Elected officials in most Orange County cities have not taken official action to respond to widespread deportation sweeps, while a few have taken strong stances either in support of immigrants or in support of federal agents.
The silence comes after some residents demanded elected officials in a handful of cities throughout last year to stand up for their immigrant neighbors and provide resources.
Others have asked their council members to stay out of it, arguing immigration is a federal issue.
Editors’ Note: This dispatch is part of the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service, working with student journalists to cover public policy issues across Orange County. If you would like to submit your own student media project related to Orange County civics or if you have any response to this work, contact admin@voiceofoc.org.
Sandra De Anda, director of policy for the Orange County Rapid Response Network, said the lack of response from most city councils is not surprising.
“We still have a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment in this county and throughout each city,” De Anda said. “There are very few cities to even have policies with the word immigrant in them throughout all of Orange County.”
Over the past couple months, Chapman students have investigated what cities in Orange County have done in response to large-scale immigration crackdown that ramped up last June, filing public records with each of the 34 cities to see what they implemented.
Anaheim, Santa Ana, Costa Mesa and Irvine have provided informational resources on their websites, and launched funds to either help impacted immigrant families with legal support or to help them pay bills.
Anaheim is the only city in Orange County to post detailed daily updates on immigration enforcement actions in the city, while Santa Ana remains the only sanctuary city in the county.
[Read: Anaheim Leads the Way on ICE Raids Response]
Garden Grove, Mission Viejo, Buena Park, Fullerton and Stanton have solely provided informational resources.
Huntington Beach has firmly supported immigration enforcement, declaring the city a “non-sanctuary city” and saying they will help ICE if they come to town.
The remaining 24 cities have done nothing official in the past year.
Supporting Immigrants
De Anda said that Anaheim and Santa Ana have laid the blueprint for how to best help immigrant communities.
Anaheim has an immigrant legal aid fund, and posts daily immigration enforcement updates on the city’s website — the only municipality to do so. These mainly include activity within the city, but sometimes it will make note of enforcement in surrounding areas.
“As an ICE watcher, I appreciate Anaheim Contigo’s daily enforcement updates,” De Anda said.
One update on April 2 mentioned both Santa Ana and Orange.
“Wednesday saw reported vehicle sightings in Santa Ana and just over the city line in Orange along Lincoln Avenue, but no reported detainments. Tuesday was quiet after Monday when one person was detained outside his home in an incident of targeted enforcement in a neighborhood near Euclid Street and Cerritos Avenue. Monday’s incident was the first confirmed incident in Anaheim in more than two weeks,” it read.
Santa Ana, which currently is the only sanctuary city in Orange County, has worked closely with OC Rapid Response Network to develop an aid fund that has received $400,000 in funding so far, and re-write U-Visa policy to make it easier for immigrants to be accepted into the program.
The U-Visa program provides temporary legal status and work authorization for victims of certain crimes who offer to help law enforcement.
De Anda said that the previous system focused more on prosecution and wasn’t inclusive enough to give immigrants who had suffered access to proper avenues for legal residency or work. Many families were struggling to get through even the first hurdle.
“The policy, and the way it was interpreted, was more for prosecution rather than (an) impacted community member finding a sense of justice for themselves,” she said. “It was already being determined for them.”
The policy changes — which took effect earlier this year — established a formal appeals process and will require police to provide detailed written explanations for visa denials.
Paul Eakins, a city spokesperson, said Santa Ana city officials have always made protecting immigrants a top priority.
“Last year, the Santa Ana City Council continued that leadership by taking several actions to provide financial and legal support to our residents and to fight the unjust actions of the federal government,” he said.
He said that Santa Ana was the first city to join a lawsuit against former Homeland Security head Kristi Noem in an attempt to stop the federal government from conducting stops and raids without reasonable suspicion or probable cause based on race.
A majority of Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s Homeland Security tactics and struck down a restraining order that barred alleged racial profiling in immigration enforcement.
Despite any challenges with the federal government, Eakins said that Santa Ana officials will remain committed to every part of their community.
“The City of Santa Ana is committed to protecting the dignity, safety, and rights of all residents, regardless of immigration status,” Eakins said.
Irvine and Costa Mesa also have set up community resource pages and funds to help families impacted by immigration raids.
When Irvine city officials passed a resolution to create a $100,000 aid fund, Councilmember Betty Martinez-Franco, who helped to bring forward the proposal, said that the Latino community in the city was being threatened and needed the city’s help.
“Let’s call it how it is. They are coming for Brown people who speak Spanish, who work for privileged people here in Irvine,” she said at Irvine’s Feb. 24 meeting.
