"Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm whether they were immigration agents or imposters. In six of the calls to Santa Ana police, residents described what they were seeing as kidnappings."
"During a tense public meeting days later, Mayor Valerie Amezcua and the City Council asked their police chief whether there was anything they could do to rein in the federal agents - even if only to ban the use of masks. The answer was a resounding no. Plus, filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security was likely to go nowhere because the office that once handled them had been dismantled."
"When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city's emergency response system. "He's bleeding," one caller said about a person he saw yanked from a car wash lot and beaten. "They dumped him into a white van. It doesn't say ICE." One woman's voice shook as she asked, "What kind of police go around without license plates?" And then this from another: "Should we just run from them?""
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted operations in Santa Ana that prompted panicked emergency calls as masked and plainclothes men ambushed people and forced them into unmarked vehicles. Witnesses could not confirm whether the men were agents or imposters, and multiple callers described the incidents as kidnappings, with at least one person beaten and loaded into a white van. City leaders sought ways to limit the federal actions, including banning masks, but local police said they lacked authority. Complaints to the Department of Homeland Security were unlikely to succeed because the office that once handled them had been dismantled, leaving accountability limited.
Read at Truthout
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