Editor’s Note: this article is part of our ongoing series covering the opaque network of progressive/radical Orange County NGOs and their funders, collectively known as the “Non-Profit Industrial Complex.”
Orange County is home to a constellation of well-funded non-profits working to advance left-wing political agendas. Some are independent non-profits and others are fronts for larger non-profits.
The Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice falls into the latter category.
Like many left-wing non-profits in Orange County, Harbor Institute activists are adept at getting themselves quoted in local media, which in turn exhibit zero curiosity about the provenance of these groups, taking their claims and legitimacy at face value.
Founded in 2020 – that year of great leftist upheaval and rioting – The Harbor Institute believes in open borders and doesn’t recognize any meaningful distinction between citizens and non-citizens. Indeed, it opposes the traditional understanding of citizenship to which ordinary Americans adhere.
The Harbor Institute centers its activism on Santa Ana. Its political focus has been opposing efforts the deportation of any illegal immigrant – even those convicted of violent crimes – and advocating for non-citizen voting in Santa Ana elections.
The Harbor Institute presents itself as an activist think tank seeking to “advance a progressive immigrant and economic justice agenda, build multiracial and class solidarity among immigrant and refugee communities, and increase the capacity of power building organizations and movements to advance progressive public policies in Orange County.”
The group states it was “founded by a cross-disciplinary advisory committee composed of academics, movement leaders and organizations that have been in the frontlines advancing a pro-immigrant and pro-worker agenda.”
Front Group For National Day Laborers Organizing Network
It might be closer to the truth to say it was founded by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON). NDLON has assets of more than $18 million, according to CauseIQ.
This radical Left activist group recently was given a $30,000 grant from the Orange County Community Foundation.
Carlos Perea, executive director of The Harbor Institute, is actually an employee of NDLON, according to Form 700s he is required to file as a member of the Santa Ana Police Oversight Commission.
When Perea first filed a Form 700 in April 2024 after being appointed to the Police Oversight Commission, he did not disclose that he worked for NDLON – or indeed any income.
Four months later, Perea amended his Form 700 to disclose that he worked for NDLON.
In his most recent filing, Perea does not disclose the income of his wife, VietRise head Tracy La, as he is required to do. VietRise partners closely with The Harbor Institute on campaigns to influence public policy in Santa Ana and at the County of Orange. According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, Form 700 filers are required to disclose their community property share (50%) of their spouse’s non-governmental salary if it is a source of income in your jurisdiction.
Radical, Pro-Open Borders Board of Directors
The Harbor Institute’s Board of Director‘s is populated with anti-police radicals, including:
UCI Law Professor Sameer Ashar, co-author of a Stanford Law Review paper entitled “Movement Law” that calls for radically re-orienting the relationship between the legal profession and revolutionary social change. In the paper, Ashar sanitizes the violent George Floyd riots and looting as “uprisings” with which legal scholars must “align” themselves in “solidarity.” Sameer expresses support for defunding the police.
Alexis Nava, a founding board member of the Orange County Justice Fund, which opposes the deportation of criminals who are in the country illegally.
Carolina Sarmiento: an activist University of Wisconsin academic and key player in the El Centro Cultural de Mexico, a hub of left-wing activism in Santa Ana. She wants to abolish the police, opposes all deportations and supports giving immediate citizenship to all illegal immigrants.
“How can city planners support abolitionist movements? The case for abolition in planning must first confront historic and contemporary white supremacy, colonialism, and racial capitalism,” opens a paper she co-authored title “Notes on Abolition in Planning: A Framework for Listening.”
Another example of her Critical Theory/Marxian-infused thinking is this impenetrable academic paper: “Defend, Disrupt, and build: Guerrilla urbanist interventions and fighting gentrification in the barrio.”
Another paper by a fellow activist academic contains this revealing admission by Sarmiento abut how organizations like El Centro Cultural de Mexico try to mute their radicalism – a tacit admission of how out of touch they are with the communities they purport to represent:
“In comparing El Kilombo’s and El Centro’s approaches to study in the undercommons, one difference is that, while El Kilombo has been relatively open in their public presentation of themselves about their connections with Zapatismo and other radical social movements, El Centro has been more muted about their affiliations with radical movements and to present themselves with language—such as emphasizing ‘communities’ and ‘culture’ over ‘movements’ and ‘decolonization’—that appears less confrontational to the projects of the state, capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy.“
Salvador Sarmiento, the campaign director for NDLON, is a member of the The Harbor Institute Board..
Also on The Harbor Institute Board of Directors is Sandy Chiang of the California Endowment – one of the state’s biggest funders of the non-profit Left, with $3 billion in assets.
Prioritizing Criminal Illegal Immigrants Over Public Safety
A recent public opinion survey found an overwhelming majority – 75% – of Santa Ana residents support deporting criminal illegal immigrants.
Yet, The Harbor Institute – despite continuously claiming to represent the interests of those same Santa Ana residents – stridently opposes the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants. Indeed, when addressing the topic, Perea and his staff and allies refuse to acknowledge their criminality – preferring the euphemism “community members.”
This predilection to ignore the reality that criminal illegal aliens prey on the undocumented surfaces most prominently when the OC Sheriff’s Department releases its annual report on how many have been transferred from county jail into ICE custody.
Last year, the OCSD transferred 228 criminal illegal aliens who had collectively racked up 1,007 booking charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, spousal abuse, arson, stalking and terrorizing, drug dealing, threatening others with death or bodily harm, etc.
