values and concepts of law as our Founding Fathers understood them,” she said in a tweet. “I will work through the Senate confirmation process to ensure those who get confirmed are strong nominees and know that it is their duty to interpret the Constitution as it is written.”
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody responds to cheering supporters after Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, announced her appointment as U.S. senator to replace Marco Rubio, during a news conference at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Sharing Moody’s post, DeSantis called Alito and Thomas “the gold standard.”
“In the U.S. Senate, I will support President @realDonaldTrump and fight for legislation that strengthens the border, builds the wall, and removes those who entered unlawfully,” Moody noted in a tweet.
DESANTIS TOUTS FLORIDA’S ‘FUTURE WAY OF THINKING,’ VOWS STATE WILL ‘DO OUR DUTY’ TO HELP INCOMING TRUMP ADMIN
DeSantis responded, declaring, “Make Illegal Immigration Illegal Again.”
WASHINGTON — A historic uptick in migration during Joe Biden’s presidency led to attacks as he ran for reelection, with Donald Trump and fellow Republicans blaming Democrats for the swelling number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now, after campaigning on promises to secure the border and deport undocumented immigrants, President-elect Trump is poised to take office Monday amid a steep drop in border crossings.
Here are five key facts about migration across the U.S.-Mexico border over the last several years.
1. Arrivals at the border are the lowest they’ve been since Trump left office
When Trump left office in January 2021, people were stopped at the southern border more than 78,000 times that month, according to figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s compared with roughly 96,000 stops last month. The highest monthly total during the Biden administration was nearly 302,000 in December 2023, and Trump’s highest total was just over 144,000 in May 2019.
These figures include arrivals at land ports of entry, where asylum seekers wait for appointments to enter legally, as well as those caught crossing illegally elsewhere along the border. Figures from November and December showed, for the first time, more migrants being processed through ports of entry than those who were arrested after entering the U.S. illegally.
In June, the Biden administration began effectively blocking migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S. border with Mexico. The restrictions don’t apply to those who enter at official ports of entry or use other legal means.
For parts of last year, San Diego became the top destination for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in decades. The change reflects how smuggling routes, which used to be consistent for many years, have begun to shift every few months since 2021. That’s in part because of the post-pandemic increase in global migration to the U.S.
The San Diego region saw 10,117 border arrests in December — the second-highest after the Rio Grande Valley in Texas — though that’s down by 70% from a year earlier.
2. There hasn’t been much of an increase in border arrivals ahead of Trump’s inauguration
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, most regions across the border have seen little change in arrivals of migrants. But Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez of the Rio Grande Valley Sector in south Texas, who posts local arrest numbers on social media every week, reported 1,206 migrant stops over the final weekend of December, and 1,276 the weekend before. That’s double the number in recent weeks of fewer than 600 arrests.
“It is the first quantitative indicator of an increase in migration since the U.S. election, which raised expectations — so far unmet — that many migrants might rush to enter the United States before Election Day,” Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the advocacy organization the Washington Office on Latin America, wrote in a recent newsletter.
That trend appeared to have waned in the new year, with Chavez reporting 669 arrests the weekend that ended Jan. 5 and 699 arrests the weekend that ended Jan. 12.
Isacson noted that in 2016, asylum seekers rushed to enter the U.S. before Trump began his first term. But border policies are different now, with Biden administration rules already preventing most people who enter illegally from qualifying for asylum.
“Their only hope is to not be apprehended,” he said. “Some people might be trying, and if they’re successful they won’t show up in the numbers.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the left-leaning American Immigration Council, said tens of thousands of migrants are waiting in Mexico.
“Today it is harder for migrants to make it to the border and seek asylum than at any point in modern U.S. history,” he said. “Despite this massively increased infrastructure at the border, the U.S. continues to remain, in the eyes of people around the world, a place of safety and security.”
3. The U.S. border used to draw mostly Mexican and Central American migrants. Now people from all over the world flock here
The U.S. has historically drawn migrants from its southern neighbor. Although Mexicans still make up the highest proportion of those seeking entry, arrivals of people from other countries have shot up over time. During Trump’s first term, people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador flocked to the U.S. border due to instability in their home countries.
That started to change around 2019. Throughout Biden’s presidency, greater numbers of people began to arrive from Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia. People also came from farther away — Afghanistan, Ukraine and China.
The San Diego region has what is considered the most international border, drawing people from all over the world.
Chinese migrants in search of jobs and freedom from the repressive government there started arriving in record numbers — increasing from just 949 arrests in fiscal year 2022 to more than 37,000 last fiscal year. Republicans seized on the increase, painting it as a national security issue.
Numbers began to decrease last year after the Biden administration imposed asylum restrictions and Ecuador began requiring Chinese nationals to have a visa to fly there.
4. Immigrant detention has ramped back up since COVID-19 decreases
The government’s operation for detaining people who violate immigration laws has seen wild swings in recent years. During Trump’s first term, the population detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached historic highs of more than 55,000 people.
As COVID-19 spread through lockups, killing detainees, courts ordered some immigrant detention centers to reduce their populations. The detention population reached a low of about 13,000 people in February 2021, the month after Biden took office. (The Adelanto ICE Detention Facility east of Los Angeles has remained under a COVID-era court order that prevented new detainees, dwindling the population of the nearly 2,000-bed facility to just two people.)
As of Dec. 29, more than 39,000 people (most of whom have no criminal record) are being held in civil immigrant detention facilities, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization. That number has remained fairly steady for the last year, generally fluctuating between 35,000 and just under 40,000 since late 2023.
Numbers are widely expected to increase again after Trump takes office, as he works to make good on his promise of mass deportations.
5. Historic arrivals under the Biden administration added to the already enormous backlog in immigration court
Immigrants placed in deportation proceedings can plead their case before an immigration judge. With historic arrivals of migrants under the Biden administration, the immigration court backlog now has more than 3.7 million pending cases, according to TRAC.
Biden inherited an already backlogged immigration court system with 1.3 million cases. When Trump assumed office in 2017, just over 542,000 cases were pending.
In fiscal year 2024, immigration courts closed more than 900,000 cases — the most of any single year. New cases have fallen sharply as fewer immigrants are processed at the border.
Los Angeles County has nearly 115,000 cases, the second-highest after Miami-Dade County. Experts say the backlog can’t be eliminated without funding hundreds more immigration judges and support staff, as well as systemic reforms.
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