Groups to protest in Costa Mesa

Saturday's march meant to rally against city's plan to enforce federal immigration law.

By Ana Facio Contreras

(Published: July 6, 2006)

A Santa Ana-based group will hold a protest march in Costa Mesa on Saturday to oppose the city's illegal immigration enforcement plan, the closing of a job center and the placement of National Guard troops at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tonantzin Collective members, Orange Coast College students, Orange County Student Uprising representatives and Costa Mesa bike club members, will meet at 4 p.m. at 19th Street and Placentia Avenue. At 5 they will begin their march to Triangle Square at 19th Street and Newport Boulevard.

Once there, representatives from the various groups will speak. Santa Ana music group Son del Centro will perform. Tonantzin Collective is the protest's main organizer. The group is named after Tonantzin, an Aztec goddess.

Oscar Sink, spokesman for the activist group, expects between 200 and 300 people to join the protest.

The activists will carry placards that will read "No human being is illegal" and the same message in Spanish, "Ningun ser humano es illegal."

Sink, a Santa Ana resident, said the peaceful demonstration the organization has planned is not just focused on illegal immigration.

"The check and balances and the separation of powers are being threatened," Sink said. President "Bush wants to combine the Border Patrol with the armed forces, and ... [Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor] wants to combine local police with federal immigration enforcement, and it's an encroachment on some of our basic freedoms."

Mansoor replied: "I guess their support of illegal immigration includes the three sex offenders that were arrested by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] in Costa Mesa. And how any of the candidates who are running for council can support this group or illegal immigration is beyond me."

Sink said his group is made up of people from a variety of ethnic groups, although most of the members are Latino.

People who believe immigrants are being unfairly targeted under the U.S.'s illegal immigration discussion are encouraged to attend the event, he said.

"There's an attack on our community, an attack on our freedom, and an attack on human beings," he said. "The attempt to criminalize immigrants is unfair; it's hateful. So we're trying to promote solidarity and tolerance."