Signature drive held by radio station in Fresno to ask mayor to not make city a sanctuary city

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- From pen to paper, people lining outside of Power Talk 96.7's live broadcast along Shaw Avenue Tuesday night were waiting to sign a petition demanding Mayor Lee Brand not make Fresno a sanctuary city.

And on the air the message was clear. Talk show host Trevor Carey said the radio station chose to host this event after Brand made a comment almost two weeks ago.

"The only difference between Fresno and other cities that label themselves as sanctuary cities are only words with no clear definition," said Brand.

"That made a lot of people upset and I think that's why we saw today what we saw," said Carey.

More than 500 people signed the petition-- Lisa Moreno was one of them. She too is not sure where Brand stands on the controversial issue because of his recent statement.

"There's a clear message for people who voted for Lee Brand like I did, that we are now confused-- what does he stand for? Is he for sanctuary city or not? It's because it's not defined, doesn't say we don't have a clear inclination where this is going and we're not happy about it."

But at an earlier meeting Tuesday Brand stated he has no plans of making Fresno a sanctuary city for refugees and undocumented immigrants.

"I made it clear that Fresno is not a sanctuary city, but Fresno's polices for the last 15 years, and policies of over 90-percent of the other police departments or cities, is that the police department is not engaging in immigration enforcement period."

Protestors outside of that gathering were not happy with the Mayor's stance. They called on him to make Fresno a sanctuary city.

"I voted for him because he said he was going to bring together Fresno and he's dividing us once again with hate and hate doesn't make America great," said Charles McNally a protester.

And those who are against Fresno being a sanctuary city say they are not against immigration they just want it done the right way.

"Our city is a city of laws, our city is a city of order, we don't want ambiguous words to dictate what our city does," said Moreno.

Mayor Brand said the other reason why he is not making Fresno a sanctuary city is because he does not want to do anything that would jeopardize the hundreds of millions of dollars the city gets in federal funds.