Downtown Santa Ana looks different.
There’s humvees, barricades and California National Guard troops blocking streets near the Ronald Reagan Courthouse and the federal building.
“I think a lot of them thought they were being shipped into an area of major conflict. Nobody called for them to be here. (Santa Ana Police) Chief Rodriguez didn’t call him. Santa Ana didn’t call him. (OC Sheriff) Don Barnes didn’t call him. They’re here because an administration wants to create – wants to manufacture – a conflict that doesn’t exist,” Congressman Lou Correa in a Wednesday interview.
Orange County looks a little different, too.
For nearly two weeks, there’s been a heavy federal presence as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, along with Department of Homeland Security officials conduct ongoing immigration sweeps across the county that’s home to roughly 3.2 million people.
Many parks aren’t as busy as normal and the day labor corps outside of Home Depots has thinned out.
Community leaders and elected officials say this is what an occupation looks like.
“We are under occupation from these agencies. We literally have the National Guard in Downtown Santa Ana. It’s a whole different ball game,” said Sandra De Anda, program coordinator for the OC Rapid Response Network, a local group that provides resources to immigrants.
President Donald Trump and some of his highest ranking officials like Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have said the ICE raids are largely targeting criminals.
Yet people like day laborers and car wash employees are getting caught up in the raids.
“I’ve been doing this for nine years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” De Anda said in an interview.
In a Thursday email, Department of Homeland Security officials said they know exactly who they’re after.
“DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted. We do our due diligence. We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement officers are trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability,” reads the email.
Santa Ana residents are especially feeling the military presence in town.
“I find it disgusting that we have military occupation in our city that with no reasoning, nobody has showcased any levels of uncontrollable violence or anything that would warrant military occupation,” said resident Jewel Campos.
In a Wednesday letter to Congresswoman Young Kim, Santa Ana City Councilman David Penaloza expressed his frustration at the National Guard presence and a lack of Congressional oversight on the issue.
“I am outraged and heartbroken by the military occupation of our streets – an occupation made possible by your inaction in Congress and your refusal to exercise basic oversight over the federal agencies wreaking havoc in our neighborhoods,” Penaloza wrote.
While Kim doesn’t represent Santa Ana, Penaloza urged her to work with her colleagues like Correa and establish Congressional oversight of the issue.
“The deployment of the National Guard into Santa Ana has terrified our families and paralyzed our downtown,” the councilman wrote.
Penaloza also noted that the Department of Homeland Security “is operating without transparency or accountability in our streets – violating due process, terrorizing immigrant communities, and weaponizing federal resources against working families.”
Congressman Correa, who represents Santa Ana, echoed similar oversight concerns in a Wednesday interview.
“Congress has completely lost oversight. Congress completely ceded all our power to the executive,” Correa said. “Congress needs to pull back, get back our authority.”
At a June 10 news conference, Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento demanded that troops “stop occupying our communities immediately.”
Earlier that day at the OC Board of Supervisors meeting, Sarmiento said Downtown Santa Ana looks like a military occupation zone.
“I do believe we need to speak with our representatives at the federal level to make sure they speak to why this city, why central county, looks like it’s in occupied territory,” he said.
The supervisor said the militarized presence inflames tensions.
“We shouldn’t be provoking, agitating, and escalating this by having militarized people here in our civic center,” Sarmiento said at the June 10 supervisors meeting.
Federal agents conducting the sweeps, armed and geared up like they’re in a combat zone, have reportedly been spotted from North Orange County down to South OC.
Some Downtown Santa Ana business owners say they’ve seen a drop in foot traffic since the immigration raids began nearly two weeks ago.
Marcela Rodriguez, a longtime downtown business owner, said the military presence is hurting businesses.
“It’s inhumane to have the National Guard stationed there, and it’s inhumane what ICE is doing to us, chasing us around the city, criminalizing us,” said Rodriguez in Spanish. “What the President is doing is persecuting citizens and immigrants.”
Despite the situation, Rodriguez said she took coffee to the National Guardsman.
“The National Guard is in a place that they don’t want to be, they’re here to defend the country in other circumstances, not for this,” she said, noting she’s been speaking with some of the troops.
Longtime street vendors in the area have also vanished, packing up their mobile businesses due to fears of the immigration raids.
A host of residents are also afraid to go to work, citing fears of getting picked up by federal agents.
“They have walked our sidewalks, I cannot risk it,” an undocumented resident said in a Wednesday interview.
“They were here a couple of days ago, I cannot go to work.”
Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez said it’s putting residents in a tough spot.
“This is the cost of the administration terrorizing our communities. What does that mean at the end of the month when these families are still legally required to pay rent? This is how they’re disrupting our lives,” Lopez said in a June 11 interview.
“I am scared. I cannot go out to the grocery store,” said an undocumented person from Puebla, Mexico, who has lived in Santa Ana for years.
Meanwhile, scores of residents have been protesting the federal immigration crackdown,
On Saturday, thousands of people took part in the “No Kings” demonstrations – part of a nationwide protest – to sound off on the immigration raids and a host of other policies from President Donald Trump.
[Read: Orange County Hits the Streets, Rails Against ICE Sweeps]
On Sunday the Associated Press reported that Trump doubled down on the immigration raids in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
“ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” Trump said in a post on his social media network.
The President said he directed agencies “to put every resource possible behind this effort, and reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.”
That same day – on Father’s Day – federal agents arrested a man in Santa Ana’s Aretesia Pilar neighborhood who was collecting bottles and cans for recycling; someone local residents say was known by everyone in the neighborhood.
[Read: Immigration Sweeps Hit a Santa Ana Neighborhood on Father’s Day]
Santa Ana City Councilman Johnathan Hernandez – who lives down the street from where the man was arrested – was warning residents that federal agents were in the area within minutes of the immigration sweep.
“This is a multi-generational neighborhood of Raza,” Hernandez said in an interview about half an hour after the arrest.
He was passing out red cards to residents, which detail their rights in Spanish.
“Hey, watch out! ICE just detained somebody,” Hernandez told nearby locals.
He said nearby El Salvador park cleared out after the man was picked up by federal agents.
“Once they got him, it was mayhem – people running to their cars.”
Julie Leopo is Voice of OC’s director of photography. You can reach her at jleopo@voiceofoc.org.
Spencer Custodio is the civic editor. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio.