Quick Take
Local government and nonprofit leaders joined Rep. Jimmy Panetta Tuesday afternoon to reassure Santa Cruz County’s immigrant community that they are committed to supporting them as deportation fears continue.
Local government officials and nonprofit leaders say they remain committed to helping and supporting Santa Cruz County’s immigrant community as deportation fears continue.
Several officials, including Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell and Sheriff Chris Clark, joined Rep. Jimmy Panetta, whose congressional district represents a vast majority of the county, on Tuesday in Aptos to share how they’ve continued to support immigrants, who often are afraid to seek services due their fears of being detained and deported by federal officials.
Panetta said that the “ever-present” fear many immigrants have been feeling over the past two years was caused by the federal immigration policies implemented by the Trump administration.
“They’re affecting the essential workers that we have in our communities. They’re affecting the criminal justice system,” Panetta said. “And it’s affecting the trust, not just in our criminal justice system, but all of our institutions.”
Clark and Rosell maintained that Santa Cruz County does not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. “We are here to conduct our core mission, and that is public safety,” said Rosell.
In the past six months, Clark said his department has received less than a dozen courtesy call notifications from ICE agents. Lookout previously reported that immigration officials have visited the county at least 39 times since the second Trump administration began its deportation efforts.
There have not been large-scale raids in the county like in other areas around the state, rather any immigration activity reported in the community have been targeted arrests, said Clark.
Clark told Lookout that his department has chosen to not apply to about six federal grants because they would require recipients to interact with immigration officials. The grants ranged in value and related to things such as equipment and community policing, he said.
“We used to see those with no strings,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing it with strings tied to immigration enforcement. We obviously aren’t going to participate in that.”
Last year, Clark vowed to no longer apply for a grant that provided federal officials with information on undocumented people incarcerated in Santa Cruz County jails. He confirmed to Lookout that he remains committed to that promise.
With the school year kicking off this month, County Superintendent of Schools Farris Sabbah is reassuring families that schools across the county are a safe space for them, regardless of immigration status. Sabbah added that federal agents have not tried to make arrests at or near schools.
“Even when students are physically present, that fear follows them into the classroom and can make it harder for them to concentrate, to participate, to connect with others, and to focus on learning and to be successful,” he said.
Other community leaders, such as Second Harvest CEO Erica Padilla Chavez, reminded the immigrant community that the resources their organizations provide are still available to them. Padilla Chavez added that the food bank offers home delivery services to families that might be afraid to leave their homes.
Tuesday’s press conference is a follow up from a gathering in January, where local officials said they’re committed to protecting the county’s most vulnerable residents from immigration raids in the wake of immigration agents’ violent enforcement actions in Minneapolis.
Since then, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance barring ICE agents from using county-owned facilities, such as buildings, parking lots and parks, for enforcement purposes. Other cities and institutions, like the City of Watsonville and Cabrillo College, passed similar resolutions earlier this year.
The county also signed onto a lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County in June that seeks to block a planned federal immigration enforcement facility near Gilroy.
