It’s easy to pick apart Mayor Alice Patino’s rambling commentary at the Feb. 3 Santa Maria City Council meeting.
Her comments placed blame on protesters for the violence witnessed across the country and questioned whether demonstrators in Santa Maria would be peaceful. She stood up for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, excusing the actions of bad actors and the deaths that resulted from their actions, and seemed to demonize undocumented immigrants in her hometown as criminals while feigning support for their children.
It was painful to listen to. I kept thinking, “Get to the point, Alice.”
Do you hate undocumented immigrants? Do you think ICE should deport them all? Wait, you think we should help their kids? It was confusing.
She tried to pull her argument together but only succeeded in becoming the target of much-deserved criticism on social media, after she criticized the Biden administration for allowing “millions” to cross the border unchecked; lamented criminal acts committed by undocumented folks in Santa Maria well before his time as president; cautioned local protesters; and waxed poetic about better days—days when she would never have been allowed to ramble from a governing body’s dais.
Out of touch. That’s how it sounded. She excused the Trump administration’s overly aggressive tactics, agreed with his broad-sweeping characterization of immigrants, and failed to acknowledge any positive contributions to the community.
“I do not want to make Santa Maria a sanctuary city. I do not want to protect criminals in Santa Maria,” Patino said.
“Does this council agree with the tactics that ICE is currently using?” Councilmember Gloria Soto asked. “Is that something that we can at least agree on?”
Patino questioned what those tactics were: “I have no idea.”
The videos and testimony about how ICE and other federal immigration agents treat people are pervasive. How can she feign ignorance? Patino would have to actually live under a rock not to see it.
“I really have no idea what they’re actually doing here in Santa Maria,” she said of ICE.
“In the state of California, if those jails were allowed to give the criminals over to the federal government, then we would be getting these people out of here,” she said. “When they’re released from that jail, do you know where they go? They don’t go down to Santa Barbara. … They come into Santa Maria.”
The problems in Santa Maria are bigger than ICE, she said, calling it a “huge problem.”
Sounds like maybe it’s time to move, Alice, to a whiter, more rural town like your friend and colleague, former Councilmember Etta Waterfield did.
The problem with this whole discussion is its lack of nuance. The problem with ICE’s tactics is the narrative and the impunity that it enables—the fear it instills in law-abiding residents.
Are there criminals here that don’t have the legal papers to live in the United States? Absolutely. That’s not the vast majority, and Patino knows that. Are some ICE agents behaving abhorrently and likely committing crimes in the process? Absolutely. Is it the majority? Probably not.
The mayor of a city of more than 110,000 people where 80 percent of the population is Latino should be able to bridge that argument. And she couldn’t.
The Canary thinks it might be time for a new mayor. Send thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in February 12 – February 19, 2026.