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Arevalo, Evelyn From: Karen Hernandez <karen@centerforhumanrights.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 4, 2025 2:57 PM To: eComment Subject: Fwd: Agenda Item 21: Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana.Use caution when opening attachments or links. Apologies, I typed in the wrong email in error. Please see below. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Karen Hernandez<karen o centerforhumanri h ts.org> Date: Tue, Feb 4, 2025 at 2:54 PM Subject: Agenda Item 21: Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group To: <Comment@santa-ana.org> Cc: <vamezcua@santa-ana.org>, <PBacerra@santa-ana.org>, <TPhan o santa-ana.org>, <DPenaloza@santa- ana org>, <JessieLopez o,santa-ana.org>, <JRyanHernandez c@santa-ana.org>, <bvazquez o,santa-ana.org> Dear Mayor Amezcua and City Councilmembers, My name is Karen Hernandez, I am a grassroots organizer with OC Rapid Response Network(OCRRN), a policy advocate with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL), and a proud immigrant from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico with roots in Orange County since the age of three. My experiences growing up in Southern California as an undocumented person and seeing my friends and family members unjustly detained and jailed due to bad policies, and racial profiling have informed my activism throughout my life and engrained a deep commitment to the safety and well-being of our immigrant community. In both my roles with OCRRN and CHRCL, our organizations provide a broad range of support to immigrants and to legal service providers who serve immigrants, including public education and training. We respond to unlawful local, state, and federal policies that impact our community members by engaging in systemic legal and nonlegal advocacy. This advocacy impacts hundreds of thousands of people, including some with criminal histories - none of which we ever leave behind and all of whom we want to protect. I am writing to express my very strong support for moving forward with Agenda Item 21 and bringing back the Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group, a community oversight mechanism written within the ordinance to facilitate trust and transparency between the City of Santa Ana and its immigrant residents. In January 2017, the Council passed a robust Ordinance with language stating that they would establish a task force made up of community members to advise the City Council on policies related to the ordinance, including helping craft policies to protect immigrants as well as recommend ways to use and oversee a city fund to help immigrants fight deportation in court. This advisory group has not met for some time and with so much uncertainty, now is the time for the City of Santa Ana to reaffirm its support for the immigrant community and revive the Sanctuary Policy Advisory Group to help facilitate trust and transparency between the City of Santa Ana and its immigrant residents. Santa Ana's status as a sanctuary city builds on years of community-based struggles fighting for the political, economic, and human rights of our vibrant immigrant communities. I stand firm with Councilwoman Lopez's request for the advisory group to reconvene within 30 days to provide updates to the city and recommendations 1