Residents react to immigration enforcement efforts on the Central Coast

We are learning more about federal immigration enforcement efforts on the Central Coast. Operations have now stretched into Santa Cruz County, where authorities say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will be for the next few days.

Since Monday, there have been removal efforts in King City, Soledad, Salinas and Watsonville. Area police chiefs were warned beforehand, saying ICE had warrants and were looking for “criminal undocumented people.”

“They had some specific contacts that they were going to try and locate,” Soledad Police Chief Eric Sills said. “As a courtesy, they always notify us when something like that happens because as you can imagine, if you have armed agents or something like that in your city, we need to be aware of it.”

Sills said his department was not asked to participate in the sweeps that resulted in ten arrests so far. Nine were taken into custody in King City, another one in Watsonville.

Local activist group Sanctuary Santa Cruz told KION they heard a man was detained at his workplace in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz police said they were not aware of any operations happening there. We also reached out to Greenfield and Gonzales police, along with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, they had not received any word of ICE in their jurisdictions.

ICE officials have been tight-lipped about releasing information, but released a statement on Thursday morning:

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers conduct enforcement actions every day around the country and here in Northern California as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to uphold national security, public safety and border security. The agency’s operations are targeted and lead driven, prioritizing individuals who pose a risk to our communities. For operational security reasons, however, we don’t discuss ongoing or future operations publicly.”

While ICE may be looking for violent criminals, there are always concerns anyone undocumented could be at risk.

“The priorities under President Obama have disappeared and now anyone who has committed any crime, included being here illegally, qualifies for deportation,” immigration attorney Blanca Zarazua said. “And so, the old scheme is out and the new scheme is in with everyone vulnerable.”

Because the feds have the authority to come back whenever they want, some feel it’s not fair.

“There’s a lot of people working hard here,” Olivia Gonzalez said. “Some do deserve to be taken but others don’t. And they are just working to take the bread home.”

Others agreed that the criminals should be removed.

“Yeah the thing is, if they are going to get the people with the bad records, then yeah, we support this idea,” Gabriel Slik said. “It’s going to clean the area, it’s going to be better. But if they are going to take the people that don’t have any record, any bad record, then that’s not fair.”

KION has formally requested more information regarding these sweeps, including the names of those detained and the alleged crimes that warrant deportation.

We will continue to monitor any new developments.