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Santa Ana – sitting in the heart of Orange County – could be on track to strengthen immigrant protections in a majority Latino city while President Donald Trump moves to crack down on immigration.
It comes as Huntington Beach goes in the opposite direction, declaring itself an anti-sanctuary city last month and directing its local police department to work with federal immigration officials – sidestepping state sanctuary law.
[Read: Huntington Beach Disregards California’s Sanctuary Laws, Directs Police to Work With ICE]
Now, Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez wants her colleagues to reconvene a group that was created to advise officials on policies they could implement to help protect immigrants from deportation in the county’s only sanctuary city.
At Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. city council meeting, council members are slated to consider Lopez’s request to reboot the city’s Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group within 30 days after a roughly five year hiatus in response to Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“We cannot ignore what is happening right now,” Lopez said in a Thursday phone interview. “No family should be torn apart because of their immigration status.”
Tuesday’s meeting comes at a time when undocumented residents in Orange County – home to nearly a million foreign born immigrants – are uncertain of what Trump’s immigration directives could mean for their future in the U.S.
“This is our second rodeo with the Trump administration. It’s scary for residents,” said Carlos Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, in a Thursday phone interview.
The city is home to over 310,000 residents, 77% of which are Latino, 12% are Asian and 9% are white. An estimated 41% of residents are foreign born, according to the U.S. Census.
While there’s no available estimates on how many undocumented residents are living in Santa Ana, there’s an estimated 236,000 undocumented immigrants living in Orange County, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Perea, who helped write the city’s sanctuary ordinance, is raising concerns and questions about Lopez’s request to reinstate the advisory group.
He said the group was intended to be temporary and other boards like the city’s police oversight commission – which he is a part of – can weigh in on immigration.
Lopez said the oversight commission has not met due to quorum issues and the commission is not made up of immigration experts.
“It’s pretty silly to say that we should not convene a group of experts that not only have been academically trained, but that do this work day in and out,” she said.
“Hopefully, my peers will agree that by bringing back this advisory group we can ensure that policy decisions are backed by expert analysis and real data.”
Perea also raised concerns about the Immigration Defenders – the legal service providers who the city has previously contracted with to defend Santa Ana residents from deportation – allegedly not taking on complex deportation cases not serving the Vietnamese and Asian community.
“We have serious questions regarding the provider, and what this task force will mean in either continuing to coddle the provider or challenging the fact that there needs to be some restructuring of the program,” Perea said.
Lopez agreed it was important the service should be applied equitably.
Renee Garcia, spokesperson for Immigration Defenders, did not respond to an email request for comment.
According to the city website, city officials opened a search at the end of 2024 looking for a law firm to defend Santa Ana residents from deportation under a $300,000 a year contract as part of the city’s deportation defense fund that started in 2017.
Immigration Defenders have bid to provide the city’s immigration legal defense services again.
The advisory group would also be tasked with recommending ways to use and oversee the deportation defense fund.
Roberto Herrera, a member of the OC Rapid Response Network, said in a Thursday text message that oversight is needed to continue the trust that was built with the city’s sanctuary ordinance.
“Reviving that oversight component adds credibility to the City in a moment of so much uncertainty,” reads the statement.
The network is a coalition of organizations that advocate for immigrant rights and tracks information on ICE raids.
Santa Ana’s Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group
Santa Ana became the first city in Orange County to declare itself a sanctuary city shortly after Trump was first elected in 2016.
Officials also adopted an ordinance barring city staff and resources to be used to enforce immigration law.
City officials also established the advisory group to help craft policies to protect immigrants as well as recommend ways to use and oversee a city fund to help immigrants fight deportation in court.
According to Lopez’s written request, the advisory group hasn’t met since 2020 and officials stopped receiving updates about the group’s actions.
“This lack of engagement and accountability pose potential risks to the continuity and effectiveness of the city’s immigrant protection measures,” reads her request.
Lopez is calling for the group to reconvene within 30 days as well as to provide updates to city officials every month on the city’s deportation defense fund and recommendations on ways they can better protect residents.
She also wants the group to assess the effectiveness of current city sanctuary policies.
Lopez said if her item passes the city manager will be directed to reach out to the founding members of the advisory group which she said includes groups like Immigration Defenders, the ACLU, UC Irvine and Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities.
“They are the folks doing this work, day in and day out and so we really, really need folks that are in this world, entrenched in deportation defense to be able to guide our city manager and the council in the right direction,” she said.
Federal Immigration Enforcement’s Impact on Orange County
Lopez’s request comes as questions keep mounting on whether local law enforcement will enforce federal immigration directives or follow California’s sanctuary state law – which forbids police from cooperating and enforcing federal immigration laws.
Last month, officials in the Trump administration indicated the U.S. Department of Justice could probe local officials for not cooperating with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
State officials like Attorney General Rob Bonta – an immigrant himself – are pushing back against the president arguing that the courts have already upheld California’s sanctuary state law.
OC Sheriff Don Barnes also said he’ll continue following state sanctuary law.
[Read: How is Orange County Going to Handle Trump’s Immigration Crackdown?]
At a Jan. 24 news conference, Bonta said local law enforcement across California is expected to abide by state law.
“We will be prepared to act if there is not compliance, but these are law enforcement agencies. They enforce the law, they follow the law. We expect compliance,” Bonta said.
His remarks came one day after U.S. border patrol agents detained a dozen migrants at the Dana Point harbor and impounded a boat, according to a joint Jan. 23 news release from Congressman Mike Levin and OC Supervisor Katrina Foley.
Meanwhile, Huntington Beach officials unanimously voted in January to sidestep California’s sanctuary law and direct their police department to work with ICE while they again sue the state over California’s sanctuary law.
Some local elected officials in OC are also saying they are going to launch efforts to educate residents about their rights when it comes to immigration laws.
OC Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, a former Santa Ana mayor, said in a Jan. 23 written statement to the Voice of OC that he plans to work with community organizations to discuss ways to ensure immigrant rights are protected.
“In the coming weeks, I will convene groups of local leaders, non-profits, and members of the public, to address the fear that residents may be experiencing and to discuss actions we can take to ensure the rights of all communities are protected,” reads the statement.
Perea said he’d like to see more charter cities in the county adopt sanctuary city ordinances like Santa Ana and non charter cities pass resolutions against mass deportations.
“They can adopt strong resolutions being very clear that they stand against mass deportations, and then they stand against Trump’s agenda,” he said.
“They might be symbolic resolutions but it sends a sense of relief to their residents.”
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.
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