Costa Mesa Mayor John Stephens said that helping immigrants was a matter of upholding access to justice, at the city’s Sept. 9 meeting last year when officials created a $200,000 immigrant legal defense fund.
“If you are arrested for committing a crime — even if it is a crime you committed, even if you intend to plead guilty for that crime and it could be a horrific crime — you get representation provided to you by the government,” he said. “These folks that are being detained … they have none of that.”
Fullerton officials backed away from launching an immigrant aid fund last year, with some elected leaders saying the city didn’t have the money to offer such support as the city wrestles with a projected $13.7 million deficit.
Garden Grove voted to reaffirm and promote the protection of due process for all citizens, but that resolution did not change any actual policy within the city. After a lengthy public debate, city council members directed staff to slash many specific mentions of immigrants or immigration enforcement from the original proposal.
Supporting ICE
Huntington Beach and Aliso Viejo were the only cities to respond to public records requests with pro-ICE policies. Aliso Viejo referenced a 2018 council decision to speak out against California’s sanctuary city laws, but didn’t send any information from the past year.
In Huntington Beach, the city council passed a non-sanctuary city policy on Jan. 21, 2025 – the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“We are going to provide the best safety for our citizens, plain and simple,” said then-Mayor Pat Burns.
The policy states that police and city officials will be, “coordinating and communicating with federal law enforcement agencies and honoring ICE detainers.”
Huntington Beach sued the state over its California Values Act, which restricts law enforcement from using resources to help federal immigration enforcement.
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice backed Huntington Beach’s lawsuit, but it ultimately was shot down.
De Anda said that Huntington Beach’s non-sanctuary city policy makes no sense because her work tracking immigration enforcement over the past year has shown little activity in the city.
“Because they are a bastion of conservatism, they refuse to acknowledge the humanity of non-citizens,” De Anda said. “They just honestly look very silly because they’re breaking the law.”
Huntington Beach city staff did not respond to multiple requests for comment about whether or not police are following the city or state statute.
Mayor Casey McKeon did not respond to multiple attempts through phone, text and email to contact him for comment.
In Westminster, council member Amy Phan West wanted police to help ICE, although when she proposed it at a city council meeting, the idea was shut down by all other council members.
San Clemente, which has not passed any official policy regarding ICE over the past year, does have a contract with the Department of Homeland Security allowing the placement of immigration cameras overlooking the coast — though they haven’t been set up yet.
The contract was approved by the city council on Jan. 20.
Mayor Rick Loeffler said the city’s coastline has had problems with illegal immigration, and that the deal with Homeland Security is meant to catch potential drug smuggling on boats.
“We know that there’s a connection between cartels and Panga boat incursions. They’re bringing in drugs and we were concerned,” he said in an interview. “Border patrol was interested in a maritime camera where they could view boats before they got to the beach.”
Cities Staying Silent
Many cities have avoided officially taking a stance or making resources available.
Loeffler said that San Clemente hasn’t done anything regarding ICE raids because it hasn’t been a problem. He also cited the political makeup of residents as a reason that city officials haven’t addressed immigration enforcement.
“We live in a conservative town, the majority of the people in our city want immigration enforcement,” Loeffler said in an interview.
De Anda argued that even cities who don’t see much federal enforcement can still help residents by not entering into contracts with agencies or businesses that may help ICE.
Other city officials, such as those in Laguna Niguel and Placentia, said their lack of a response stems from no experience with federal immigration enforcement.
Orange City Council members debated introducing immigration policy, but to date haven’t been able to come to an agreement.
In an interview, Orange Councilmember Arianna Barrios said she and fellow Councilmember Ana Gutierrez pushed hard to take action to support immigrants in the community, but the majority of the council refused to even put an informational page up on the city council’s website.
“Our bottom line, at the very least, was to ask our colleagues to at least put up a page on our website just providing immigrants within our community — who are scared or concerned or maybe undocumented — some resources where they can go to find legal assistance or food assistance or anything like that, and our colleagues refused that as well,” Barrios said.
Barrios added that Orange is unable to fully support immigrants as much as cities like Anaheim and Santa Ana because of the ongoing budget deficit.
Still, Barrios said cities should do something, adding that it’s an excuse when local elected officials say federal immigration enforcement doesn’t concern municipal matters.
“It’s kind of an excuse to hide behind this as a federal issue. That’s weak sauce,” Barrios said. “And we are put in the positions by the voters to protect everybody. If you let the rights of one group go … you’re putting everybody’s rights at risk.”