Garden Grove families impacted by the federal deportation sweeps since June may soon be able to find helpful immigration resources and constitutional rights on the city’s website.

On Wednesday night, city council members narrowly voted 4-0-2 on a resolution calling on law enforcement agencies to respect civil liberties and creating an online resource hub on the city website after cutting down and revising the proposal last month.

[Read: Garden Grove Becomes Flashpoint of Immigration Debate in Orange County]

Councilman Joe DoVinh, who helped revise the resolution, repeatedly compared launching a resource hub to the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, adding their humanity is being tested.

“We find ourselves in Samaria tonight. Are we going to pass up on a person who’s dying in the desert begging for a drink just to survive or are we going to render assistance?” he said. 

“If we can help one person, one family, with an information resource hub – even if it’s duplicative, even if they can find all that information on Google and everywhere else – I’m willing to take that risk.”

Garden Grove City Council meeting on July 8, 2025. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

DoVinh said the webpage should be up by the end of the year.

He also said the resolution is not anti-ICE and that any information posted should be vetted and not endorse anyone, adding that it was still a risk to adopt the resolution.

“Indeed we may be investigated, and indeed we may lose funding, and indeed we may be prosecuted. Those are the risks. Helping others always comes with risk,” DoVinh said.

Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein and Councilwoman Cindy Ngoc Tran abstained from the vote. Councilman George Brietigam was absent from the meeting.

Garden Grove Councilwoman Cindy Ngoc Tran on July 8, 2025.

Tran said the resource page shouldn’t focus solely on immigration, but offer resources for all residents regardless of legal status.

“Can we just simplify so that it will support everyone in terms of the resource?” she questioned, adding she and the mayor are looking to host an event in December at a church to offer free legal service to all residents.

“You’ve had more than a week to edit and revise, suggest change. You didn’t do it,” DoVinh responded. “If you’re not comfortable, abstain or vote no.”

Tran said she didn’t know she could have revised it.

“I just wanted to include everyone,” she said.

Councilwoman Ariana Arestegui, who spearheaded the original resolution, said it was a community driven effort.

“The harsh and honest reality of a lot of this guys is that the reason there is so many young people leading this movement is because it’s so many of our parents and our elders on the line,” she said.

“We are here not just because we represent us and a community of people that look like us. We represent the people in our family, at our churches, at our schools that have the most at stake and the most to lose and that’s why they can’t be here.

Klopfenstein did not speak to her abstention.

Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein of Garden Grove on Jul 8, 2025. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

Wednesday’s decision means Garden Grove will join the cities of Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Stanton which have all launched similar informational hubs on their websites.

It also marks the first official action taken by the council as a whole in response to the deportation sweeps.

For months a majority of city council members have avoided adopting any resolution in response to the federal immigration crackdown or starting a fund to help immigrants with rent, food or utility bills like in Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Costa Mesa.

It comes as dozens of residents and activists have been showing up to several city council meetings since the summer demanding elected officials take a stance against the immigration crackdown and stand up for Garden Grove families impacted by the raids.

Residents, community organizers and activists wait their turn to give public comment during the July 8, 2025, Garden Grove Council meeting. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, a former city council woman, lambasted her former colleagues for not acting to support immigrant families and said listing resources online was the bare minimum officials could do to serve the city’s residents.

“I couldn’t be more disappointed in you and your lack of leadership to show no compassion and sympathy with our immigrant community that is under attack is heinous,” she said at  Wednesday’s meeting.

“Don’t sit there and gaslight the public by making excuses and lying to them. You say you are scared the city will lose funding. No other city that has done a lot more, has lost any funding for supporting policy or resources related to aiding our immigrant communities.”

On Wednesday, some residents and representatives from organizations like the local chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Harbor Institute also called on officials to adopt the resolution and create the informational hub to support immigrant families.

Other residents pushed back on the resolution, questioning its necessity and how much it will cost as well as arguing that its divisive, opens up the city to liability and jeopardizes federal funding.

“It exposes the city to great risks and undue legal liabilities. I don’t know that you’ve thought about that. It may mean that aid that we get from the federal government may get frozen. I don’t know that anyone thought about that either,” said Linda Zamora, a resident, at Wednesday’s meeting.

“Stop wasting our city’s money, staff time and resources on this. Stop duplicating efforts. There’s already plenty of nonprofit organizations providing this type of assistance.”

In Garden Grove, about 49% of residents or roughly 84,000 people are foreign born. Of that, about 31,000 of residents are not U.S. citizens and 53,000 are naturalized citizens, according to the census. 

Over 42% of the population in Garden Grove is Asian and 37% is Latino.

According to the USC Equity Research Institute, over 210,000 people in Orange County are undocumented.

​​Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.

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