Tens of thousands of historical records that tell the story of the United States, including immigration records, may no longer be available to the public. The Trump administration recently announced plans for the National Archives in Chicago, Seattle and San Bruno to be shuttered for good. Bay A rea Congressman Kevin Mullin and others in Congress are fighting that closure. “We need to do whatever we can to protect them and have the expertise here properly employed to continue to protect these records,” Mullin said from the National Archives building in San Bruno. Inside the building is 1 million cubic feet of historical records and 100,000 permanent records that are open to the public, by appointment. The documents are more than 100 years old, like Native American boarding school records, Chinese immigration papers from the Exclusion Act era and pages from the Alcatraz warden’s notebook. “The historical value of these documents, they are not meant to be digitized or transported anywhere,” Mullin said. “These have to be preserved here.” To do that, Mullin and Rep. Judy Chu are co-leading and sending a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), stating the closures are a mistake and urging reconsideration. So far, nearly 40 members of Congress have signed on to save the archives. The letter questions what the government’s plans are to move the materials, where they’re going and whether the “required administrative procedure was followed in making this decision.” An email sent to employees by National Archives COO Jay Trainer in June said the closures would “reduce costs” and “reduce estate portfolio.” Nothing was said about what will happen to the full-time employees at the archives. The archives in San Bruno have been life-changing for many people looking for answers about their family’s past. “For the longest time, I didn’t know I was a descendant of Wong Kim Ark,” Sandra Wong said. “After I did the research with Wong Kim Ark, I got a copy of my father’s file…I’d ever seen a photo of him as a young boy. That was the first time that I saw that.” Born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Wong Kim Ark cemented birthright citizenship in the U.S. more than a century ago. In July, the Supreme Court upheld his win for birthright citizenship. Wong said, without NARA, she would not know what she knows today about her family. Leona Liu has a similar story. She found her great-grandfather’s 134-year-old Hawaiian naturalization certificate in the archives. “I sent a request to NARA San Bruno…the archivist, he emailed me back and says, ‘I found him,'” Liu said. “That milestone set my family on a path to U.S. citizenship…I do now realize I’m the first generation born here in the U.S.” Liu and Wong are joining the nonprofit Save Our National Archives (SONA) to fight the potential closures. Once SONA heard the news, it immediately started organizing. “We have a letter writing campaign where we’ve had hundreds of people write personal letters to the acting archivists of the National Archives and also sending copies to their local Congress people,” SONA member Grant Din said. “We did an online petition, which has almost 7,000 signatures already.” There are 13 total National Archives across the U.S. California has two of them – the one in San Bruno and another in Riverside. Moving forward, Mullin said he is working on legislation that would protect the national facilities by requiring congressional approval before any closure. Mullin will hold a news conference on Monday to discuss the legislation and efforts he’s helping to lead to keep the archives open. ...read more read less