For Immediate Release // Please Excuse Cross Posting
Friday, October 12th, 2018
Contact: Armando Carmona, 323-250-3018; armando@ndlon.org

Two Dozen Groups Call Out OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchens & Undersheriff Don Barnes for Siding with Hate Group Against California Law

ORANGE COUNTY, CA – On Friday morning, a broad coalition of Orange County neighborhood, student, immigrant and civil rights organizations denounced O.C. Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and Undersheriff Don Barnes for siding with President’s Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and for seeking to expand ICE’s capacity to separate families in the county.

The letter blasts the OCSD’s leadership for siding with a recent campaign guided by a known hate group, FAIR, in an orchestrated campaign against California’s pro-immigrant laws. The letter reads in part,

“Your support for 287(g) and your active opposition to the California Values Act exemplify the [Orange County Sheriff Department’s] counterproductive and harmful positions. … While ICE is set on expanding family separations, the OCSD has done everything it can to expand their enforcement capacity in the County.”

The 25 organizations that signed the letter represent a broad coalition of groups that serve immigrant, Latino, Asian-American, African-America, Indigenous, and working families in Orange County. The letter calls Sheriff Hutchens and Undersheriff Barnes the “most visible” proponents of Trump’s immigration agenda in Orange County.

Read the full letter here.

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