The Harbor Institute denounced the transfer of what they termed “community members” as “risking eroding trust in government agencies.”
In 2025, the OCSD screened 824 inmates with ICE detainers. State law permits the department to notify ICE about the release of 323 of those inmates, which the OCSD did. ICE picked up 271 inmates, whose numerous crimes against genuine community members included: assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, grand theft, domestic violence, drug dealing and possession, vandalism, resisting arrest, parole violations, DUIs, etc.
Speaking at the OC Board of Supervisors on March 24, The Harbor group’s communications person, Logan Smith, attacked this “deeply hurtful practice” of turning criminals over to ICED for possible deportation. At the same time, he ignored the fact the individuals he wanted released were criminals and posed a danger to society – especially undocumented immigrants.
Indeed, Smith basically claimed releasing these criminals back into the community would make the public safer.
“The Sheriff Departments practice of continuing to voluntarily transfer people to ICE poses a risk to public health and safety and community trust in local government and law enforcement,” Smith told the Board.
“Every time Sheriff Barnes and his department send another community member into the clutches of the same federal authorities, they’re rolling the dice with the continued survival of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,” Smith went on.
In other words, The Harbor Institute is more concerned for the welfare of wife beaters, drug dealers, burglars, violent offenders and vandals because they are illegal immigrants than for the safety of the general public.
This is part and parcel of a disturbing pattern of behavior by The Harbor Institute: an ideological inflexibility, bordering on fanaticism, that prevents them from making common sense distinctions between between illegal immigrants who are criminals and otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. Instead, they lump the criminal and productive alike into an undifferentiated mass of “community members.”
It’s ironic that while normal Santa Ana residents are able to easily make this obvious distinction, Harbor Institute activists are too blinded by ideology to do so.
Harbor Institute Director’s Prejudice Against Law Enforcement
Perea and The Harbor Institute have a track record of anti-police activity and a bias toward attributing any police policy or conduct their disklike to racism.
Two years ago, a contingent of Santa Ana police were dispatched to assist with clearing a pro-Palestine/anti-Israel encampment at UC Irvine after students began destroying property.
Perea and another member of the Santa Ana police Oversight Commission posted a statement on social media urging students to file charges against SAPD officers who were there.
This past January, the SAPD made a presentation on its 13 police pursuits since 2022 to the Police Oversight Commission. Although the number of such pursuits in Santa Ana are normal by state standards, Perea smelled racism at work. He tasked the department burn additional staff time by generating a report breaking down the 313 pursuits by the race of each offender.
Harbor Institute Honors Palestinian Group With Terrorist Ties and Sympathies
The Harbor Institutes promotes its dedicating to justice, yet praises groups that condone terrorism and violence – as long as the violence is against the right people.
This past December, The Harbor Institute bestowed its “Dauntless Award” on the extremist Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) LA-OC-IE chapter, praising its “unwavering courage” in the “struggle for collective liberation.”
That “unwavering courage” includes support for the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists. The day after the massacre, “PYM and other antisemitic groups issued a statement justifying Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks: “Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza initiated an unprecedented liberation struggle, the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood,’ in response to accelerating attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank”, according to U.S. Senator Tom Cotton.
In response to backlash against that gruesome statement, the PYM was unrepentant, stating in a letter, “As the organizers of this protest, we called on our communities in New York to rally behind a simple message: We stand with the Palestinian people. We defend their fundamental right to resist an illegal occupation, break out of their concentration camp, and defy the cruelty of the sixteen-year Zionist blockade.”
The anti-American, anti-Israel PYM praises the October 7 massacre as a “historic, unprecedented moment for the Palestinian people.” When the mastermind of the massacre, Hamas terrorist Yahya Sinwar, was killed by the Israeli Defense Force, PYM mourned Sinwar as a “martyr.”
Here, the PYM praises the Lebanese “resistance” – aka Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah.
Here, a beaming Santa Ana Councilman Ben Vazquez introduces the PYM activists at The Harbor Institute gala where the “dauntless Award” was given. Orange County Supervisor Vince Sarmiento was also there to join in honoring the PYM.
The Harbor Institute vs. Santa Ana Residents
Like other appendages of Orange County’s left-wing Nonprofit-Industrial Complex, The Harbor Institute claims to speak for “the community” and advocate for justice. But that self-image is radically at odds with political reality.
- The Harbor Institute views criminal illegal aliens as “our community” and opposes their deportation, instead wanting them released among the peaceable and law-abiding.
- The Harbor Institute refuses to distinguish between criminal illegals and those who are otherwise productive and law-abiding.
- The Harbor Institute and its allies buy subscribe to the philosophy that law enforcement is suspect and inherently racist against people of color.
- The Harbor Institute favors diluting the votes of Santa Ana citizens by allowing non-citizens to vote in city elections.
By contrast, the Santa Ana residents for whom the Harbor Institute claims to speak:
- Can easily distinguish criminal illegals from undocumented immigrants who work hard and obey the law.
- Want criminal illegal immigrants deported
- Support the Santa Ana police and want them to have the resources they need to enforce the law and promote public safety
- Oppose allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections.
One suspects that Harbor Institute/NDLON activists and their allies simply assume that because the vast majority of Santa Ana residents are Hispanic, that their political thinking is determined by their skin color, rather than the universal human desire for the opportunity to rise and succeed and to live in safe and peaceful communities. This is a trap into which ideologues and fanatics tend to fall.
