While Santa Cruz just dealt with an immigration raid, Hollister’s undocumented immigrants have been safe to this point.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting immigration raids across the country. A raid took place in Santa Cruz on Feb. 13, but there isn’t ICE activity in Hollister, Police Chief David Westrick told the Free Lance.
“The first I’ve heard was Santa Cruz,” Westrick said Thursday. “I haven’t heard of any other raids. Back in the ’70s they had them, but there haven’t been those kinds of raids since 1990.”
Westrick said federal agencies contact local jurisdictions with which they work and that local police had zero contact with ICE. Regional ICE spokespersons were not immediately available for comment.
Recent raids stem from President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant executive orders.
In September 2016, ICE moved its regional office from San Jose to Morgan Hill. The office is an Enforcement and Removal Operations sub-office. Protesters converged on the Morgan Hill office on Feb. 20 and carried signs that denounced Trump’s immigration policies and enforcement.
The peaceful protest was in front of the ICE office on Vineyard Court, just down the street from the Morgan Hill Police station. Multiple organizations organized the protested. They included the Community Agency for Resources and Advocacy Services and the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers.
Headlines hit home in Hollister and San Juan Bautista on Feb. 16 when several businesses closed down in support of “A Day Without Immigrants,” a national strike held in protest of ICE arrests of immigrants across the nation.
San Benito County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Eric Taylor was not immediately available for comment to discuss the county end.
