Ontario residents and community groups are upset at comments made by Mayor Paul Leon in which he called community reaction to recent immigration enforcement raids in Southern California overblown.

“I just believe that if we behave, and don’t cause a problem, I’m not getting profiled just for being around,” Leon said at the Ontario City Council’s June 17 meeting. “To think that they’re coming after you, just profiling you on the way that you look, I just haven’t seen that happen in this town yet. … I don’t live in fear and I don’t want you to live in fear, because our police are not looking for you.”

At a protest Thursday intended to draw attention to people detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent nationwide raids, Ontario resident Karen May blasted Leon’s comments.

“I was, frankly, outraged at the insensitivity of the mayor,” May said at the protest at Ontario Town Square. “It just shows the disconnect with grassroots citizens in his own city.”

The small protest brought together SEIU Local 1000, the Greater Ontario Dem Club, Indivisible CA-35, Indivisible Inland Empire, League of United Latin American Citizens Ontario, the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center and the Ontario Future Alliance. They sought to call attention to the people detained by ICE and other federal law enforcement officials.

“We’re definitely being targeted,” said Alexis Delgado, the worker rights director at the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, referring to the Hispanic and Latino community generally and day laborers more specifically. “This is our country, these are our streets, this is our Constitution — and we must defend it, at all costs.”

Leon’s comments at the June 17 council meeting — which seemed to conflate both the immigration efforts and the resulting community protests — followed a request by a young resident who asked the council to help give residents peace of mind.

“As a 14 year old, and a legal citizen here in the U.S., like many others, I fear the safety of not only my parents, other parents, friends, students, family members and myself because of these ongoing arrests,” she said during the public comment period at the June 17 meeting. “ICE has been wrongfully arresting many of our residents without criminal backgrounds. It could be because of our skin color or because we go to swap meets or shop at local supermarkets that have been racially profiled.”

In a news release, LULAC Ontario condemned Leon’s remarks.

“Racial profiling and the threat of ICE enforcement are not abstract fears — they are real, lived anxieties for many families, especially youth who witness the trauma and uncertainty it causes in their homes, neighborhoods, and schools,” the LULAC release reads in part. “The young speaker showed more courage, insight, and civic responsibility than Mayor Leon, who failed to validate her concerns and instead chose to dismiss them with vague reassurances and indifference.”

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that, as of 2024, 68.3% of Ontario residents are Hispanic or Latino.

Leon’s comments have also gone viral on social media.

“To deny what’s happening is dangerous and only adds to the harm,” the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice posted on Instagram. “We demand accountability from Ontario City Mayor Paul Leon!”

Leon declined to comment for this story.

Protesters have taken to the streets in communities across Southern California and beyond in recent weeks in response to federal immigration efforts in the Los Angeles area that started June 6 and were followed by President Donald Trump deploying the California National Guard — over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom — and the U.S. Marines to the city to support those efforts.