Activists clashed in Costa Mesa on Tuesday night over the city's decision to become the nation's first authorizing its police department to enforce federal immigration laws.
One man was arrested on suspicion of disrupting a public assembly.
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City's Border Policy Sparks Outcry
Immigration activists sound off on Costa Mesa council members' decision to train police to screen arrestees for possible deportation.
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The City Council's 3-2 vote last month to train police officers to work with federal immigration officials and sheriff's deputies to determine the immigration status of suspects arrested for other crimes has made the city a battleground in the national immigration controversy.
Mayor Allan Mansoor, who proposed the idea, has stressed that enforcement will focus on those accused of serious crimes and that no random sweeps will occur.
"The public has been demanding this," said Mansoor, who is also an Orange County sheriff's deputy.
About 80 activists massed before Tuesday's council meeting, singing in Spanish and carrying hand-painted signs reading "Nobody Is Illegal" and "Mansoor Is a Bigot." Other signs proclaimed the United States the property of Mexico and Americans as the interlopers.
Some 40 opponents of illegal immigration also gathered, some shouting, "America is a nation of laws!"
The matter wasn't on the council's agenda, and those who had voted for it -- Mansoor and council members Eric Bever and Gary Monahan -- made no move to reconsider their decision. But the meeting served as catalyst for a confrontation that many predicted would be repeated throughout the country as the issue of illegal immigration heats up in federal, state and local elections this year.
Many immigrants live in Costa Mesa's Westside, an enclave of older tract homes and apartment buildings, markets and ethnic restaurants. The 2000 census showed that 29% of the people living in the city of 108,000 were foreign born. Of those, 66% were from Latin America.
About three dozen speakers lined up to alternately commend and condemn the council for allowing local immigration enforcement, and for a separate vote to close a day laborer job center that had matched employers and workers for 17 years.
"This is a nation of law, and people who come here should respect our laws," said Laura Carder of Costa Mesa, who supported the action. "You're supposed to come through a screening process to get here." Francisco Jorge said he drove to Costa Mesa from Mojave to address the council because illegal immigration is "completely out of control."
