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"Gen. (David) Goldfein, would a significant reduction in funding to the State Department and other non-defense security agencies and programs make the Air Force job of defending America easier or harder?" Warren asked the Air Force chief of staff in June.

The Massachusetts Democrat and potential 2020 hopeful asked a version of the same question to Pentagon officials at 11 armed services hearings this year, getting the military brass to break repeatedly with the commander- in-chief's proposed deep cuts to the State Department.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was picked for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this year in a similar vein. And freshman California Sen. Kamala Harris was given a seat on the intelligence committee, where the panel's must-see Russia hearings have already given a serious boost to her national profile.

A CNN review of the three senators' performances on their respective national security committees shines a light into their foreign policy worldviews and how they are building a national security portfolio ahead of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign.

All three have used the committee hearings to hammer the Trump administration on the budget, on foreign policy, and on Russia but there are also some differences likely to emerge if they do take the plunge to run for president.

Warren has been a studious member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, attending all but one subcommittee hearing out of the 40-plus committee hearings so far this year. In addition to focusing on Trump's positions on the military budget and climate change, Warren has gone to bat for her home-state defense interests.

Booker has been less of a fixture on Foreign Relations, appearing to ask questions at just over a third of the panel's hearings, the second-worst attendance record among the 22 senators on the panel, according to a CNN review of the transcripts. But he was given the ranking member slot on the Africa and Global Health Policy Subcommittee, where he's been able to push for hearings on specific issues.

While the intelligence committee typically operates behind closed doors, the panel's investigation into Russia's election interference has vaulted it into the most high-profile congressional committee this year, and Harris' prosecutorial style was in the spotlight after she was interrupted twice by Chairman Richard of North Carolina Burr and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, both Republicans.

Warren's move to the Armed Services Committee this year sparked already mounting speculation that she's gearing up for a 2020 presidential run, as foreign policy is the biggest hole in her presidential resume.

It's been a common platform for the national stage: Hillary Clinton joined the panel in 2003 ahead of her first presidential run. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine passed over as President Barack Obama's vice president took a seat on the panel when he was elected in 2013, improving his vice presidential resume for 2016.

Warren's seat on the committee also gave her a ticket to join McCain, the panel's chairman, on a July congressional trip to Afghanistan. And she took her own foreign trip this past month to Germany, Estonia and Poland.

"A Defense Department report from two years ago observed global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests over the foreseeable future," Warren said questioning Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. "In short, this DOD report describes climate change as a threat multiplier. Director Coats, do you agree?"

She has also weighed in on foreign policy issues like Syria and Afghanistan. At a February hearing with the top US commander in Afghanistan, she said she believed the US "should not be in Afghanistan forever."

"Our end goal must be to help Afghanistan build a self-sustaining force that's capable of securing the country so our US troops can come home," she said.

But Warren hasn't just been looking at national and international issues on the committee. She's been sure to tout Massachusetts and the technological prowess the state's companies and universities can provide to the military, particularly from the military's Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUX), a rapid-fire innovation hub set up by former Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

"Do you believe that DOD should strongly weigh the intellectual resources of a region when evaluating where to locate facilities such as DIUX and other research-based commands, especially in situations where the military is partnering with academic and technical organizations?" Warren asked James Mattis during his confirmation hearing for defense secretary in January.

The Massachusetts Democrat has also talked up a focus on technology over traditional military spending. "I think we should be budgeting our defense resources based on 21st century threats," she said. "I want us to invest smartly, not simply rolling out more of the last century's equipment off the production line."

Booker's seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is another path for senators harboring presidential ambitions it's the committee Obama served on ahead of his 2008 run.

In the early months of the Trump administration, the panel gave Booker a seat at the table for some of the most contentious confirmation hearings, including those of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson whose confirmation was very much in doubt for a time and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Booker's first hearing was Tillerson's marathon confirmation, in which he went after the former Exxon CEO over his criticisms of the Obama administration's alleged weakness toward Russia after the invasion of Crimea. Booker hammered Tillerson for suggesting there should have been a show of military force and gave insight into his own worldview.

