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December 19, 2016 <br />DELIVERED IN- PERSON <br />Santa Ana City <br />20 Civic Center Plaza <br />Santa Ana, CA 92701 <br />RE: Sanctuary Policy <br />Dear Santa Ana City Council and City Staff, <br />We, the Orange County Immigrant Rights Policy Working Group, submit this letter to urge the <br />City of Santa Ana to follow through on its promise to make Santa Ana a true sanctuary city by <br />enacting into ordinance all of the terms contained in the Sanctuary City Resolution passed by the <br />City Council on Tuesday, December 6. Numerous community organizations and members came <br />out in support of the resolution on that day and provided input on how it could be strengthened <br />by adopting language recommended by this Working Group. The recommendations of this <br />Working Group were ultimately adopted by the Council in the final version of the Resolution. <br />We were glad to see that the City intends to move forward with introduction of a Sanctuary <br />Ordinance on Tuesday, December 20. However, the proposed language of that ordinance <br />backtracks from the commitments the City made to its immigrant community on December 6 in <br />several important ways. We are gravely concerned that these differences will dilute the <br />protections for the immigrant community and undermine the very reasons to have a sanctuary <br />ordinance in the first place. Below are our main concerns and the changes we demand that the <br />City Council make to ensure our communities feel respected and safe in the City they call home. <br />(1) Sections 3 -5 (Protection of Sensitive Information) <br />In the proposed ordinance, the City has inexplicably singled out immigration status from other <br />types of sensitive information and created separate sections to address each. In Section 4, the <br />City has proposed a caveat that immigration status information may be shared "as provided by <br />federal law." While the City may have made this change out of a concern about 8 USC 1373 and <br />8 USC 1644, isolating immigration status from other types of sensitive information in this way <br />makes it less likely, not more, that its confidentiality clause will be upheld. There is no reason the <br />City needs to discriminate or treat immigration status differently than other vulnerable statuses. <br />The City's rationale for protecting the sensitive information of immigrants is the same as for <br />