Raid Keeps Immigrants Seeking Citizenship Help on the Outside Looking In

As investigators sifted through files inside the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional offices, outside the building, immigrants who had come for help were turned away.

“I just came to get help with my citizenship papers. I don’t know where else to go,” said Joel Martinez Gonzalez, 38, who skipped work Tuesday to seek help from the advocacy group. Like other clients of the organization who don’t speak English, he had been relying on the group’s volunteers to guide him through the maze of paperwork the citizenship process requires.

“They said come back tomorrow,” Martinez said. “But I don’t know, I took the day off to come here today.”

Jay Lindsey, spokesman for the advocacy group, spent the day in the parking lot under threatening skies turning carfuls of worried would-be clients away.

“I’m sorry for the bother,” Lindsey called out again and again in Spanish to recent immigrants as he directed them away from the parking lot. Most smiled and shrugged in resignation at his apologies. “Really, we’ll try to help you tomorrow.”

“I hate this, this is a service organization and my biggest concern is that people get served,” Lindsey said. “We’re going to do everything we can to get back in there as soon as we can. We’re not going to leave people high and dry.”

Hermandad Mexicana Nacional wasn’t the only organization whose clients were put out by the search. Other aid organizations and private businesses who share the building arrived to find yellow police tape around the building--and county officials blocking the way to their offices.

The Orange County Development Council, which has offices in the building, moved part of its Tuesday morning food distribution program to a next-door parking lot. Several attorneys were unable to get into their offices in the building all day. Even the Legal Aid Society of Orange County across the street, whose employees normally park in the Hermandad Mexicana lot, found themselves without spaces for the day.

“We have all our books inside. We can’t get to them, we can’t even use our bathrooms inside. Hopefully, we can get all these boxes of food distributed to the right people today,” said Mercy Savala, coordinator of the food bank, waving toward a line of about two dozen people waiting to receive the aid.

By early afternoon, the food bank had fed all comers. The attorneys with offices in the building had left. The parking lot stood empty save for Lindsey, two other employees of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional--and uniformed agents from the district attorney’s office under orders not to let them inside.