Many Santa Ana residents are asking what it takes to get elected officials in their city – a place where more than 75% of residents are Latino – to support and advocate for residents amid aggressive federal immigration enforcement sweeps and a deportation crisis.
Thousands of residents have shown up to protests along Santa Ana streets, in many cases being tear gassed and shot with pepperballs by police – a response that prompted hundreds to show up to a public meeting earlier this month demanding the mayor resign and has even fueled support for a recall.
Amid the pressure, Santa Ana officials this week will be considering a host of proposals geared at responding to widespread federal ICE raids amid continued pressure from residents for action in OC’s only sanctuary city.
At their 5:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday, city council members are expected to discuss getting records from the federal government about the deportation sweeps.
They’ll be considering pushing local Congress Representatives to remove ICE from the city.
And they’ll be debating providing financial aid to families impacted by the immigration raids – something Anaheim officials already started.
Officials will also discuss directing city staff to draft an ordinance mandating all law enforcement officers to wear visible identification as well as prohibit them from wearing masks when interacting with residents at the request of Councilwoman Jessie Lopez.
Lopez, who is running for state assembly, said the proposed financial aid is about keeping the community together during a crisis.
“What we’re seeing right now is a direct attack on people that are trying to make a living, working people who are being brutalized in public spaces,” he said
Councilman Ben Vazquez said it’s important that the community knows elected officials are standing with them.
“This is exactly what happened during COVID as people lost their jobs, their means of paying the rent and feeding themselves and it’s more important now,” Vazquez said about the proposed financial aid program in a Thursday phone interview.
“We want to support our families first and foremost, we want to make sure we know how to help them.”
The proposals come amid a more highly visible string of federal deportation raids – mostly notably the detainment of Narciso Barranco, a 48-year-old landscaper that federal immigration agents arrested after punching him in the head as he was face down in a Santa Ana street.
Councilman David Penaloza, who is also running for state assembly, said seeing what happened to Barranco emphasized how important it is to have this type of fund.
“They’re not out there mowing lawns or selling fruit or flowers for fun. They’re doing this as a livelihood, as a means to survive and feed their families. And when you have people a terrified to go to work because of a potential immigration sweep, or getting caught up in a sweep, like we saw with Mr. Narciso Barranco – That’s not okay,” he said in a Thursday interview.
“Behind that person, that man or woman, there’s a family. There’s a family that relies on that extra income, relies on that paycheck.”
Penaloza gives credit to the mayor for the idea to take funding from city events at a time when not a lot of residents are attending them like they used to right now.
Tuesday’s meeting also comes after over a hundred residents berated Amezcua and the city’s police department for five hours for their response to the sweeps and protests against the raids at the last city council meeting.
Only two people defended Amezcua at the meeting.
[Read: Santa Ana Residents Demand Mayor Resign, Citing Weak Response to ICE Raids, Protests]
“The overwhelming message was a clear call for the City to take action in support of immigrant families and residents experiencing fear and instability as a result of ongoing federal operations,” reads a city staff report.
Councilman Johnathan Hernandez, who is running for state assembly, said he will request a discussion to be held at a future meeting to address police misconduct related to the ICE raids.
“I believe that this department is no longer a department where we can feel safe in our city with some of these officers bordering on criminal behavior,” he said in a Thursday phone interview.
“It took ICE coming to our city and beating our people, for the residents of Santa Ana to raise a level of consciousness, to witness the brutality and to witness the connection between ICE and police violence.”
Amezcua has faced backlash from residents after she put out a statement on social media questioning the futility of the protests and calling them “pure violence” and “destruction” of property and the city. She also accused some city council members and a county supervisor of condoning the destruction despite no major damage being reported.
Following the statement, she doubled down in an interview with ABC7 on questioning what change protests will bring to the city.
[Read: Santa Ana’s Response to ICE Protests Prompt Questions for Police & Mayor]
Amezcua and Council members Phil Bacerra and Thai Viet Phan did not respond or return requests for comment Thursday.
Last week, Amezcua announced on social media the Santa Ana state of the City initially scheduled for June 26 would be postponed with the OC Register reporting that it was due to “public safety concerns.”
The day she announced the event was postponed she attended Costa Mesa’s State of the City.
At the last meeting, Hernandez also requested officials review the city’s military equipment use policy and asked for information on how many non-lethal projectiles and chemical agents were fired and thrown at protestors.
“I am going to be emphatic about this item being on the agenda on our next council meeting, and if it is not on the agenda, I find that to be unacceptable, that in a community where people were shot at by non lethal rounds and chemical agents and bean bags with no regard for their safety, that the city would not agendize a discussion,” he said.
Financial Aid For Immigrant Families
City Council members Tuesday may move forward with a $1 million temporary financial aid assistance program aimed at helping families impacted by the immigration raids at the request of Amezcua, according to a city staff report
The money for the program would come from dollars initially allocated for city hosted events like Fiestas Patrias, Chicano Heritage, Fourth of July, Tet Festival and Juneteenth and would be used to help residents pay rent & utilities, buy food and get legal assistance.
The assistance would help families at a time when local businesses in Santa Ana are not getting the same foot traffic and swap meet vendors and day laborers are worried about going to work for fear of getting caught up in the sweeps.
