Santa Ana City Council members want to know the impacts – like losing federal funding – and potential legal liability of publicly disclosing federal immigration activity within the city.
It comes after revelations that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials and the Department of Homeland Security have visited various parts of the city since January, spurring resident concerns that top city administrators haven’t been up front about the issue.
[Read: Will Santa Ana Alert Residents of ICE Activity Amid Federal Immigration Crackdown?]
Last Tuesday, city council members directed the city attorney and police chief to come back with answers on what are the risks, liabilities and impacts of disclosing ICE and Department of Homeland Security courtesy calls to residents two days after the fact.
From January 22 to April 26, the city has received 42 notifications from federal officials.
The direction comes after Councilmembers Johnathan Hernandez and Benjamin Vazquez requested a policy disclosing and detailing those notifications to elected officials, the city’s police oversight commission and residents, as well as posting them online.
“It is important that we know that the city will be in compliance with both state and federal law, and that there is no statutory law prohibiting a city from notifying residents of ice whereabouts, nor is there a statutory law that allows for the President to withdraw federal funding,” said Hernandez, who is running for State Assembly, at Tuesday’s meeting.
Before the discussion, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho warned officials not to get into a full blown debate on the issue, but to just give direction to staff about the policy.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua echoed her remarks, pointing to an emailed memo Carvalho had sent to council members prior to the meeting.
City Spokesman Paul Eakins did not respond to a request for the memo on May 20.
Vazquez said the proposed policy is about transparency and trust.
“People should be empowered with information necessary to make informed decisions for themselves and for their families. It will make Santa Ana safe when we have trust in our government and our police department,” Vazquez said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Police Chief Robert Rodriguez said that there needs to be a balance between protecting law enforcement officers and disclosing information, adding that if he impedes or interferes with state or federal law, he could land in legal trouble.
“I will not break the law to enforce the law,” he said at the May 20 meeting.
“We’ll reiterate we will not be involved in immigration enforcement. But at the same time, we have to ensure that we don’t compromise public safety, community safety, and ensure that we’re in compliance with both state and federal law,” Rodriguez said.
The police chief said law enforcement agencies routinely give each other courtesy calls to keep the two departments from clashing with each other amid an ongoing investigation and don’t always provide details of their activity.
Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan – an immigrant herself – and Amezcua questioned what were the risks and the impacts of making such disclosures to the public as President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to pull funding from sanctuary cities.
Phan questioned what details are provided in the courtesy calls, what risks could this create for federal funding received by the city and for section eight housing and what legal exposure it could mean for the police chief and other city staff
“This administration has been very vindictive,” she said. “The City of Santa Ana is not the City of Los Angeles, it’s not the State of California. We don’t have limitless funds to fight the full force of the federal government.”
She also questioned if ICE would stop notifying the police department of their activity if they implemented such a policy and if other cities in the state were doing anything similar.
Amezcua asked if the city could avoid liability if elected officials released the information themselves on their own personal devices and social media accounts.
“Then they are liable. They have the consequences, not the city, and it doesn’t cause us to end up in any type of lawsuit, or our chief getting arrested or fired, or our city manager,” she said at last week’s meeting.
She also added that she wants to avoid any litigation.
Councilman David Penaloza, who is also running for State Assembly, echoed similar sentiments, not wanting to compromise the safety of the community and warning residents not to react to “click bait.”
“I would hope that we tread very carefully here and we really understand what we’re doing. There’s a lot of questions that I need answers to,” he said.
Councilman Phil Bacerra said it was a delicate issue and the city council has to choose their battles carefully.
“This is not something that we can just throw out there because we want to score quick political points and be able to say that we’re crusaders and we’re doing things,” he said
“I think a lot of questions were posed up here tonight, and I think those questions need to be answered first and foremost before we start talking about any policy. This is too important of an issue to get this wrong in any way. We’re talking about people’s lives here.”
The discussion is expected to return to the council in 45 days or sooner.
It is unclear if that debate will happen behind closed doors, in the public or both.
