Why This Matters
Fear is rising in San Diego immigrant communities as ICE arrests climb and most of those targeted have no criminal records.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 2,000 people in San Diego and Imperial counties in July, the highest monthly total so far during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to newly released data.
A shift in enforcement strategy is unfolding as the Trump administration carries out its mass deportation agenda: ICE is making quieter, quicker and more targeted arrests.
The July arrests are up about 50% from June, when ICE arrested about 1,300 people, and up 28% from the second-most active month in December when ICE arrested about 1,500 people, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA.
About 60% of those arrested in July in what ICE calls its San Diego Area of Responsibility had no criminal convictions or pending charges, according to the data.
Last year, images of armed federal immigration agents in battle fatigues marching down a public park in Los Angeles or raiding an apartment building in Chicago defined the administration’s approach to its immigration crackdown.
Backlash over immigration enforcement reached a boiling point after federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti during a widespread, weekslong operation in Minneapolis.
Shortly after, Gregory Bovino left his role as U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem left the agency.
Now, amid public disapproval over immigration enforcement and with voting in midterm elections that could change control of Congress set to start in weeks, a more discreet strategy to achieve the president’s goals is underway, though there are some recent exceptions.
On Monday, the San Diego Police Department helped reunite a 1-year-old girl who had been left in a car in City Heights after an apparent federal immigration operation. Lt. Cesar Jimenez said federal law enforcement called police to take custody of the child and were present on the scene when officers arrived.
Jimenez said SDPD officers were present to “keep the peace” and reunite the baby with its family, not to help with immigration enforcement.
The incident is one among several possible immigration operations circulating in videos posted online in recent days that have sparked fear among residents in City Heights, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in San Diego.
Alor Calderon, director of the immigrant focused Employee Rights Center, said worries about widespread arrests or workplace raids are growing as ICE arrests immigrants who have lived in the community for years.
“To do it in such a place in such a broad middle of the day kind of way, it definitely became, for the community, viral” he said.
Last week in Encinitas, community observers filmed what appeared to be armed federal agents, one in plainclothes with a face covering and a canine and another wearing a helmet and battle fatigues and carrying a long gun, near a Shell gas station in a popular shopping area.
In two videos shared with inewsource, observers are heard asking the individuals to identify their agency. In both videos, the agents responded that they were not with ICE.
Immigration authorities told NBC 7 San Diego they made an arrest in connection with that operation.
Officials with Customs and Border Protection did not answer questions about the Encinitas incident after inewsource sent multiple requests beginning on Friday. CBP responded twice that they were “working on” a response before directing inewsource to ICE on Tuesday.
Officials with ICE did not return questions from inewsource.
The community observers who were on the scene, both longtime Encinitas residents, said the activity stood out from the more conspicuous arrests they have seen taking place in recent months and called to mind more aggressive tactics in last year’s immigration crackdown.
“It felt dangerous,” said one community observer, whom inewsource is not naming because they fear retaliation from the government. The observer said there were at least eight federal agents on scene.
In northeast San Diego County, temporary Border Patrol checkpoints along main thoroughfares as well as ICE arrests are creating a picture of increased enforcement — and adding to a sense of desperation — in the immigrant community.
Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez with Universidad Popular, a San Marcos-based immigrant education and advocacy group based, said requests for help from immigrant families looking for legal representation or financial support after an arrest, or trying to locate a family member who didn’t come home, are rising.
Many of these requests are from mothers who show up to her office with their children or the high school-aged or adult children of parents who have been arrested, Nuñez-Alvarez said.
Nuñez said that Border Patrol has sometimes set up checkpoints along State Route 76, a freeway connecting northeast and northwest San Diego communities. She said ICE is also making arrests throughout the area that are “very stealth” and “very surgical.”
By the time her team arrives on scene to document the arrest, “there’s nothing there,” she said.
