The new Consul of Mexico in Santa Ana and two of his top aides came to Department Headquarters on Friday to meet Assistant Sheriff Jack Anderson, Acting as the Sheriff-Coroner.
“We want to insure that all foreign dignitaries are safe in Orange County,” Acting Sheriff Anderson told the trio of Mexican diplomats. He told Consul Carlos Rodriguez y Quezada that the Department had a good working relationship with his predecessor.
When problems arose, the Department and the consulate staff worked together to solve them, Acting Sheriff Anderson said. When the consulate staff found itself the target of a protest in San Juan Capistrano, the Department stood by to insure the protest was peaceful.
“It’s not our job to take sides,” Acting Sheriff Anderson said. “We will only take action if we see someone breaking the law.”
Consul Rodriguez y Quezada was accompanied to the meeting by Deputy Consul Manuel Herrera and Vice Consul Connie Capulin.
He added that a controversial issue in the community is illegal immigration.
“We do work with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in our jails but that is to so we can deport criminals,” he told the diplomats. “We deported about 4,000 criminals last year but that number will go down each year. It will go down because those criminals will be gone. We don’t want them going back to their communities to victimize the residents.”
He said the Department is not enforcing federal immigration law on the street because of limited resources and because it is in the interest of law and order to have crime victims and witnesses confident to call the Department without fear that they will be deported.
“We can’t help them if they don’t call us,” he said. He said the Department’s job is to protect the community from criminals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has praised the Department for its leadership role in using local law enforcement resources to combat illegal immigration.
Acting Sheriff Anderson added that he has been meeting with all sides in the illegal immigration issue to implement policies that will best protect the community.
“Mission Viejo is the safest city in the U.S.,” Acting Sheriff Anderson said. “If you took our 10 cities in South County and measured them as one city of over 500,000, it would be the safest city of 500,000 or over in the country.”
Consul Rodriguez y Quezada said that he plans to take a more active part than in the past to help Mexican citizens living in Orange County. He emphasized the need for his staff to work in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department.
He said the immigration controversy is complicated.