Mansoor says sheriff’s immigration-enforcement plans don’t dent his

Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor still wants to move forward with a plan to give city police federal immigration training, despite the news that officials have drastically scaled back a similar proposal for Orange County Sheriff’s deputies, Mansoor said Friday.

Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona originally wanted to train as many as 200 deputies to check the immigration status of people suspected of crimes. After working on an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for two and a half years, he learned Thursday that federal officials have whittled the proposal down to 12 to 15 officers.

“The bottom line is I would like a bigger number,” Carona said. “We just couldn’t get there based on the training configurations and the resources that they [federal officials] had.”

A draft proposal, which could go to county supervisors for approval as soon as Oct. 17, would likely include training only for officers who work in the county jail, he said.

“Is it everything that I want? No — I think we’d all agree on that,” Carona said. “Is it a good start? Yes.”

In Costa Mesa, the City Council in December voted to have police trained for immigration enforcement, but the plan was to be tailored after the county’s agreement. Since the county agreement hasn’t been made official, Costa Mesa hasn’t proceeded.

The city’s plan would have 30 to 40 of the city’s 163 sworn officers trained.

Mansoor said it’s unclear how the shrinking of the sheriff’s plan might affect what Costa Mesa will be able to do.

“I’m not going to speculate on what the numbers are going to be,” he said. “To me it’s worth it to take any step forward at this point.”

The mayor’s day job is as a sheriff’s deputy who works in the jail, but he declined to say whether he was interested in receiving immigration enforcement training himself.

“I haven’t requested the training, bottom line, and it’s not even approved yet,” he said. “Let’s wait and see.”

He will, however, talk about immigration enforcement during his reelection campaign. One of six candidates for two seats on the City Council, Mansoor pointed out that he’s one of only two who support immigration training for Costa Mesa police.

If he and Wendy Leece, who Mansoor is supporting, are not elected, it seems unlikely that the council would go forward with an immigration plan.

“Ultimately it boils down to Nov. 7,” Mansoor said. “If the voters support Wendy Leece, then we will be going forward with the proposal, as she is the only candidate that supports it — so this really is in the hands of the voters.”