"You understand that if you put yourself in a defensive posture -- there's an old saying that if you pull a gun, you should be prepared to use it -- that that could've quickly escalated into a conflict," Booker said. "And you're gonna be making decisions about whether we should have commit American troops, commit European troops."

When Friedman testified, Booker elicited an apology for the nominee's comments suggesting Obama was anti-Semitic and that Kaine was an Israel basher.

"Sir, you and I both from our family histories know a lot about people demeaning folks," Booker said. "We know a lot about hate speech and hate words."

Booker has raised the same concerns as Warren on the Trump administration's proposal to slash budgets for the State Department and US Agency for International Development, arguing they are just as important as the military in the fight against ISIS.

"It is outrageous to me that you have an administration on one side of their mouth want to talk about being tough against ISIS and against terrorism. But probably what I would say, if you're looking at a toolbox, one of the most critical assets we have is the activities being done to diplomacy, to USAID and through other CVE (countering violent extremism) efforts that are not about a military."

Booker has not appeared at nearly two-thirds of the foreign relations panel's hearings, including when Tillerson came back to the committee in June to discuss the State Department's budget.

But he has been given a platform to take leadership on Africa issues as the top Democrat on the Africa and Global Health Policy Subcommittee, which has held hearings on conflict minerals and the situation in South Sudan, the latter Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake gave Booker credit for scheduling.

Ordinarily, Harris' seat on the Senate intelligence committee would have given her access to key national security and intelligence issues but little opportunity to speak about them.

This is no ordinary year.

But Harris generated a wave of headlines of her own after her questioning of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. A former prosecutor, Harris approaches hearings with an aggressive tack that appeared to rankle McCain and the chairman, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr.

"Can you give me a yes-or-no answer, please?" Harris said to Rosenstin.

"Well, it's not a short answer, senator," he responded.

"It is either you are willing to do that or not ..." she continued, before McCain piped up: "Mr. Chairman, they should be allowed to answer the question."

Harris continued to press for a yes-or-no answer until Burr intervened.

"Would the senator suspend? The chair is going to exercise its right to allow the witnesses to answer the question, and the committee is on notice to provide the witnesses the courtesy which has not been extended all the way across extend the courtesy for questions to get answered," Burr said.

"I'm not able to be rushed this fast. It makes me nervous," Sessions said.

Harris' questioning style, in some ways similar to another prosecutor-turned-senator, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, was on display during confirmation hearings, too, where she asked nominees for specific commitments.

"Are you willing to commit to this committee that if you come across information that relates to that incident of Russia tampering with the 2016 election, and if you become aware that that information has not been shared with this committee, that you will share it with this committee because it is significant?" Harris asked CIA General Counsel Courtney Elwood at her April confirmation hearing.

As for Harris' foreign policy positions, the intelligence committee doesn't provide a platform like the Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels, but some of her worldview does come through, including concerns about military spending.

"As we invest in fighter jets and aircraft carriers, Russia is investing in state-run media from which it can push out fake news," Harris said at a March hearing. "As we consider investing more than $600 billion in our defense budget, Russia has approximately one-tenth of that amount in their budget and is developing its cyber warfare capabilities."

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How potential 2020 Democrats are honing their foreign policy chops - CNN

Leading Democrats on Sunday morning talk shows defended moves by local governments to remove monuments of Confederate leaders, saying that the unrest in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 showed that the statues had become rallying points for white supremacists instead of educational tools about the nations history.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said President Trump got this wrong when he expressed opposition to taking down commemorations to Confederate leaders. People dont need monuments to learn history, Cardin said on Fox News Sunday.

You dont need a monument offensive to certain parts of our history being glorified in order to appreciate history, Cardin told host Bill Hemmer.

Cardin said he supports actions this past week in Baltimore and Annapolis to remove statues of Confederate leaders. I think what Baltimore and Annapolis are doing is appropriate, Cardin said.

Jeh Johnson, homeland security secretary under President Barack Obama, said that the monuments had become rallying points for white supremacists.

