Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Immigration arrests quietly surge by 1,500% in San Diego: ‘I feel the temperature rising’

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.


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Deaf Mongolian Immigrant Held by ICE In Otay Mesa for Months Without Access to Interpreter

The Otay Mesa Detention Center operated by CoreCivic. (Photo by Adrian Childress/Times of San Diego)
 
By Wendy Fry, CalMatters
 
Update July 23, 2025 -- ICE has released this immigrant, Cal Matters reports, after four months in custody and following a judicial order to provide a Mongolian interpreter.  He is now living with a family member.
 
July 14, 2025 (San Diego County) -- A deaf Mongolian man has spent more than four months in a Southern California immigrant detention center without the opportunity to communicate with anyone who understands Mongolian Sign Language, according to his civil rights attorney. 
 
“He’s basically been in solitary confinement because he has not had one person actually speak to him in Mongolian Sign Language for the entirety of the time that he’s been in proceedings and detained,” said his attorney, Alegría De La Cruz, director of litigation for the Disability Rights Legal Center.
 
U.S. Southern District of California Judge Dana Sabraw this week ordered officials at the Otay Mesa Detention Center to provide him with a Mongolian Sign Language interpreter. 

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36 MEMBERS OF SINALOA CARTEL ARRESTED; DRUGS AND WEAPONS SEIZED, U.S. ATTORNEY ANNOUNCES

Arrestees include Border Patrol agent and East County residents
 
Two more AR-style rifles, a pistol, magazines, and Russian-made ammunition, all of which, prosecutors say, were exchanged for drugs. Photo courtesy of the Office of the United States Attorney Southern District of California
 
East County News Service
 
June 9, 2024 (San Diego) – In sweeping raids across multiple counties including San Diego, 400 officers from dozens of agencies arrested 36 members of the Sinaloa cartel for a “fentanyl and methamphetamine distribution network” based in Imperial Valley, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of California. Charges were filed against 47 alleged members of the criminal operation, including 11 who remain fugitives from justice.

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"I AM DEVASTATED, I FEAR FOR HIS LIFE." AUNT SPEAKS OUT FOR RUSSIAN MIGRANT ORDERED DEPORTED

By Bransen P. Harper 
 
Contributor: Patrick J. Watkins
 
May 10, 2024 (San Diego) – A young Russian migrant in Jacumba Hot Springs told East County Magazine several weeks ago that he fled his homeland after being persecuted and beaten for opposing Russia’s “unjust war of terror” in Ukraine.  But now his hopes of freedom in America have been dashed. 
 
An immigration judge has denied his asylum claim and ordered a 19-year-old Russian immigrant deported, according to his aunt and his attorney. HIs real name is being withheld for his protection.

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BODY BEAUTIFUL CAR WASH, INC. TEAMS WITH HOMELAND SECURITY TO PROMOTE LEGAL HIRING

  

July 9, 2011 (San Diego County) – A San Diego business is the first car wash in the country to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an innovative program that helps businesses ensure that all their employees are authorized to work in the United States. 

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