Immigrant rights advocates force County to comply with TRUTH Act
requirements under California law
ORANGE COUNTY, CA — After repeated requests from community members, the Orange County Supervisors will host a legally-required public forum to provide details of the county’s collaboration with federal immigration enforcement agencies. The OC Sheriffs and Supervisors have been called out for siding with President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, and against the county’s own immigrant residents.
“That OC Supervisors avoided complying with TRUTH Act requirements until after midterms, and now host a public forum in the middle of the workday, calls into question their commitment to transparency and to OC residents,” said Ana Ramirez, an OC resident and advocate at Resilience OC. “It really shows how out of touch OC Supervisors and Sheriffs are with the California consensus, but we’ll be there to call on them to come clean about their collusion with ICE and anti-immigrant groups,” added Ramirez.
Under the California TRUTH Act, the OC Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department are required to hold a forum to gather community input and provide information and statistics on the extent ICE is granted access to the County Jail and to immigrant detainees’ information; the number of people detained for immigration purposes; and the demographics of people detained. On June 27, 2018, the OC Rapid Response Network (OCRRN) sent a letter to the OC Board of Supervisors requesting they set a date for the “TRUTH forum,” which you can access here.
After the OCRRN submitted its initial letter in June and failed to receive a response from the OC Board of Supervisors, Sameer Ahmed from the ACLU of Southern California filed a subsequent letter to the board requesting that they adhere to state law and hold a mandatory Truth Forum in October.
Immigrant rights advocates and community members will hold a press conference and rally in front of the OC Board of Supervisors chambers the day of the forum (December 4th).
For several months, OC-based groups and community members have repeatedly called on the County Sheriff and Supervisors to stop enabling anti-immigrant groups in the county. On October 12, groups signed a letter to OC Sheriff Hutchens and Undersheriff Barnes over their siding with ICE and anti-immigrant groups, over its own residents.
What: Public Forum on the County’s Relationships with ICE
When: December 4th @ 9:30 AM
Where: 333 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana, CA 92701
