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Carlsbad schools chief cancels forum on immigration

By: PHILIP K. IRELAND - Staff Writer

CARLSBAD ---- Citing past violence and threats of violence surrounding the "hot button" issue of immigration, Carlsbad Unified School District Superintendent John Roach said Thursday that he has canceled a town hall meeting scheduled for next week on the Carlsbad High School campus.

Sponsored by Republican state Sen. Bill Morrow, Thursday's meeting, titled "The Illegal Immigration Crisis," was scheduled to include former San Diego mayor and radio talk-show host Roger Hedgecock as emcee, Colorado Congressmen Tom Tancredo, Minuteman Project founder James W. Gilchrist, attorney and author Madeleine Cosman, and former U.S. Attorney Pete Nunez.

Morrow defended his town hall meetings and other gatherings Thursday as peaceful affairs that sometimes inspired debate but had never turned violent, adding that he was concerned that canceling the meeting was "encouraging the politics of intimidation and threats."

Morrow's meeting would have focused on how illegal immigration affects health care, homeland security, education, the economy and the environment, according to a flier distributed by the senator's staff.

Roach told one of Morrow's aides in a phone call Wednesday that he was canceling the event, then followed up that phone call with a faxed explanation to Morrow's office Thursday, just one week before Morrow's meeting was to be held at the high school.

Roach cited a school board policy that allows the superintendent to deny use "if an event poses an unreasonable risk of damage to the facility, equipment, or furnishings, and that might jeopardize the security, health, and well-being of an audience or of the community."

"Based on my understanding of the recent events in Garden Grove, Baldwin Park, and Campo, it is my belief that the event you had planned poses exactly such a risk," Roach said Thursday, reading from the letter he had faxed to Morrow's office.

"These events seem to have a tendency of gathering busloads of supporters and opposition who yell at each other and get violent. That's not an appropriate use of the facility."

On May 25 in Garden Grove, police arrested a motorist and at least seven other people after the motorist ran his car into a crowd of 300 demonstrators protesting a speech by Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. Three people were hurt in that incident. And in Baldwin Park on May 14, police in riot gear were called in to calm angry crowds during a demonstration over immigration-related monuments at the city's Metrolink station.

Roach emphasized that the district had received no direct threats. But he said he was concerned about the potential for violence given the incidents in Baldwin Park, Garden Grove and Campo, where on July 16 an aide to Morrow claimed he had been kicked by a protester.

Morrow said he has urged Roach to reconsider, saying that he had assurances from Carlsbad police officials that the department could provide whatever security might prove necessary.

"They have a task force and operations plan with a worst-case scenario, Morrow said. "They're prepared for it, though it's all rumors.

"It's just a town hall meeting, for crying out loud," Morrow continued, noting that his office carried the required million-dollar insurance policy.

Roach said he apologized to Morrow for the late cancellation, saying he has been on vacation and the issue and potential conflict had only come to his attention Wednesday. Morrow's staff made the request to use the high school theater on June 29. The request was approved by a site administrator on July 12.

Tancredo is a four-term Colorado congressmen and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. Gilchrist founded a movement called the Minuteman Project, a collection of people who patrol the U.S.-Mexico border searching for immigrants crossing the border illegally.

Cosman is a medical lawyer in California, the author of 15 books, including a Pulitzer-nominated book, and a critic of border policies. Nunez served as a former assistant secretary of the Treasury for enforcement during the first Bush administration, and is now a political science lecturer at the University of San Diego. Nunez is an outspoken critic of lax U.S. border law enforcement.