07 Mar Santa Ana Must Not Backtrack on ICE Contract

For Immediate Release // Excuse Cross-Posting
March 7, 2017

Contact: Hairo Cortes, OCIYU, 657.272.3476, hairo@www.ociyu.org

Santa Ana, CA – Less than two weeks since ICE notified the city of Santa Ana that it will cancel their existing immigrant detention contract within 90 days, Councilman Jose Solorio is gearing up to attempt to save the the city’s immoral immigrant detention business, and has placed a discussion on the contract on the city council’s agenda for the March 7, 2017 meeting. In response, organizers from Orange County Immigrant Youth United (OCIYU), Resilience OC (ROC), and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement (Familia) are mobilizing community members to attend the council meeting and speak against any effort to salvage the city’s prison for profit partnership with ICE.

Ahead of the meeting Faby Jacome, OCIYU’s Deportation Defense Organizer; Jorge Gutierrez, Familia’s Executive Director; and Robertx Herrera, ROC’s Community Engagement Advocate, issued the following statements:

“Councilman Solorio’s attempts to perform CPR on the moribund prison for profit agreement between Santa Ana and ICE is malicious and dangerous. Though the councilman has long attempted to publicly frame his support for the ICE contract under the guise of looking out for the well being of the human beings caged inside his jail, the community knows that this is far from the truth, and that the real reason stems from the political debt he owes to the Santa Ana Police Officer’s Association which has long championed the prison for profit business model at the heart of the country’s mass incarceration epidemic. If anyone on the council wants to claim that they are looking out for the well being of the immigrants in their jail then they must allow the contract to expire, and instead take every action possible and use every resource at their disposal to advocate for the release of all people inside,” Faby Jacome said.

“Santa Ana’s City Council must not backtrack or make attempts to extend the cancelation of the ICE contract. The community has been loud and clear about we want: ICE out of Santa Ana. The council should invest its time and resources to pressure ICE to release as many detainees as possible and invest in legal representation,” Jorge Gutierrez said.

“Resilience OC  whole heartedly rejects any expansion of Santa Ana’s ICE contract. As we have said time and time again, the City of Santa Ana should not be in the jail-business of immigration detention. Once again, immigrant rights groups and the LGBT community are united against aligning ourselves with a government who continually seeks to undermine our livelihood. We will further continue to advocate for the release of the immigrant community inside detention, especially the transgender women currently at the Santa Ana City Jail. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido,” Robertx Herrera said.

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