Santa Cruz ICE raid conflict escalates, both sides refuse to back down

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- There's new reaction to recent raids in Santa Cruz and Daly City that may have led to immigration detentions. ICE is now responding to scathing words from the Santa Cruz Police Chief.

RELATED: Santa Cruz police chief slams homeland security after immigration raids

The raids at locations including Daly City and Santa Cruz led to 10 criminal arrests of suspected gang members. Now Ice admits 11 immigrants were also detained, 10 were ultimately released and 1 remains in custody.

"This has violated the trust of our community and we cannot tell you how disappointed we are by the betrayed of the department of homeland security," said Santa Cruz Police Chief Ken Vogel yesterday.

ICE is now striking back with its own statement. A spokesperson writes "Allegations that the agency secretly planned an immigration enforcement action in hopes there would be new political leadership that would allow for an alleged 'secret' operation to take place are completely false, reckless, and disturbing."

Santa Cruz Police Chief Ken Vogel responded to the response writing, "I was never informed that these 'detentions' would include transporting these individuals to another county to be processed at a federal facility, nor was I told that these detentions would result solely because of questionable immigration status."

Vogel went on to say, "The detentions of those suspected solely of being undocumented immigrants by Homeland Security occurred after my staff had left the scene of the locations where they were detained, which begs the question as to why these detentions did not occur while my staff was present and why Homeland Security officials have not been completely forthcoming to us with information about this."

It's unclear how many if any immigrants were detained at the Daly City location.

The city's vice mayor says she will introduce a resolution Monday that supports immigrants.

"Daly City is a safe haven," said Daly City Vice Mayor Juslyn Manalo.

Though the resolution stops short of officially calling Daly City a Sanctuary City.

"Some of the concerns are losing federal funds tied to being a sanctuary city," Manalo continued.

The Daly City police chief turned down our request for a comment.

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