Social tolerance was once the hallmark of Costa Mesa, a place where bowls of free soup awaited the poor just as racks of designer shoes awaited the well-heeled.
The home of South Coast Plaza was also home to a city Human Relations Committee, a job center and a decades-long history of helping the poor, whether immigrant or native-born. The late county Supervisor Tom Riley dubbed Costa Mesa "the city with a heart."
The soup kitchen is still there. But the Human Relations Committee and the job center are gone, jettisoned by Mayor Allan Mansoor and his allies on the council after being too sympathetic to illegal immigrants.
The city's new legacy is its aggressive stance against illegal immigration, including the use of city police to identify undocumented immigrants among crime suspects.
Costa Mesa is not the first local agency to partner with immigration agents. Police in Florida and Alabama have been doing so since 2003. In California, jail-check programs vary from checking the status of convicted felons - that's what Los Angeles County does - to checking everyone in the jail - that's what Orange County started doing just one month after Costa Mesa
http://www.ocregister.com/news/costa-189698-mesa-crime.html?pic=3
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