I salute people taking down these monuments as a matter of public safety, Johnson said in an interview on ABCs This Week.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) said on the same program that he had changed his mind about the presence of Civil War monuments to Confederate leaders. As mayor of the city that served as the Confederate capital, Stoney, who is black, said that he once thought the monuments could be tools to teach and enlighten people but that now he also sees them as rallying points.

This is what happens when we turn history into nostalgia, said Christy Coleman, head of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond.

Stoney also took issue with Trumps comparison of statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson to Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Though all were slave owners, Stoney said that Washington and Jefferson did not take up arms against the United States of America.

I appreciate the presidents opinion, Stoney said. But in Richmond I dont think that matters. We live here.

Trump provoked outcry from business leaders, Democrats and Republicans, and military leaders by failing to strongly condemn white supremacists and Nazis marching in Charlottesville. He said that both sides were to blame for violence there, which took the life of one woman. Further demonstrations took place Saturday in Boston, where white supremacists were vastly outnumbered.

Former congressman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) urged congressional leaders to speak out against Trumps comments if they disagreed with them.

This is not a time for us to be afraid of being tweeted, Watts said on NBCs Meet the Press. This is not a time for us to suppress our convictions.

If theyre silent, they wear the cap ... saying we agree with that, Watts added.

Trump compromised his moral authority by insisting multiple times there was hatred and violence on both sides in last weekends Charlottesville attacks, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation.

Scott praised Trumps speech Aug. 14, in which the president condemned the white supremacists that attacked a crowd of counterprotesters although the South Carolina senator said Trump should have delivered it directly after the attack instead of waiting two days.

But Scott said things then soured Tuesday, when Trump doubled down on his prior remarks that there was violence on both sides.

His comments on Tuesday started to compromise that moral authority we need the president to have for this nation to be the beacon of light to all mankind, Scott said.

But Scott didnt express clear support for removing monuments to Confederate leaders. I think thats definitely a local issue, he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) suggested his state could do better in Capitol Hills Statuary Hall, where each state is allowed to place two statues. Virginias two statues are of George Washington and Lee. Kaine suggested the state could replace Lee and choose from a list of candidates, including Pocahontas or Virginias first African American governor, L. Douglas Wilder.

From 2017 looking backward, I think Virginia could probably do better in the two people we chose to stand for us in Statuary Hall, Kaine said.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNNs State of the Union that Trumps response to Charlottesville was inadequate.

You know, the real challenge, I think, and job for the chief executive, in a country where race has always been such a difficult conversation, is to do everything possible to bring our country together, to help make us a more perfect union, Schiff said. And what the president did this week was as if he stood on a line dividing the country and pushed to separate one America from another with all his might. And that is not what this country needs.

Asked if Trump should apologize for his remarks, as former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) has urged, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) demurred, saying in some ways were looking backward.

Where I want to look now is what are we going to do to deal with the fundamental issues we have in the country? The issue of race. Theissue of police and community coming together and developing policing methods that can unify, Kasich said.

Asked why Trump has difficulty condemning white supremacists, Kasich said he was heartened by Trumps response to the dueling rallies in Boston on Saturday. A rally by white supremacists there was overwhelmed by tens of thousands of people protesting against them.

My understanding is the president came out and praised people, praised the police, praised the fact that the radicals were really marginalized, and that those who marched against hate, he praised, Kasich said. I feel positive about what he had to say about Boston from what I understand in the news reports.

Kasich played down reports that he is moving closer to mounting a primary challenge to Trump in 2020, saying that hes rooting for him to get it together.

Scott urged Trump to spend time with people who lived through the civil rights era if he wants to be able to speak with moral authority about racial issues.

We need the president to sit down with folks who have a personal experience if the president wants to have a better understanding and appreciation for what he should do next, Scott said. Without that personal connection to the painful past, it will be hard for him to regain that authority, from my perspective.

NBCs Meet the Press turned to one of the people who lived through the civil rights era, former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who said that the past week had been a week of misunderstandings.

Young said that most of the issues that were dealing with now are related to poverty, but we still want to put everything in a racial contest, he said.

The reason I feel uncomfortable condemning the Klan types is theyre almost the poorest of the poor. Theyre the forgotten Americans. They have been used, abused and neglected. Instead of giving them affordable health care, they give them black lung jobs.

