Immigrant rights advocates are encouraging families to get ready for the possible implementation of two programs that could go into effect later this year. Both programs provide beneficiaries with temporary relief from deportation.

Today the immigration question is perhaps as divisive a force in American life as it has ever been, with leading presidential aspirants actually demonizing immigrants generally as criminals, deviants and undercover terrorists. In this season of celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday, it is important to revisit the factors that animated him in order to protect his memory from being misused to serve purposes that he would never embrace.

If there were anyone that wanted to fight violence with violence, it would be Jesus. If there were anyone who wanted swift justice by any means possible, it would be Jesus. If there were anyone that had a distrust of foreigners, it would be Jesus.

These new laws are fitting and just. They show that here in California, we recognize our state has been shaped by immigrants of many different ethnicities, cultures and experiences and that immigrants are our neighbors, friends and family.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump and several of his Republican competitors have now endorsed the notion of doing away with the very first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.