Santa Ana, CA – On November 1, Community Service Organization Orange County (CSO OC) responded to a call to action of the Legalization for All Network and agitated at a huge Dia de los Muertos event in downtown Santa Ana. Hundreds of Chicanos came to honor their ancestors and build huge altars along 4th Street, and CSO OC was with them to demand legalization for all of the undocumented, stop the deportations, ICE out of the courts, community control of the police, and jail killer cops.

A Chicano-majority city, Santa Ana has suffered the terror of ICE raids and arrests for months. In May, masked agents started coming to the courthouse in white vans to detain immigrants who came for their mandatory court hearings. At the Dia de los Muertos event, CSO’s Immigration Committee collected signatures for their “Stop ICE Arrests at the Courts” campaign, which demands that judges of the Santa Ana Immigration Court move all immigration hearings online to protect people from coming in-person and being detained by ICE.

Despite the Trump administration’s attacks since May, including occupation by Department of Homeland Security officers and open ICE raids in streets and workplaces, many Chicanos decided to attend Dia de los Muertos anyway. They were greeted by signs designed by CSO OC which honored each of the 25 ICE detention deaths under the Trump administration, declaring, “Honor our martyrs! Fight for the living!” This marks one of the deadliest years for in custody/detention deaths since the early 2000s, but Santaneros are becoming more defiant in the face of Trump’s racist attacks.

CSO OC’s Police Accountability Committee (PAC) posted flyers showing recent victims of police killings in Santa Ana and Fullerton. Each of these killings highlights a pattern of violence against Chicanos and oppressed peoples that is ramping up under the Trump administration. Trump signed an executive order in April to “unleash the police” that seeks to further militarize law enforcement and make them even more unaccountable. CSO stressed the importance of community control of the police to fight back against racist police terror.

CSO OC also built an altar next to Casa Linda Furniture to honor the life of Noe Rodriguez, who was killed at that site on December 1, 2024 by SAPD officers Luis Casillas and Isaac Ibarra. PAC posted flyers throughout the city to tell his story and demand that the city fire killer cops Casillas and Ibarra. They also posted flyers and petitioned to honor the life of Imanol Gonzalez, a 19-year-old Santanero who was killed by off-duty LAPD officer Carlos Coronel. CSO demands that Coronel be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

If you would like to get involved with CSO OC, you can contact them via Instagram on CSO.OC or their hotline at 949-414-4601. You can also support their petitions at tinyurl.com/NoICECourts, tinyurl.com/Justice-for-Noe and tinyurl.com/Justice-for-Imanol.

#SantaAnaCA #CA #ImmigrantRights #CSOOC

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