It should come as no surprise that the City Council Members who are openly supporting Measure DD, which will allow non-citizens to vote in Santa Ana’s local elections, include three cop-haters – Benjamin Vazquez, Johnathan Ryan Hernandez and Thai Viet Phan. The question we all need to be pondering is why are they doing this?
The reality is that the undocumented often fear the police and the government in general as their main concern, beyond finding food and shelter, is not getting deported to their countries of origin. As such it makes sense that three City Council Members who support defunding the police are cynically trying to grow their own voter bases by giving the undocumented, who are often afraid of the police, the right to vote in our local elections.
However the flaw in this plan is that voter turnout in Santa Ana is already super low. Will the undocumented actually vote? How much will it cost to allow them to vote?
The reality is that Measure DD will cost us all a fortune – perhaps as much as ten million dollars per election, as the County and the State won’t pay for the extra costs involved in allowing the undocumented to vote. Not to mention the massive legal costs that will ensue if Measure DD passes as our City will surely be sued by those opposed to allowing the undocumented to vote.
The City of Santa Ana is already broke – yet these crazy Council Members are also trying to give themselves a massive raise with Measure FF even though that could bankrupt our city!
Being anti-police was the cool thing to do a few years ago when the nation was dealing with the fallout in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. But now? Voters all over California are overwhelmingly supporting Prop. 36, which will finally put criminals in jail. We are all disgusted with the massive retail and residential thefts and burglaries that have overwhelmed law enforcement all over California.
The Santa Ana City Council Members who want to defund the police are now desperate to cling to power as the voters now want to fund the police and arrest the criminals. So they hatched this plan to give the vote to the undocumented, who presumably are not aware of local issues and will be definitely be easier to mislead.
People come here without documents not because they want to vote but rather because they want to work. Measure DD does nothing to help these folks to get the jobs they want. All it does is possibly allow anti-police City Council Members to hang on to their part-time jobs.
The proponents of Measure DD claim that the undocumented pay taxes but are not represented. However employers in the U.S. are not allowed to hire the undocumented. Many of them end up homeless and this costs our country millions in social services used to help transients. So what taxes exactly are they paying? Certainly not property taxes as most of them cannot afford to buy a home. Sales taxes? Perhaps. But they are not paying income taxes unless they are using fraudulent Social Security numbers.
My parents came here from Mexico. My dad had a green card. My mom eventually became a citizen and she is very much looking forward to voting in the November election. Many of us in Santa Ana have similar stories. We are not against immigrants. But giving the undocumented the vote when what they really want is food, shelter and jobs is ridiculous. This measure is not about the undocumented. It is about our police-hating Council Members. Most of them will likely be voted out of office on Nov. 5. Even if Measure DD passes it will be too late to save their political careers.
Vote No on Measure DD! Click here to read the formal argument against Measure DD, by former Santa Ana City Council Member Nelida Mendoza.
