The world is watching San Diego, and we must #ShowUp4Refugees like never before. These resilient families are now our San Diego neighbors, and their stories are already appearing in video on local TV broadcasts and in international news.

We must affirm the dignity of our new neighbors. San Diegans know from decades of experience: refugee families are powerful and brave individuals, not nameless political scapegoats. We must act together in welcoming and solidarity to build a more just world.

"The whole community is mobilizing to support newcomers and everyone is coming up with new ideas to support their settlement and integration into the community ... Everybody is a part of this big movement. It is beautiful. If I wanted to imagine something, then this would be exactly it. It makes our life and our work much easier."

On Wednesday, Jun 13th 2016 in Solana Beach City Hall, eleven supporters including many local community members showed up in support of Solana Beach joining the Building Welcoming Communities Campaign, an initiative of the White House. With eight individuals offering unanimous supportive testimony, and 18 letters of support written in by residents and community organizations, the measure passed City Council with a unanimous vote.

I called people and asked them questions, and went knocking doors to remind people to vote. Before I did this, I didn’t really care for voting or really anything that has to do with the larger community, but once I got involved I saw how important it was to vote, and how much it matters for our community for all of us to ensure that we speak out if we want something to get done.

My name is Amina and I’m a leader because I take others’ opinions into consideration and involve everyone in the process. I am here to help involve everyone. This was my first time doing something like this and I’d always wanted to try it, for the experience.

In the beginning, when we went to go knock on doors I was thinking to myself, “What am I going to say to them?” It felt like it was going to be really hard, and people were there to help and after a while it was amazing, and things became really comfortable.