During the City Council meeting on November 18, 2025, attendees questioned Council Member Jaime Valencia about her vote on November 4 against funding local nonprofits that support immigrant families affected by ICE. During council report about activities and information from boards the council members sit on Valencia spoke about events she attended and then said, “I also, over the weeks prior to the vote that took place two weeks ago, I was very much involved with a group of people that I pulled together. Blandy was there. Jason Phillips. There also met Bethany, I met I had Radiant Futures involved, Jay was there, Pathways was there, and it was a great conversation starter to get the community involved with the nonprofits to hear what everybody’s doing and how we can collaborate Better Together. So I’m really excited for that motivation to continue on and see what we can do to work. Together, and I understand that some of you may disagree with me, and that’s OK. My responsibility is not to please a select few, but to serve the entire community. I will continue making decisions based on facts. Integrity and what best supports all residents. Ultimately, the results of that work will speak louder than any criticism.”

The following is the full response from Jody Agius Vallejo, a Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity, and the Associate Director of the USC Equity Research Institute.

I am writing in response to Councilmember Jamie Valencia’s remarks at the November 18 City Council meeting—comments I witnessed firsthand—which included misleading claims about her involvement with community organizations supporting Fullerton’s large and diverse immigrant community, as well as a perplexing explanation for why she voted “No” on a community-driven proposal for a city supported fund for immigrant families affected by ICE. Part of the rationale for the city supported fund was that the nonprofits and legal clinics who work with immigrant families in Fullerton do not have funds to meet the growing demand for legal support and basic needs.

Councilmember Valencia stated that, in the two weeks before her “No” vote, she “was very much involved with a group of people that I pulled together,” referring to nonprofits such as Radiant Futures, Pathways of Hope, OC United, OCCCO, and others. Valencia did not “pull together” these groups or convene the meetings, nor was she “very involved;” she was invited to listen and learn. The nonprofits and community leaders she listed have been doing this work collaboratively for years—long before the last two weeks.

In reality, OCCCO and OC United organized the group meetings that Valencia now claims to have “pulled together,” according to public social media posts. Community organizations invited Councilmember Valencia to join them in good faith, hoping to educate her about the social, economic, and mental-health crises that immigrants and their U.S. citizen children are experiencing in our city and in her district specifically.

It is concerning to see community labor erased and recast in a narrative that places an elected official at the center of work she neither initiated nor supported. These organizations have demonstrated extraordinary leadership, long-term collaboration, and deep care for immigrant families in Fullerton. They deserve accurate representation and real support, not revisionism to bolster Valencia’s image. Valencia also justified her “no” vote by stating: “My responsibility is not to please a select few but to serve the entire community.”

This is puzzling. Her voting record consistently aligns with an entirely different “select few”: wealthy donors and institutions. And her insistence that it is her responsibility to serve the entire community” rather than a “select few” underscores her lack of accountability for the decisions she’s made. And her claim ignores how city governance  actually works.

Cities are comprised of diverse constituencies and responsible governments routinely direct resources to vulnerable groups with specific needs,  such as unhoused neighbors, seniors, preschoolers, people with disabilities and other “select few” whose wellbeing strengthens the community as a whole. Pretending otherwise reflects a misunderstanding of how local government works and contradicts her voting record.

Valencia closed her public comments by saying: “I will continue making decisions based on facts, integrity, and what best supports all residents. Ultimately the results of that work will speak louder than any criticisms.”

I will leave comments on integrity aside, but I can speak to the facts. As a professor and researcher who specializes in immigration, I personally provided Councilmember Valencia, and the full council, with clear, evidence-based data derived from representative population surveys: one in six Fullertonians lives in a mixed-status family, and undocumented Fullerton residents are extremely long-settled, with three-quarters having lived in the U.S. a decade or more.

Valencia did not respond to my email, she did not engage with any of these facts, and she dismissed immigrant families in Fullerton by referring to them as a “select few.”

The fact that almost 20% of our Fullertonians are a part of mixed-status families is not a “select few.” For perspective, this share is larger  than the 13% of Fullertonians who are seniors, almost double the proportion of residents with disabilities (9.2%), and more than 80 times the size of the unhoused population (272 people in the latest PIT count), groups that the city directs resources to. If these groups are not a “select few,” then neither are immigrant families.

Good governance requires honesty, accountability, and respect for the people doing the hard work on the ground. It requires understanding the diverse segments of the community you are elected to serve—not just those you view as politically or ideologically deserving. Public trust erodes when elected officials claim credit for efforts they did not lead, declare they make decisions “based on facts” without sharing the facts that shape their decisions, and misstate their engagement with community partners.

Fullerton deserves leaders who tell the truth, who respect the deep, co-created work of nonprofits and organizers, and who work to understand the communities they serve. We also deserve councilmembers who care for residents when they are hurting, recognizing that when one part of our city suffers, the entire community bears the cost.

Supporting residents in crisis is a basic function of local government, not a responsibility to be outsourced to volunteers or underfunded nonprofits, and not an opportunity to take credit for work you did not do. A council that understands this obligation invests in its people; a council that ignores it only demonstrates a disconnection from the community it claims to represent.

City Hall was standing room only. Fire Chief Loeser had to let people know that if they could not find a seat that they had to keep the path ways clear at all times.