Orange County on the edge as ICE raids move to predominantly Latino communities

On Tuesday, Orange County elected officials and community leaders condemned the presence of ICE immigration officers in their communities. Authorities confirmed that federal authorities carried out raids in different locations of Santa Ana. NBC4 reported one at the Home Depot at MacArthur and Harbor boulevards. It is unknown how many people were detained. 

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento visited the Home Depot at Edinger near the 55 Freeway. He said there were reports that at least six people were detained and arrested.

“We know that the shift and the focus is going to be away from L.A. County and moving south here into our county in Orange,” he said. 

Sarmiento advised the community to keep in touch with others to let them know about what’s going on, especially the day laborers who are looking for work.

“These are people who are not criminals. These are people who are simply trying to feed their family,” he said.

Pleading to go back to normal

U.S. Congressman Lou Correa (D-46) said this is not a battle of “us versus them” and said everybody is working hard to make California the fourth-largest economy in the world. 

On his social media, he said he was in his hometown, Santa Ana, near the civic center on Sunday, and everything seemed “boring, quiet,” and by Monday, things changed drastically.

He sent a message to the federal agencies, highlighting that Santa Ana is a hard-working, blue-collar community that pays taxes and cares for each other.

 “These people that you're arresting, these people that you're detaining, are the parents of the children that my children went to school with,” he said. “Work with us. This is the wrong way to go about enforcing any laws in the books.”

He said terrorizing the people to panic is going to be counterproductive, pleading for Santa Ana to become once again the “peaceful, boring city made up of hard-working taxpayers with and without documents.”

Gloria Alvarado, director of the Orange County Labor Federation, said it is very frustrating to see workers being attacked and prosecuted. She said it is very upsetting to see that people being arrested are not being treated with dignity. 

“We are asking all of our leadership, all of our elected officials, to look at what's happening in Orange County, look at what happened in L.A. Please think about our communities. Keep us safe again,” she pleaded. 

Demonstrations have been taking place in Santa Ana for the past two days in front of the Federal Building, later moving to the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse at 411 W. Fourth St. There were several arrests Monday night, but the exact number is unknown. 

On Tuesday night, hundreds of protestors gathered again in front of the Santa Ana federal building. At 8:30 p.m. authorities called it an unlawful assembly. It is unknown if there were any arrests.