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Questions are surfacing about how Orange County will handle President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in a county home to nearly 1 million foreign-born residents.
“Many of our constituents right now, I can confirm with you, they are not working. They are afraid,” Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez said in a Wednesday phone interview.
This week, 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, according to various news outlets, including the Associated Press.
“This is unprecedented in many ways, and there’s a lot of fear in our community,” Lopez said.
It comes after Huntington Beach City Council members unanimously voted this week 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.
[Read: Huntington Beach Disregards California’s Sanctuary Laws, Directs Police to Work With ICE]
At the same time, some Santa Ana City Council members – including Lopez – publicly said they would help protect undocumented immigrants in a town that declared itself a sanctuary city shortly after Trump’s first election in 2016.
“There’s a lot of cities in between the extremes of Huntington Beach and Santa Ana and they just want to keep their heads down for the next four years and that is a scary place to be,” said Fullerton College professor and local government expert Jodi Balma in a Thursday phone interview.
California’s sanctuary law bars law enforcement agencies from honoring ICE detainer requests unless that person’s been convicted of a violent or serious felony. The detainer asks law enforcement officials to notify ICE if an undocumented person is about to be released from jail and could include a 48-hour hold.
In Anaheim – where officials declared the town to be a welcoming city to immigrants during Trump’s first term in office – officials say they are closely monitoring the legality of the directives coming from the White House and will continue following state law.
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said the Anaheim Police Department does not enforce any type of federal laws, and added that immigration policies like Trump’s strike fear among immigrants regardless of legal status.
“We have our police force do what they want to do, which is keep Anaheim residents safe,” she said in a Thursday phone interview.
“As a city that was built by immigrants and whose economy would crash if immigrants felt unsafe to open up their small businesses or go to their jobs in the resort district, it’s imperative that we let people know that we are going to continue to be a welcoming city.”
An Uncertain Future
Balma said the threats from the Trump administration over enforcing federal immigration laws is moving to unprecedented ground.
“We’re going where there are no roads,” she said, adding it also raises questions about how the federal government interacts with state and local governments.
“That is not how a constitutional democracy is supposed to operate,” Balma said.
State officials are already pushing back.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state’s sanctuary law is clear – Golden State law enforcement officials are not allowed to use taxpayer dollars to enforce federal immigration laws.
“This is a scare tactic, plain and simple. The President is attempting to intimidate and bully state and local law enforcement into carrying out his mass deportation agenda for him,” he said in a Jan. 22 news release.
“We’ll be prepared to take legal action if the Trump Administration’s vague threats turn to illegal action.”
OC Sheriff Don Barnes said it’s not deputies’ job to help track down undocumented immigrants, and that their work is focused on criminal violations of state and local law.
“These laws are enforced equally, without bias, and without regard for one’s immigration status,” Barnes said in a Thursday statement. “We do not interfere in the work of other law enforcement agencies carrying out their mission.”
But Barnes also highlighted how state law still allows sheriffs to transfer “certain serious offenders to ICE,” and that he believes the state’s current sanctuary laws make it harder for law enforcement to do their jobs.
“The ongoing crisis at our border and impacts on local community pose a significant risk to public safety,” Barnes said. “Full cooperation with federal agencies like ICE would put California law enforcement in a better position to mitigate that risk.”
Bonta has already filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented residents born in the U.S. after Feb. 19 claiming it violates the constitution’s 14th amendment.
More than 20 other states have also joined in on challenging the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order to try to end birthright citizenship, according to the Associated Press.
There are roughly 967,000 foreign-born residents in Orange County, according to estimates from 2023 by the U.S. Census bureau.
According to the Migration Policy Institute – a nonprofit think tank with a wide range of funders – there’s an estimated 236,000 undocumented immigrants living in Orange County, 73% of whom are from Mexico and Central America, while 21% are from Asia.
Balma said she expects the immigration situation to play out in court.
“I think local officials should expect that they are going to be investigated, prosecuted,” she said.
Will OC Cities Cooperate With a Federal Immigration Crackdown?
While it’s unclear how the federal immigration enforcement threat is going to play out in Orange County, a host of cities – including the OC Board of Supervisors – admonished California’s law in 2018.
At the time, county Supervisors also voted to sign onto a federal lawsuit against the sanctuary laws, which were upheld in federal court in 2019.
And while Surf City is again suing the state over the laws, the town lost a similar suit in 2020.
In Santa Ana – the county’s only sanctuary city – two officials have pledged to protect immigrants at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Councilwoman Lopez said it’s time for the city to double down on their commitment to protect residents regardless of their immigration status and adopt policies that protect and provide resources for undocumented people.
Lopez said she has asked city staff to create an informational tab on immigration rights and resources on the city website and that local police officers are mandated to abide by Santa Ana’s Sanctuary City ordinance.
“In past practices, our department has been there when ICE has made arrests, and so we really want to make sure that we are closing these loopholes, and that we share that information, not just with the city manager, but with the chief, and that we are all in alignment that this is not allowed to happen in our city,” she said.
She also said the city will be focusing on three main initiatives in response to Trump’s directives: beefing up the city’s sanctuary city law, bringing back a resident advisory group to make recommendations on sanctuary policies and allocating money to support residents impacted by ICE raids.
Officials in Anaheim say they will abide by the state’s sanctuary law.
Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said in an email Wednesday that the city isn’t directly involved with enforcing immigration laws and leaves that up to federal agencies.
Lyster added the city will follow state law and would only differ from it through court or judge’s order.
“At the same time, we do not obstruct any federal or other law enforcement in our city,” Lyster wrote. “Where immigration is enforced in Anaheim, we ask that it be fair, lawful and focused on public safety.”
Mayor Aitken said her main concern is to protect residents and reassure immigrant communities in Anaheim that they are safe.
“They should go on living and conducting their lives as they normally do,” she said “Our police officers want people that are the victims of crime to feel comfortable reporting those crimes to their local police department and not live in fear.”
Aitken also said the city is working to help educate immigrant residents on their rights.
“We are developing a handout for our residents, for them to know their rights and to have contact information to nonprofits in the city that can answer their specific questions,” she said.
“We are really confident that our policies that are in place are enough to protect our residents, but we need to make sure that we take that second step, which is educating and reminding people about these policies.”
Editor’s note: Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Reporter Noah Biesiada contributed to this story.
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.
Spencer Custodio is the civic editor. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio.
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