The interrupted afternoon chat was supposed to be a break for De Anda, who had already taken multiple hotline calls while patrolling near East 17th Street and North Main Street with other watchers.<\/p>\n
Calls reporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sightings or stagings have skyrocketed in Orange County<\/a> since the Trump administration moved to ramp up deportations this summer, she said, estimating the hotline has received between 8,000 and 9,000 calls over the course of 2025. The rapid response network tries to monitor enforcement actions as they unfold, to be witnesses if there are rights violations, but also in hopes of notifying families who might not learn for days that their loved one has been detained.<\/p>\n People also call the hotline in search of legal resources and support.<\/p>\n \u201cI worked 12 hours yesterday,\u201d De Anda said the day after the interrupted sitdown, already having attended an immigration court appointment that morning with an undocumented community member. \u201cI\u2019m working on this third removal case and then blowing off some steam with my boo.\u201d<\/p>\n As a community organizer and immigration policy advocate, De Anda has become a familiar face in Santa Ana and across Orange County, livestreaming to document enforcement operations and even standing toe-to-toe with federal agents out in the field.<\/p>\n Sandra De Anda, network coordinator of the Orange County Rapid Response Network, speaks to worried residents outside the Santa Ana City Council meeting in Santa Ana on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (File photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n Sandra De Anda is the director of policy and legal strategy at the Orange County Rapid Response Network. OCRRN works with other groups and attorneys to assist those affected by immigration enforcement actions. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n Sandra De Anda is the director of policy and legal strategy at the Orange County Rapid Response Network. OCRRN works with other groups and attorneys to assist those affected by immigration enforcement actions. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 3<\/p>\n Sandra De Anda, network coordinator of the Orange County Rapid Response Network, speaks to worried residents outside the Santa Ana City Council meeting in Santa Ana on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (File photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n She regularly represents the OC Rapid Response Network<\/a> \u2014 a volunteer organization of civil rights attorneys, clergy, nonprofit organizations and community members \u2014 at city council meetings, lobbying for resources and policies to support those in the community who are undocumented.<\/p>\n The 32-year-old Santa Ana resident joined OCRRN as a volunteer in 2017, then was hired as a network and program coordinator before becoming its director of policy and legal strategy. Her efforts have made her a central figure in Orange County\u2019s rapid-response infrastructure \u2014 from fielding hotline calls to document and dispatch reports of immigration activity to helping advocate for the release of those detained.<\/p>\n As President Donald Trump took office for his second term<\/a>, he promised mass deportation across the country, arguing the United States had seen an \u201cunprecedented flood of illegal immigration\u201d and there was a state of emergency at the southern border.<\/p>\n In Orange County, groups such as the rapid response network began keeping watch and educating residents on their rights and the resources available. With the county\u2019s large immigrant population, fear and anxiety were on the rise.<\/p>\n In May, De Anda said she and her team checked out reports of masked agents at the immigration courthouse in Santa Ana<\/a>, and \u201csomething immediately felt wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the first time she saw the agents in court, and remains \u201cone of the most shocking moments of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Masked men in jeans and khakis were detaining people inside a courthouse, she said. \u201cPeople who never saw it coming.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA wave of terror came over me,\u201d De Anda recalled. \u201cPeople who were following the law and trusting the process were sharing space with these agents.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a sign that things were changing.<\/p>\n Then on June 9, federal immigration officials made their first mass sweeps in Santa Ana<\/a>, ratcheting up enforcement, targeting car wash workers and day laborers across the county in the weeks and months that followed.<\/p>\n That didn\u2019t sway De Anda, or her team, whose consistent presence at the immigration courthouse and weekly meetings with impacted families have made her a trusted voice for the immigrant community.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s always on it,\u201d said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana). \u201cAnd that\u2019s so gratifying to see \u2014 people like Sandra stepping up in a moment of crisis and taking care of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n Santa Ana Councilmember Jessie Lopez credited De Anda for establishing a sense of urgency and pushing for action on funding financial assistance programs such Ayuda Sin Fronteras<\/a> and improving Santa Ana\u2019s U-Visa application process. Those efforts directly impact families, Lopez said, calling De Anda \u201ca true guardian of our Orange County community.\u201d<\/p>\n The daughter of mixed-status parents from Sinaloa, Mexico, De Anda grew up on Minnie Street<\/a>, a Santa Ana neighborhood with a high concentration of Mexican, Laotian and Cambodian immigrants, including refugees who fled in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge\u2019s genocidal rise to power.<\/p>\n Because her father was granted permanent residency under the Reagan administration, the risk of deportation did not hang over her family as De Anda was growing up.<\/p>\n But in the neighborhood, there was \u201cthe ever-present specter of immigration enforcement,\u201d\u00a0 she said.<\/p>\n \u201cLa migra\u201d and \u201cwatch out for la migra\u201d were common phrases in her neighborhood, traded in concerned murmurs as warnings and passing jokes. \u201cPeople would joke about la migra. They would scream it just to mess around with people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When she was about 7 or 8, De Anda saw Immigration and Naturalization Service agents park a van outside the neighborhood\u2019s 7-Eleven, taking multiple people away. It was the first raid she witnessed.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t understand what was happening at the time, she said, but could tell it was a \u201cbig deal.\u201d<\/p>\n De Anda said she wanted to \u201chonor her parents\u2019 sacrifices\u201d so she focused on her education. A standout student, she was selected for A Better Chance, a program that offers city kids an opportunity to attend private school.<\/p>\n She spent her high school years at an elite all-girls boarding school in southern Virginia and then went to college in Oregon, but said \u201chome\u201d was never too far away.<\/p>\n \u201cMy family would send me these care packages with boxes of Mexican candy, so I never lost touch,\u201d De Anda said. \u201cBut when I was away, I would always just miss Santa Ana. I would miss the neighbors and Minnie Street<\/a> \u2014 and I would always just think about it, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n In 2017, De Anda read an article in the OC Weekly written by undocumented youth from Orange County Immigrant Youth United who were resisting deportations. She realized she had \u201cstudied and struggled everywhere for the last decade,\u201d except where she came from.<\/p>\n She soon began volunteering with OCRRN.<\/p>\n![\"Sandra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/OCR-L-ICELINES-0703-01.jpg\"\/)
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