He added: They see progress in the black community and everywhere else and they dont share it.

Host Chuck Todd said that no one from the Trump administration would agree to come on the show to talk about Charlottesville.

Read more here:
Democrats say Confederate monuments are now white-supremacist rallying points - Washington Post

A group of four candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor in Iowa crowded into Davenport's Duck Creek Lodge on Sunday, as part of the annual Scott County Democratic Picnic.

Nate Boulton, Andy McGuire, Jon Neiderbach and John Norris all addressed the crowd of about 100 people who included local candidates, activists, families and children.

One of the many activists was Troy Price, recently named the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Price, a native of Durant, Iowa, fired up the crowd: "We won't back down," he said; "We'll continue to fight and win in 2018!"

Price saluted what he called a strong slate of candidates for governor, as well as several candidates who were present for school board and city council positions.

There is enthusiasm for the Democratic Party across Iowa, he said, vowing to change the course of the state party by organizing it "from the ground up, not the top down."

"We'll focus not only on Davenport, but on Blue Grass, and Durant, my hometown," he said, suggesting one of the candidates would take the governor's office, and a Democratic wave would retake the Iowa Legislature.

Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, is a state senator and he promised an all-out effort to win both the Iowa House of Representatives, and Iowa Senate.

"We might be seeing a recurring nightmare at the national level, but we are living a recurring nightmare on the local level," Hogg said.

The first gubernatorial candidate to speak was Boulton, a native of Columbus Junction, Iowa. He is an attorney, a resident of East Des Moines, and state senator.

"Yes, the election of 2016 was rough, but we haven't given up," he said. "The path to victory in Iowa is to show Iowans, we are better than this."

Bolton challenged the crowd to think what the state would look like if public education was fully funded. He supports clean natural resources, as well as funding for tourism and the state's recreational areas.

Dr. McGuire, a native of Waterloo, is running for governor and also was chairman of the Democratic Party in 2016. Party losses last year were the result of a national wave of success by Republicans, she said, even as officials worked hard on the election.

A nuclear scientist, McGuire said she cares about Iowans, and supports health insurance as a personal right, not a choice. She also supports more funding for mental health issues in Iowa.

If elected, the mother of seven children and one grandchild, said she'd restore funding to Planned Parenthood. She also promotes respect for teachers: "I will see that we provide the best education to every child in every zip code in Iowa," she said.

Attorney Neiderbach, also of Des Moines, sees a bright future for Iowa, even as he agreed his last name is hard for people to spell. A former president of the Des Moines School Board, Neiderbach said many people feel the system is rigged against them.

He ran through several scenarios to prove his case, and advocated for campaign finance reform, saying that is "at the heart of all that is wrong in our democratic election system." He suggested 100,000 people each contribute $10 to a campaign.

It will take an army of Democrats to fight the GOP successfully, Neiderbach said. "Please consider me."

Norris was the final gubernatorial candidate of the day; a former aide to Senator Tom Harkin and President Barack Obama, Norris comes from a family farm in Red Oak, Iowa. He is a former chairman of Iowa Democratic Party who helped Tom Vilsack to be elected, the first Democrat to win the top job in more than 30 years. Vilsack encouraged Norris to get into the 2018 race, he said.

Many Iowans have lost faith in Gov. Kim Reynolds, Norris said. Sheis more interested in being on the Koch brothers' "Christmas list," than in improving education in Iowa, he said, referring to the billionaire family from Kansas.

He supports better stewardship for land and water in the state, a position he argues should cross party lines. He would like to see wages raised to $15 an hour, he said.

Norris started his campaign in Storm Lake, Iowa, to show his respect for two former governors: Vilsack, and Robert Ray, a Republican.

Vilsack's Vision Iowa program improved many amenities in Iowa, Norris said, and Ray was a champion of immigrants, inviting people of Laos to come to Iowa. That has proven to be a huge benefit to the state.

Emilyne Slagle, vice chairman of Scott County Democrats, was the event's emcee. By working deep into our grassroots," she said. "We will change Iowa from the ground up."

