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Do we need a space to legally smoke marijuana? See Page 9. Thursday, April 20 - Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Volume VI, No 5
Vets fear deportation
Still no relief for Volt and Leaf drivers KAYLA ROBINSON Copy editor
COURTNEY DONAHOE / The Inquirer
Jose Orta disscusing the deportation of veterans.
Alliance speakers describe flawed path for citizenship after military service COURTNEY DONAHOE Staff member
With all the recent policies going into effect, it’s hard to keep track of who’s being affected by what policy. Diablo Valley College’s Veterans Alliance recently put on a speaker series about the deportation policies and how it has been affecting the veterans who have served in the military. Jose Orta and Maurice Martin were the two speakers, and talked about deportation policies along with their own personal experience in the military. “I’ve started doing research on how many veterans have actually been deported and there is some estimates of about 30,000 veterans since 1996,” Orta said. Orta begins with a video of military veterans who have served in the past, who share their stories of how they got deported. He then continues on about what non US citizens who want to serve in the military have to do in order to be a part of it. There’s a couple of different procedures that include assessing good moral character, administrative barriers, mental health, and criminality
issues. “The biggest one is good moral character issue, if you’re a regular (foreign) person, not in the military or a veteran, you have to have 5 years of what they call good moral character, you have to show you’re a good person, haven’t committed crimes,” Orta said.
“The biggest one is good moral character issue,...you have to show you’re a good person, haven’t commited crimes.” ~Jose Orta Guest speaker
He went on to tell what could happen if you don’t have good moral character, or how other small things could affect your good moral character. Maurice Martin is a military veteran who is currently majoring peace and conflict studies
at the University of California Berkeley. He’s also apart of a California veterans group fair. Martin mainly talks about his time in the war, what happened after coming back, and what he’s doing now to help with military veterans. He spoke of how military veterans are held to a higher accountability when they come back from war. “Are you telling me that the deported veterans that go over there, you encourage them you offer them citizenship, and then when they perform, then you hold them... to a higher standards if they mess up?” Martin said. They ended with questions from the audience talking about related experiences and more of how every one of us could lend a helping hand to our military veterans who served for our country, like going online and donating to our homeless veterans.
Contact COURTNEY DONAHOE at Cdonahoe@DVCInquirer.com
Copyright © 2017 The Inquirer - www.dvcinquirer.com
The time has come for electric vehicles to have more than two available charging outlets at Diablo Valley College. DVC currently has two 120v outlets and one 240v located amid faculty parking in lot four, providing accommodation for only two electric vehicles (EVs) at a time. The outlets are often occupied for substantial periods of time - a single electric vehicle can take up to 12 hours to fully charge. “I purchased my vehicle (Chevy Volt) in January,” DVC chemistry instructor Wayne Larson said. “I had previous knowledge of the charging outlet that was available because for the past 20 years I’ve used this parking lot however I am aware that a lot of people are unaware of the outlet.” According to the Department of Energy, the technologies that power electric vehicles have been in development since the 19th century, with the first fully electric car making its debut in the United States in 1890. The technology failed to catch on, with high costs playing a prohibitive role in the mass manufacturing and adoption of electric vehicles. Fast forward to today, and the tides seem to finally be turning. Green Car reports that over 184 thousand electric vehicles have been sold in California since 2011, which has lead to a higher demand for charging outlets throughout the state, including at DVC. According to the PlugShare app, which locates nearby charging outlets and stations for EVs, the closest outlet to DVC is located at Meson Azteca Mexican Cuisine on Morello Avenue, 0.7 miles from campus. Continued on Page 4