Why this matters:
San Diego County officials’ efforts to resist President Trump’s immigration crackdown has landed them in the “crosshairs” of the administration, one supervisor said.
For nearly a decade, federal immigration officers have enjoyed use of a firing range in Otay Mesa operated by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and owned by the county.
Now, amid growing political pushback over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, that arrangement could end this week.
Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will consider ending several sharing agreements which since 2017 have allowed Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use the firing range in Otay Mesa and, more recently, another one in Miramar.
inewsource was the first to report in April that the county had sharing agreements for immigration agencies’ use of the San Diego Regional Firearms Facility on Alta Road, which is operated by the Sheriff along with the FBI and District Attorney’s Office.
The agreements were previously unknown to the public.
Supervisors Terra Lawson-Remer and Paloma Aguirre, who have spearheaded several initiatives in recent years aimed at pushing back against Trump’s immigration enforcement, issued a letter to the board recommending the termination of the agreements.
“If the Trump administration wants to spend billions on this flawed deportation agenda, they can use their own federal resources to carry it out,” Lawson-Remer said at a press conference announcing the letter Monday morning.
The vote will come more than a year and a half into an unprecedented federal immigration crackdown that has swept thousands of migrants from communities in San Diego and Imperial counties, the majority of whom have no criminal record, according to ICE data.
The Trump administration has said the crackdown is about improving public safety in American communities by deporting criminals, but officials have come under fire for their aggressive approach. Federal immigration officials have shot and killed six people since Trump took office, including U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, CBP and ICE did not return requests for comment by time of publication.
Since 2024, ICE and CBP have logged about 3,350 hours and spent nearly $235,000 to access the Otay Mesa facility, according to a billing sheet from the Sheriff’s Office.
The compound at 440 Alta Road known as the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center includes five firing ranges, five classrooms, two “indoor close-quarters training environments,” a defensive tactics training room and an auditorium. It was built in 1996 through a partnership between the FBI and the county.
A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office called it the “primary training hub” for law enforcement in the area for decades.
ICE officers also have access to a training facility at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that the U.S. Navy owns and leases to the county.
Earlier this year, Sheriff Kelly Martinez defended the sharing agreements, saying that federal agents are better prepared to operate in communities and “prevent harm” by using the training center.
“I cannot afford to make decisions based on politics,” she said. “I must focus on the greater good and what keeps our communities safe.”
On Monday, however, the sheriff seemed to lighten her stance on the issue.
Lt. David Collins, media relations director for the office, said Martinez is in conversation with county leaders, federal partners and community members and is “evaluating the impacts of these decisions based on all stakeholder input.”
In response to the supervisors’ announcement last week, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told the Union-Tribune that the loss of access to the firing range would lead to “an immediate reduction in deployable staffing” at ports of entry in the area.
“This will result in increased wait times at San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Tecate, CBX, and the San Diego International Airport and Seaport,” Scott said. “Operational impacts will include, but are not limited to, lane closures, the closure of SENTRI enrollment offices, the San Ysidro Pedestrian West facility, pilot programs, technology testing, and permit offices that service tourist visas, deferred and special cases.”
The San Ysidro Port of Entry is one of the busiest land ports of entry in the world, with tens of thousands of vehicles and pedestrians passing through daily as well as a significant commercial and shipping traffic.
Scott also told the Union-Tribune that 1,700 CBP officers staff ports of entry in the county and that the Otay Mesa firing range is the only one officers use for mandatory training and qualifications. If the county stops them from using it, CBP officers will have to leave the region to complete those requirements, Scott said.
At the conference, Supervisor Aguirre pushed back on CBP’s claim that the termination of the sharing agreements would force the agency to pull back on staffing at ports of entry and the airport.
“They say if we end these agreements, the border will shut down. Lanes will close. Lines will stretch for hours,” Aguirre said. “They want you to believe that a shooting range agreement worth about $170,000 a year is the only thing keeping our borders open in the Western Hemisphere.”
Aguirre said that notion is “ridiculous” and called it a scare tactic to prevent the county from cutting off access.
“First they made our immigrant neighbors afraid. Now they want every commuter, every business owner, every family that crosses the border to be afraid, too,” Aguirre said.
County supervisors will vote on the agreements at a board meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
