By Alexander J. Schorr

February 25, 2026 (San Diego) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity has increased in surrounding school areas, which includes the occupying of parking lots,  monitoring of bus routes, and arrests occurring blocks away from schools.

At least 3,800 children have been booked into ICE detention between January 2025 and early 2026. Families have expressed anxiety over “haunting and taunting” by federal agents who patrol or park near schools near school zones during drop-off and pick up times for their children.

As of February 9, 2026, ICE has arrested roughly 393,000 individuals since January 21, 2025. Locally, being the San Diego and Imperial counties, immigration arrests surged by 1,500% between late 2025 and early 2026.

By Senator Alex Padilla

February 6, 2026 (San Diego) -- People are dying in ICE custody. Medical care is routinely denied. Individuals held for weeks or months after courts ordered their release. Republicans in Congress are failing in their responsibility to provide oversight of ICE and the lawless actions of this administration.

By Wendy Fry and Natasha Uzcategui-Liggett, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Photo:  members of Unión del Barrio gather by flashlight in the predawn hours before patrolling the Linda Vista neighborhood in San Diego on Jan. 13, 2026. The group by alerts residents to the presence of ICE agents in the community. Photo by John Gastaldo for CalMatters

January 29, 2026 (San Diego) - While the Trump administration’s immigration blitz hit Midwestern cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, a quieter escalation unfolded in San Diego late last year with agents making thousands of arrests in and around the city.

By Brooke Binkowski, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association

Photo:  Hundreds marched on Sunday in an interfaith show of support for people on the ground in Minneapolis and elsewhere.  Photo by Adrian Childress/Times of San Diego

January 26, 2026 (San Diego) - San Diegans joined marches all over the county on Sunday, offering a show of support to people on the ground in Minneapolis as the federal government continues its chaotic deployment on the ground in Minnesota and elsewhere.

By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

Photo:  Renee Good, 37, U.S. citizen and mother of a-6-year-old, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minnnesota.

January 9, 2026 (Minneapolis) - Federal immigration enforcement agents, unleashed and emboldened by President Donald Trump, have been rampaging through the streets of cities across the United States for months, racking up an appalling record of abuses and alleged crimes, including kidnapping, beatings, and murder.

By Alexander J. Schorr

Image: CC via Bing

“Our Product is used to kill people.” — Palantir CEO Alex Karp, emphasizing the company’s role in enabling lethal military operations.

December 8, 2025 (San Diego) — Palantir Technologies is building the U.S. Army’s next-generation ground station, TITAN, using artificial intelligence (AI) to process massive amounts of sensory data to improve targeting accuracy. A March 2025 executive order by President Trump mandated data sharing across federal agencies, positioning Palantir as the primary vendor to build digital infrastructure for this effort— potentially creating a centralized database for American’s personal information. Palantir’s software has been central to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operations in tracking and identifying undocumented immigrants, which aligns with Trump’s immigration crackdown agenda.

“It’s illegal. Unconstitutional. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong. This is not about deportation. This is not about safety. This is about authoritarianism. It’s about stoking fear. It’s about breaking the Constitution” – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson  

By Alexander J. Schorr

October 8, 2025 (Chicago) —   On Friday morning at 1:00 AM   on Chicago's South Shore Drive, federal agents in military garb smashed through doors with flash-bangs, dragged residents into streets in zip-ties—including naked children—and left families outside for hours while apartments were trashed. Eyewitnesses say children were zip-tied together, with one agent reportedly laughing and said “F*** them kids,” a witness told ABC.   

Leslie Thompson (photo, left) of El Cajon speaks out about Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Sept. 9 El Cajon City Council meeting

By Paul Levikow

Sept. 11, 2025 – (El Cajon) Protestors showed up at the El Cajon City Council meeting again this past week to continue voicing opposition to the city’s resolution regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

They also reminded Councilmember Phil Ortiz that their efforts to have him recalled from office are ramping up.

Their appearance came a day after the United States Supreme Court overturned a U.S. District Court Judge’s temporary restraining order in Los Angeles that barred federal agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion.

The Supreme Court ruling allows agents to stop and detain people based on ethnicity, spoken language, type of work they do or their location.

By Michael Lozano, CalMatters

Photo:  a line of federal immigration agents and protesters stand-off near the Glass House Farms facility outside Camarillo on July 10, 2025. Protesters gathered after federal agents conducted an immigration raid earlier in the day. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

July 27, 2025 (Sacramento) - They appeared in plain clothes outside a San Diego hotel, wore camouflage as they raided a Los Angeles factory and arrived with military gear at a Ventura County farm.

Update March 29:  Company owner John Washburn has been charged with conspiracy to harbor aliens; employees Gilver Martinez-Juanta, Miguel Angel Leal-Sanchez and Fernando Casas-Gamboa are charged with falsifying documents to obtain employment in the U.S., according to a press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office in San Diego.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo courtesy of Sky 10 via ABC 10 News, an ECM news partner

March 28, 2025 (El Cajon) – Federal immigration authorities raided the San Diego Powder and Protective Coatings company on Magnolia Ave. in El Cajon yesterday afternoon.  A search warrant accuses the company of hiring undocumented workers, as well as fraud and misuse of visas, ECM news partner 10 News reports.

Otay Mesa ICE facility has at least 16 COVID-19 cases, highest of any  U.S. detention site

Story and photo by Miriam Raftery, East County Magazine

April 13, 2020 (San Diego) – After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed lawsuits in 13 states demanding release of detained immigrants at high risk due to COVID-19, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent a letter to Congress on April 7 announcing it had identified 600 medically vulnerable detainees and to date, had released 160 of them.

Today, local ACLU representatives asked the court to dismiss a suit filed earlier this month on behalf of four medically vulnerable people detained at the ICE Otay Mesa Detention Center and Imperial Regional Detention Facility, after ICE released all four  plaintiffs.

“Our clients, Yusuf Ozdemir and Jane Doe, were released Thursday night; and Miguel Angel Benitez and Issis Yoselin Zelaya Sagastume were released Friday night,” states a press release issued today by  the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties, ACLU Foundation Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU Foundation National Prison Project and ACLU Foundation Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & HIV Project.

By Miriam Raftery

October 10, 2017 (San Diego) — Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law Senate Bill 54, the “sanctuary state” measure aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants in California. In his signing statement, Brown says, “These are uncertain times for undocumented Californians and their families, and this bill strikes a balance that will protect public safety, while bringing a measure of comfort to those families who are now living in fear every day.”

By Rachel Williams

Public protest planned Monday in San Diego

May 22, 2017 (San Diego) -- Last Thursday the Border Patrol detained college student Claudia Rueda from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, as she moved her mother’s car for street cleaning. Agents tried to enter the family home, but they were denied access without a warrant. Rueda, a “dreamer” who came to America as a minor, was eventually taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Chula Vista.