ORANGE : Protest Planned Over Raid Tactics

Immigrant-rights activists and residents of an apartment complex raided last month by federal immigration officials say they will demonstrate outside City Hall tonight to protest the raid.

About 100 residents of the Orange Park Villas apartments will be transported by van to City Hall where they will picket before the 7 p.m. City Council meeting, said a spokesman for Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, the rights group organizing the demonstration.

The group will protest what it calls the city’s “collusion” with the Immigration and Naturalization Service during a raid Sept. 18 that ended with the arrest of about 200 people said to be illegal immigrants. Officers began the raid by picking up dayworkers along East Chapman Avenue and ended in the low-income, largely Latino, 260-unit apartment complex at 3138 E. Maple Ave.

Residents of the complex have complained that city code enforcement officials helped Border Patrol authorities gain access to their apartments and that local police should not have been involved. Residents also alleged that officials threatened them and broke doors and one window during the raid, said Jay Lindsey, Hermandad Mexicana spokesman.

“We’re not so much protesting the raid itself but the tactics that were used and the collusions between the Police Department, the code enforcement officials and the INS,” Lindsey said.

City officials have denied any collusion with federal authorities. A follow-up internal investigation by INS officials found nothing improper about the raid.

Labor union officials and representatives from immigrant-rights groups and the Latino business community are expected to participate in the protest and speak before the City Council.

“The city has not commented much on this issue and we really hope to put them on the hot seat and try to get some response,” Lindsey said.

City officials expect an overflow crowd because Orange residents who support city officials and the INS action are also expected to attend. In the first five days after the raid, residents contacting City Hall on the matter supported the raid 42 to 5. A loudspeaker will be hooked up outside the council chambers to accommodate the crowd, said City Clerk Marilyn J. Jensen.