Protesters gather at Santa Ana federal building: ‘This is the healthiest thing to do'
Multiple raids had been conducted across Santa Ana that morning, including at Home Depots and restaurants and in industrial areas of the city.
'I feel enraged,' said Councilmember Jessie Lopez, standing with the crowd. 'If [U.S. Atty.] Bill Essayli cares about criminals, he should start at the White house.'
Essayli last week sent a letter to Santa Ana, warning the sanctuary city about its proposal to pass a resolution that would require the Santa Ana Police Department to inform residents whenever they received a courtesy call from Immigration and Customs Enforcement alerting them about upcoming raids.
Bethany Anderson was with a group of friends from Fullerton, where they had been receiving calls Monday. They were standing in front of a driveway that led to a small gated garage where unmarked white vans had been driving in and out all day.
'I knew they would bring people here' to the federal building, said Anderson, who is accredited by the Department of Justice as a legal representative. 'This is not a jail, so we have no idea about the quality of conditions inside, so that's very worrisome.
Suddenly, she saw movement in the driveway and grabbed the bullhorn hanging from her shoulder. 'We see you!' Anderson shouted as protesters screamed, 'Shame!' and rushed to see what was going on.
'We see you, private security guards! You don't have to do this!'
The Orange County Rapid Response Network posted addresses and photos of locations where ICE had conducted raids in Fountain Valley. The group's co-director, Casey Conway, said he was happy to see so many people show up in Santa Ana.
'But this isn't just today. This has been every day for three weeks. We're super overwhelmed right now.'
The crowd held pro-immigrant and anti-Trump signs and waved Mexican flags.
Someone passed around bottled waters and masks as a young woman chanted on a bullhorn, 'Move ICE, get out the way!' to artist Ludacris' song 'Move.'
Federal police stood by the building's entrance, where some took photos of the crowd. When they went back inside, the crowd started chanting, '¡Quiere llorar!' — 'He wants to cry,' a common insult among Mexican soccer and rock fans.
Alicia Rojas looked on from the edge of a sidewalk. The Colombian native had her amnesty application denied in the federal building as a child.
'This is all triggering,' said the 48-year-old artist.
Now a U.S. citizen, Rojas grew up in Mission Viejo during the era of Prop. 187 and remembered all the racism against people like her at the time.
Seeing so many young people out to protest made her 'hopeful, but I'm also worried. I've seen how the response has been to these peaceful protests. This administration has no capacity to be American.'
She looked on. 'I feel rage inside, but this is the healthiest thing to do. More than anything. I'm here to look after the kids.'
As the vans came in and out throughout the afternoon, activists at first blocked them but later backed down when federal agents shot pepper balls into the ground. Among those hit was Conway, who rushed to the side to have their reddened eyes washed out with water.
'I need someone to be on deescalation,' Conway gasped. The task fell to Tui Dashark. Dressed in neon green Doc Martens, an olive hat and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt, he led the crowd through chants including 'No firman nada' (Don't sign anything).
'Please stop throwing water bottles,' Dashark said at one point. 'They're just water bottles to us. But to them, it's assault with a deadly weapon.'
The crowd calmed down.
'I'm proud of you guys for not escalating,' Dashark said. 'You're the f— real ones.'
He turned to the gate driveway, where federal agents had quietly returned.
'You're so cool man,' Dashark said in a sarcastic voice as the crowd laughed. ' I wonder, what kind of person is up thinking, 'I want to lock up kids as a career?'
As the day continued, the situation eventually evolved into the old children's game of Red Rover: Protesters would get too close and throw water bottles, federal agents would shoot pepper balls and eventually escalate to flash-bang grenades and tear gas. After a couple of hours, the crowd moved a couple of hundred feet to the east to Sasscer Park, named after a Santa Ana police officer killed in the 1960s by a member of the Black Panther Party. Local activists call it Black Panther Park.
By 5 p.m., the protesters numbered at least 500. T-shirts emblazoned with logos of beloved Santa Ana Chicano institutions colored the scene: Suavecito. Gunthers. Funk Freaks. Santa Ana High. El Centro Cultural de México. People took turns on bullhorns to urge calm and to unite. But then another protester saw federal agents gathering at the federal building again.
'We gotta make them work overtime!' a young woman proclaimed on a bullhorn. 'They don't make enough money. let's go back!'
The crowd rushed back to the federal building. Eventually, Santa Ana police officers arrived to create a line and declare an unlawful assembly.
For the next four hours, the scene was akin to a party broken up occasionally by tear gas and less-than-lethal projectiles. Cars cruised on nearby streets blasting Rage against the Machine, sierreño music and the tunes of Panteón Rococó, a socialism-tinged Mexican ska group. Someone used AutoTune to shout profanities against the police, drawing giggles from the overwhelmingly Gen Z crowd.
A Latina woman who gave her name only as Flor arrived with her teenage daughter. It was their first protest.
'We live in a MAGA-ass town and saw this on television,' Flor said. 'I grew up just down the street from here. No way can we let this happen here.'
Nearby, Giovanni Lopez blew on a loud plastic horn. It was his first protest as well.
'I'm all for them deporting the criminals,' said the Santa Ana resident. He wore a white poncho bearing the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. 'But that's not what they're doing. My wife is Honduran and she's not a citizen. She's scared to go to her work now even though she's legal. I told her not to be afraid.'
The Santa Ana police slowly pushed the protesters out of Sasscer Park. Some, like Brayn Nestor, bore bloody welts from the rubber bullets that had hit them.
'Does someone have a cigarette?' he asked out loud in Spanish. The Mexico City native said he was there to 'support the raza, güey.' He was in obvious pain, but the trademarks arachidonic humor of his native city still bubbled through.
'It's chido [cool] that they hit me,' he proclaimed to anyone who would listen. 'Es perro, güey [it's cool, dog]. So the world knows what jerks those pigs are.'
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