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Democrats greet 4 gubernatorial candidates at picnic - Quad City Times

Some Democrats and their advocates in the press have been quick to denounce the RAISE Act, the new immigration reform bill proposed by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue and endorsed by President Donald Trump.

"The Trump, Cotton, Perdue bill is rooted in the same anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and isolationist rhetoric that was a cornerstone of the Trump campaign," said senior House Democrats John Conyers and Zoe Lofgren.

Now, though, a new poll shows broad public support for some of the bill's key provisions -- support that goes far beyond those Americans who voted for Trump.

The poll, from Morning Consult-Politico, asked 1,992 registered voters about the bill's provisions to 1) allow more high-skilled, and fewer low-skilled, immigrants into the country; 2) install a points-based system by which prospective immigrants would be evaluated on the basis of English proficiency, level of education, and other factors; 3) cap the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. each year; and 4) reduce the total number of immigrants given legal permanent residence in the country to 500,000 from the current one million.

The pollsters found strong majority support for the first three, and a plurality of support for the fourth.

When asked if they support "placing greater emphasis on an applicant's job skills over their ties to family members in the U.S.," 56 percent of respondents said yes, while 31 percent said no and 13 percent did not know.

When asked if they support "establishing a 'points system' that would award points based on criteria such as education, English-language ability, and prospective salary," 61 percent said yes, while 27 percent said no and 12 percent did not know. (Respondents particularly approved an emphasis on speaking English; when asked if they believe an ability to speak English "should be a factor in determining who is allowed to legally immigrate to the United States," 62 percent said yes, while 29 percent said no and 10 percent did not know.)

When asked if they support "limiting the number of refugees offered permanent residency," 59 percent said yes, while 31 percent said no and 11 percent did not know.

Finally, when asked if they support "reducing the number of legal immigrants by one-half over the next decade," 48 percent said yes, while 39 percent said no and 14 percent did not know.

"Large majorities of Americans have long wanted to re-orient our immigration system toward high-skilled workers, while reducing or holding steady the total number of immigrants," Cotton said in a text exchange recently. "The RAISE Act respects this popular consensus, unlike past efforts at immigration reform that failed in part because they massively expanded unskilled immigration."

Cotton appeared to choose his words carefully when he wrote "reducing or holding steady the total number of immigrants." The part of the bill that would cut the number of legal permanent residents from a million to 500,000 per year is the major component that doesn't have majority support in the poll, although it has more support than any other option.

The Cotton-Perdue bill has been slammed by Democrats, but it has also been criticized by the Republicans who wrote the Senate Gang of Eight bill in 2013, the last (unsuccessful) effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

"I don't want to limit legal immigration," Marco Rubio said. Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said the bill would be "devastating to our state's economy." John McCain opposes shifting to a high-skilled immigrant force. Jeff Flake said the new bill represents "the wrong direction."

Such opinions track those of many Democrats, which will make any path forward in the Senate an uphill climb. But if the new poll is correct -- and it is in line with similar surveys going back years -- the bill's authors have the voters on their side.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

Continued here:
Voters like immigration bill - The Tand D.com

With protesters and counter-protesters facing off in tense confrontations across the country this weekend in the wake of the deadly clash in Charlottesville, Va., activists in Orange County wanted to try something different.

An America First! rally against illegal immigration was scheduled for Sunday evening. Counter-protesters, including the citys mayor, staged their own protest but scheduled it a day earlier.

As were constantly reminded to act and not react, were also reminded not to serve the racists purpose and provide them with a platform to spread their hatred, organizers of the Saturday event wrote on Facebook.

To the several hundred protesters who showed up Saturday, Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman said: Tell your friends that being here today means you wont be dancing with the bad guys tomorrow.

They want a fight; were not going to engage, Iseman said.

Still, hundreds of counter-protesters showed up anyway at the America First! rally Sunday evening. A police spokesman estimated the crowd of protesters and counter-protesters grew to about 2,500 only a few dozen in that crowd were there for the America First! rally, billed as a vigil for victims of crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

The protests remained largely peaceful, if tense and loud, for much of the evening. As of 8:30 p.m., police had made two arrests; one counter-protester was arrested after shoving a Trump supporter, another for disturbing the peace with a knife. It was not immediately clear which side the person with a knife was protesting.