Hernandez said the immigrants being targeted in the ICE raids are working class people and local business owners and many are now afraid to go to work.
“If people are fearful of going to work, they are going to get behind on their expenses,” he said.
“What we’re seeing is the breadwinners are being targeted by ICE. The majority of people being taken are fathers so that leaves an imbalance in these households that most of these these families, at least, can’t make up for especially given their status.”
A Request for Information: Shining a Light on the ICE Raids
Santa Ana leaders will also consider submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking for records about immigration enforcement activity in Santa Ana from Jan. 20 to July 1.
It’s an idea that Vazquez and Lopez both expressed interest at the last council meeting.
According to the drafted letter, officials would be requesting the date, time and location of enforcement actions, the names of people detained, why people were detained, if they had any immigration violations or criminal convictions and where they are being detained.
They would also ask for their immigration status, any court proceedings for the people detained and any complaints on the enforcement raids that occurred.
To view the draft letter, click here.
Vazquez said the information would give the city an idea of how ICE is operating in Santa Ana.
Lopez said the city would be able to share the information with groups like OC Rapid Response Network to locate people and better understand what neighborhoods are being directly impacted.
The proposed information request comes as local elected members of congress – Republican and Democrat alike – raise concerns about a lack of transparency surrounding the ICE raids impacting the communities they represent.
[Read: Santana: What Happens to Orange County’s Disappeared?]
Penaloza said he is “100% certain” the federal agency would not turn over any of the records to Santa Ana leaders.
“This is just an attempt for us to be able to tell the community, look, we tried. We’re trying to get this information, but the federal government is uncooperative, and that they have been for the last six months,” he said.
Efforts to create an ICE notification policy in Santa Ana came apart earlier this month when a majority of officials voted behind closed doors to shelve the policy.
Hernandez and Vazquez, who requested the policy, were the dissenting vote.
Hernandez said his item would have kept residents informed of federal immigration enforcement activity in the city and that he was interested to see how some of his colleagues who opposed his proposal would vote on the Freedom of Information Act request.
“We had efforts to create a level of transparency that no city across California was looking to provide, and some of the very people bringing forward legislation today to identify these agents voted no on that,” he said.
“It is important that people know that although this solution will provide a level of clarity, it will still leave people in the dark as to when ICE agents have come into your community.”
Lopez said it was a good policy but it was not properly vetted by legal experts and lacked input of the city attorney.
“What could have been a historic first of its kind, policy to protect our immigrant community quickly became a liability. And so in all of that, we are still trying to figure out a way to alert our community that doesn’t put any of my staff at jeopardy of losing their freedom,” she said.
“I don’t have the ability to force people to give up their freedom based on a policy that was not properly worked on.”
Penaloza said the community is under the impression that the city is being notified of every ICE raid and sweep and that is not the case.
“We had no idea of that immigration enforcement happening by the IHOP to Mr. Barranco. Nobody told us that,” he said.
“Now we’re at a point where the federal government is not notifying us at all, and that’s the big problem as well, is that because I’m assuming the federal government’s fear of us possibly disclosing that information.”
Taking a Stand
Officials are also expected to consider a resolution Tuesday calling on members of congress to “advocate for the removal of ICE, military, and federal enforcement personnel from Santa Ana.”
It also calls on them to support residents impacted by the ICE raids and would reaffirm the city commitment to its sanctuary city policy as well as sanctuary state law.
Click here to view the proposed resolution.
“We want to make sure that there is record of people pushing back and fighting and letting Congress know that they have to start using their powers to support their cities, to support their communities,” Vazquez said.
Penaloza said the resolution was to show residents they’re doing what they can to advocate on their behalf to the federal government and to call members of congress particularly Republicans like Young Kim.
“This goes beyond immigration. This is a violation of our United States Constitution,” he said. “It’s hurting our businesses – it’s our local economy – it is a multi-layered issue that’s going on now in Santa Ana because of this,” he said.
“They need to peel back some control from the executive branch which right now there’s no oversight.”
Lopez said she hopes the resolution gives comfort to residents.
“This resolution really is a testament to the collective strength of our community who have so vocally said we don’t want these people in our city, terrorizing our parents, terrorizing our neighbors, separating families, violating our constitutional rights,” she said.
Unmasking ICE
Finally, Lopez is asking her colleagues to consider requiring ICE agents and other law enforcement agencies to wear visible identification and ban them from wearing masks when working in Santa Ana.
She is also calling on her colleagues to support two state bills.
One of them, dubbed SB 627, would prohibit law enforcement officers operating in the state to cover their faces except for SWAT and during certain emergencies like wildfires.
The other, dubbed SB 805, would require any law enforcement officers operating in California to show badges and identification.
“Trust and public safety institutions have been completely obliterated,” Lopez said.
It comes as many raise concerns about ICE agents refusing to identify themselves and covering their faces as they detain people at immigration courthouses, Home Depots and car washes.
Vazquez said Lopez’s request is about making sure people feel safe in Santa Ana.
“We need to make sure that they know they’re the officers of the state, and not just random people coming in and taking our people and hiding them,” he said.
“We want to make sure we identify the people that are doing the abductions.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.