Opposition to the federal deportation sweeps has been growing throughout Orange County in recent weeks as four cities have either voted to join a lawsuit against the ICE raids or are looking at supporting the legal efforts to end the raids.
City council members in two of Orange County’s biggest cities – Anaheim and Santa Ana – have voted to join the lawsuit.
Now, Fullerton officials are the latest in Orange County looking to support a lawsuit challenging federal agencies’ tactics in conducting warrantless deportation sweeps after raids this past weekend rocked two Home Depots in Anaheim and Garden Grove.
On Tuesday, Assistant City Attorney Baron Bettenhausen announced Fullerton City Councilmembers voted to file an amicus brief and coordinate with other cities in support of the lawsuit after City Councilwoman Shana Charles asked her colleagues to consider joining the legal challenge.
The attorney did not immediately publicly state how council members voted behind closed doors or what the vote was – something required by law.
After Voice of OC asked questions about the vote, Councilman Ahmad Zahra sent a screenshot of a text message from Bettenhausen stating the vote was 4-0 with Councilman Nick Dunlap absent from the closed session vote.
At the open session portion of the meeting, Charles and Zahra thanked residents for coming to the meeting and speaking out in support of their immigrant neighbors.
“When we show up and we unite, things can happen so we’ll see where this goes but we need to continue stepping up and we cannot be complacent in any way and we must always have courage because doing the right thing takes courage,” Zahra said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Another city could soon join Fullerton.
Costa Mesa City Council members are expected to consider signing onto the legal challenge at their next meeting.
Meanwhile, Irvine officials last week narrowly voted to direct staff to craft an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit after Orange County Supervisors opted to stay out of the case.
[Read: Irvine Looks to Support Lawsuit Challenging ICE Sweeps; OC Supervisors Take No Action]
“While the Board ultimately did not take formal action, I share Supervisor (Vicente) Sarmiento’s commitment to standing with the plaintiffs in this case. I believe it is important that we continue to explore ways to support efforts that protect the rights and dignity of all members of our community,” said OC Board of Supervisors Chair Doug Chaffee in a statement last week.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five people arrested in Los Angeles County and immigrant rights organizations, alleges federal immigration officers are racially profiling people and using excessive force to make warrantless arrests.
Department of Homeland Security officials have adamantly denied the allegations, arguing the deportation sweeps in the region have been strategically targeted.
Anaheim City Spokesman Mike Lyster said in a Tuesday evening email that the city has yet to be formally added to the lawsuit and not all the court documents are publicly accessible.
Fullerton Residents Demand Action
For over an hour and a half, residents, students, school board officials and local religious leaders urged elected officials to sign on to the legal challenge, calling for leaders to take a stand and protect their immigrant neighbors – many of whom are afraid to leave their home.
“I am really, really hurt by the situation that is happening – by the persecution our community is witnessing. Families are being separated. People are living with a lot of fear,” said resident Egleth Nuncci in Spanish at Tuesday’s meeting, calling for officials to join the lawsuit.
“We don’t want our children to be in fear of having their parents being taken away, especially after them having to live and overcome a pandemic, and now they are fearful to be separated from their families and their parents,” she said.
Many of the speakers wore t-shirts with monarch butterflies – a longtime symbol of immigration for the insect’s migration pattern between Mexico and the U.S.
Others wore white.
Jody Vallejo, a professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at University of Southern California, said the detentions will have widespread effects.
“Immigration is literally the litmus test for our democracy,” Vallejo said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“These actions we have seen this summer have left children without parents, business owners in turmoil. They have pushed children out of school and into the underground labor market in our city, which will greatly affect the fiscal, security and future of our city.”
One deacon recounted what it was like to come to America in the 1970s with his older siblings as a young boy and how his relatives got deported when he was 14 years old – forcing him to live on the streets for six months after they were taken.
Fullerton School Districts Trustees Vanesa Estrella and Ruthi Hanchett spoke about the impacts the deportation sweeps have had at local schools and the fears students are facing as they return back to school.
They said that the district has stepped up to help community efforts to bring food and necessities to immigrant families and called on council members to join the lawsuit.
“We began school with at least 13 families who have reported that they already left the United States entirely. These are children who no longer walk into our classrooms, children who should be there learning, laughing and growing with their peers,” Estrella told the council.
“Children told me they were afraid their parents might not be home when they returned. Imagine a child carrying that kind of fear.”
[Read: Orange County Schools Prep for ICE]
Hanchett said a mother was detained in the spring at a McDonald’s after taking her child to school and deported the same day.
“She didn’t get to say goodbye to her children. They had to be picked up by someone else, and we rallied around them, but that’s the kind of thing that will continue to happen right now in our schools, in our community,” she said.
Hanchett said over 200 students didn’t show up to school last week – the start of the fall semester.
“We’re on day two of the second week, and we’re seeing less students enrolled in our school.”
Weekend Sweeps Amid a Temporary Restraining Order
Meanwhile, local activists are raising concerns that federal agencies are not following a temporary restraining order upheld by a federal appellate court barring them from making warrantless arrests in parts of Southern California solely based on race, language, occupation and locations like car washes and Home Depots.
Anaheim officials announced that border patrol agents detained three laborers at the Home Depot on Brookhurst Street and also detained a person at a car wash on Euclid Street this past Saturday despite the restraining order.
“The weekend saw the most significant and disruptive enforcement in weeks in Anaheim,” reads a Tuesday update on Anaheim Contigo, the city’s website documenting immigration enforcement action.
“Anaheim is seeing targeted enforcement and larger activity since a temporary restraining order went into effect.”
The Orange County Rapid Response Network also reported that people were detained at a Home Depot in Garden Grove this past Saturday and say there have been sweeps in the city since June 6 when the widespread raids first kicked up.
This past weekend’s enforcement action comes after some Garden Grove residents showed up to last week’s city council meeting demanding again that elected leaders take a stronger official stand against the sweeps and step up to support families impacted by deportations.
[Read: ICE Raids Spur Calls for Community Aid in Another Orange County City]
Some Garden Grove officials have publicly said that immigration enforcement is a federal issue and their hands are tied and they have to comply with the law.
Garden Grove City Councilman Joe DoVinh said that local leaders have asked members of congress for a list of people detained in Garden Grove by the sweeps.
“If we do not comply with the federal mandates and the federal laws, we may lose our grants and we may be prosecuted for certain violations, which I do not want to take that chance. We have too much to lose,” DoVinh said at the Aug. 12 city council meeting.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not pushing back against ICE.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.