On a brisk December evening, Rabbi Stephanie Kolin stepped up to a microphone to address some 50 immigrants and advocates from a cross-section of civil rights organizations, including Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. They’d come together to celebrate at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center near MacArthur Park after three years working side by side, petitioning lawmakers to support the Trust Act.
The new California law, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in October, will curtail deportations of undocumented immigrants throughout the state. Kolin, 35, a rising leader of the Reform movement, came to the event as part of Reform CA, one of the newest Trust Act coalition members; since last spring, she had been working tirelessly with more than 125 Reform rabbis from across California to build Jewish support for the measure and to help push the bill through the state government.
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