Shortly before 9:30 p.m., as the protests wound down, police escorted the America First! group out of the area. Police declared the event an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.

Crowds started gathering hours before the planned protest. The modest cluster of anti-immigration demonstrators met in a circle on the beach, separated by the boardwalk and a phalanx of police officers in riot gear and on horseback from hundreds of counter-protesters chanting and drumming from the other side. Some yelled insults between the officers legs.

Waving signs that read Curb your Nazism, protesters on one side shouted, Immigrants welcome here and Hey hey, ho ho, white supremacys got to go.

"It's ridiculous. I don't understand this. They're the ones with all the hate," said Jesse Hernandez, who was attending the America First! rally. It's just a vigil of patriots that recognize what illegal immigration has done to some Americans."

One of his fellow America First! protesters yelled, "We're not Nazis!" and said what upsets him the most is that people don't understand the difference between people like him and extremists. "There are no Nazis here," he said, shaking his head.

About 200 officers from Laguna Beach, Anaheim, Newport Beach and Irvine were at the rally to try to ensure that the protests would not erupt in violence. Orange County sheriffs deputies on horseback were also separating the crowds.

Laguna Beach police spokesman Jim Cota said authorities strategized to spread protesters along the length of the beach rather than have them build toward the waterfront.

As long as everyone follows the rules, they can execute their 1st Amendment right, he said. Were just not going to tolerate violence.

The organizer behind the anti-immigration event, a man identifying himself as Johnny Benitez, has held similar gatherings in Laguna Beach since May.

On Sunday, Benitez, a Colombian immigrant, calmly debated the need for affirmative action with a woman who accused him of hateful speech. He said people of color are most negatively affected by immigration.

Benitez told a Noticias Telemundo reporter in Spanish that coming into the United States illegally is a crime, and that labor by immigrants here illegally was responsible for low wages.

After the clash in Charlottesville, which left one woman dead when a driver plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally, the Laguna Beach event became the focal point of self-proclaimed anti-fascist protesters in Orange County.

Similar protests and counter-protests took place across the country over the weekend, including in New Orleans and Dallas. The largest demonstration occurred in Boston, where about 50 far-right activists organized a free speech rally and were outnumbered by tens of thousands of counter-protesters.

Twenty-seven people were arrested in Boston, mostly for disorderly conduct, but no injuries were reported.

The Laguna Beach protests came after a weekend in which prominent leaders spoke out in Los Angeles against racism and violence.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, appearing at the Islamic Center of Southern California, said Heather Heyer, the protester killed in Charlottesville when a man drove a car into a crowd demonstrating against white supremacists, was powerful because she was nonviolent.

If she had had a stick or a gun and cursing, she would have been dismissible. There is power in nonviolence, he said. Theres power in suffering and sacrificing for righteous reasons. Theres power in putting your life on the line for more life. Eye and an eye and tooth for tooth is not wisdom.

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, in his weekend sermons, raised alarm about a new kind of racism and nationalism rooted in fear.

Gomez said some of the fear is about what is happening in our society, referring to the racial tensions that have divided the country following the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville.

Our country has become so angry and bitter, so divided in so many different areas, he said. There is no place in the Church and there is no place in American society for racism and prejudice against people based on their race or nationality.

He also noted that the national debate over immigration reform has been marked by a lot of racism and nativism even among Catholics.

This is all wrong and it needs to stop! Gomez said. Our task is to bring people together, to build bridges and open doors and make friendships among all the diverse racial and ethnic groups and nationalities in our country.

Times staff writers Brittny Mejia, Doug Smith and Carlos Lozano contributed to this report.

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

victoria.kim@latimes.com

UPDATES:

9:45 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with additional details and comments about the rally and counter-protesters.

7:35 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details about interactions between different groups at the rally.

6:50 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details about police and the rally organizer.

This article was originally published at 6:10 p.m.

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Counter-protesters swarm rally against illegal immigration in Laguna Beach - Los Angeles Times