Were Santa Ana Officials Forthright About ICE Activity?
The May 20 meeting came roughly two weeks after Inadvertent published a story based on records they obtained that showed ICE and Homeland Security agents notified the police department dozens of times that they would be in Santa Ana between January 22 to April 26.
Santa Ana officials later provided the same records – a spreadsheet – that showed 42 documented entries of ICE/Department of Homeland Security notifying officials that immigration officers would be visiting certain blocks and corners throughout the city.
Yet on at least four separate occasions this year, Rodriguez and City Manager Alvaro Nuñez denied any ICE activity in town when publicly asked about it by the Mayor at several city council meetings.
[Read: Have Santa Ana’s Police Chief & City Manager Been Up Front With Residents About ICE Activity?]
Rodriguez said that most of the 42 notifications came from the Department of Homeland Security and not ICE.
At the same time, city officials – including Rodriguez – conceded that multiple federal agencies like Homeland Security are working with ICE on immigration issues.
Amid backlash at the discrepancy between ICE activity and what top city executives publicly reported, Amezcua said at a meeting earlier this month that Congressman Lou Correa advised elected leaders to keep their heads down amid a federal immigration crackdown.
[Read: Santana: The Art of Standing Up While Laying Low on Immigration Crackdown]
At the May 6 meeting, Amezcua also repeatedly said she wasn’t scared, she was being smart.
On Tuesday, activists like Kanan Durham, a Huntington Beach resident and executive director of Pride at the Pier, criticized Amezcua’s leadership and her comments about maintaining a low profile as the Trump administration eyes pulling funding from Sanctuary Cities.
“Mayor Amezcua you have a responsibility for the safety and dignity of your community, and if you are more concerned about complying with a repressive government than those things, that is concerning,” Durham said.
Increased Calls to Disclose ICE Activity in Santa Ana
Ahead of last week’s meeting, Hernandez, Vazquez, the Harbor Institute and some local organizations that deal with immigration held a news conference in support of the proposed disclosure policy.
Activists also sent a letter calling for transparency and accurate information regarding federal immigration enforcement activity to be released to the public that was signed by over 20 organizations including the Harbor Institute, VietRise, CAIR-LA, OC Rapid Response Network and Latino Health Access.
Several people also spoke at the May 20 meeting in support of disclosures including Basha Jamil, policy manager at Council on American Islamic Relations – Greater Los Angeles who said the policy was a common sense step to keep people safe.
“Immigration enforcement isn’t just increasing. It’s being weaponized and we’re especially concerned by how anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment is driving ICE activity nationwide,” she said.
“This ordinance doesn’t block law enforcement. It simply ensures that the public isn’t left in the dark when their safety is on the line.”
Sandra De Anda, coordinator for the OC Rapid Response Network, said earlier this year the network started to get concerned that city leaders were withholding information on immigration enforcement in the city as they got tips about ICE actions.
“On February 4, the same day that the mayor and the chief shared they had not heard about ICE activity, a community member was detained by ICE at the McDonald’s on McFadden and Standard and deported within hours through an expedited removal,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Our immigrant refugee communities deserve more. They deserve the truth. They deserve safety. They deserve bold, transparent leadership, not the passive avoidance we’ve seen from Mayor Amezcua.”
Carlos Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute, said at Tuesday’s news conference that he disagreed with Amezcua’s remarks at the last meeting about city officials keeping their heads down.
“Today we are reminding Mayor Valerie Amezcua to lead with courage and not to lead with fear – to grow a spine,” he said.
Indigo Vu, the immigration advocacy manager at VietRise, said when residents have access to accurate information they can protect themselves and that around a third of OC Sheriff Departments’ transfers to ICE last year were Vietnamese.
“This year marks 50 years since the end of the war in Vietnam. Many Vietnamese residents in Santa Ana have lived here for decades, rebuilding their lives after arriving as refugees,” Vu said.
“The increase in ICE enforcement activity in the local community has increased anxiety and fear of family separation among our community and knowing when ICE plans to show up in their neighborhoods helps mitigate these concerns.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.