Border Report: What a Sanctuary City Is, and Isn’t

As with the first Trump presidency, fear is circulating in San Diego’s immigrant communities and among the organizations who support immigrants. 

As a result, one question has come to me repeatedly in the past couple of weeks from various community members — is San Diego a “sanctuary” city or county?

“The reality is no city is a sanctuary city. No city has the ability to stop ICE from being in its city limits and doing what it does — or Border Patrol,” said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, associate director at Alliance San Diego, using the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for immigration arrests inside the United States as well as detention and deportation. 

What Is a Sanctuary City?

What people often mean when they use the term “sanctuary” is that the local government has limited its law enforcements’ cooperation with ICE. That includes restricting local law enforcement agency’s ability to participate in a program known as 287(g) that deputizes officers as immigration agents and limiting local jails from communicating with ICE or complying with requests, known as detainers, to hold someone for ICE to pick up.

When it comes to that definition, the whole state of California qualifies.

That’s because California passed several laws that say local law enforcement across the state cannot participate in immigration enforcement, including the California Trust Act in 2013, The California Truth Act in 2016 and the California Values Act in 2017.

In pushing to get these bills passed, advocates argued that undocumented people would be more likely to cooperate with police when they are victims of crimes if they know that the police cannot report them to ICE. A 2017 study published by University of California San Diego professor Tom Wong found that counties that limit local law enforcement interactions with ICE have lower crime rates and stronger economies.

The laws limit local law enforcements’ communications with ICE about people in police custody, including undocumented immigrants, green card holders and even U.S. citizens whom officials mistake for immigrants.

Under these laws, local police cannot hold someone in custody for extra time to allow ICE officers an opportunity to make an immigration arrest. Local police also cannot notify ICE who is in custody or when someone is getting released unless that person has been convicted of certain crimes. 

In San Diego County, the sheriff’s department operates most of the jails. ICE used to have offices inside the jails, but as the laws have shifted, that has changed, according to Felicia Gomez, senior policy advocate for immigrant rights at the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties. Gomez said that ICE hasn’t interviewed anyone inside a county jail since 2022. 

What a Sanctuary City Isn’t 

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University, which gathers government data through public records requests, ICE issued 152 detainers to San Diego County law enforcement in fiscal 2024. That’s down from 1,336 in fiscal 2012, the year before the first of the laws passed.

It’s not clear from the data how many of those people ICE ultimately detained.

“A sanctuary designation is not going to make you completely safe,” Tsurumoto Grassi said. “It will prevent our Sheriff, for example, from directly handing someone to ICE. But if ICE wants to go and find that person on their own, they still can.”

Some local jurisdictions in California have gone a step further than the state laws by completely banning police from notifying ICE about who’s in custody or when someone will be released, regardless of convictions. Both Tsurumoto Grassi and Gomez said that more can be done to ensure compliance with the existing laws as well.

“We’re very privileged to live in a state like California, especially going into the incoming administration, but that doesn’t mean we can’t build on it,” Gomez said.

What’s Next for the Region?

On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors will consider a resolution that could further restrict sheriff’s deputies from communicating with ICE, as has happened in other local jurisdictions around California.

“Limiting cooperation focuses our local County resources on local matters, as immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility,” an overview of the resolution says in the meeting agenda.

A spokesperson for the San Diego Sheriff Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. Most county supervisors also did not respond.

“My district follows the law at the federal, state, and county level,” said County Supervisor Joel Anderson, who represents District 2. 

Los Angeles adopted a sanctuary city ordinance earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Mayor Todd Gloria’s office said that San Diego will rely on state laws regarding the issue.

“State law (SB54 from 2018) already codifies that local law enforcement is prohibited from aiding in immigration enforcement in California,” said Rachel Laing of the San Diego mayor’s office. “We have no plans to do anything additional.”

According to inewsource, El Cajon’s mayor is moving his city in the opposite direction and looking for ways to support Trump’s deportation plans.

During his first term, incoming President Donald Trump said he would take federal funding away from cities that had enacted sanctuary designations. 

Because of this, Tsurumoto Grassi said she’s also thinking about ways that advocates can push local governments to make moves to protect residents if the federal government cuts funding for some public benefits. 

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In Other News

• Agent slams migrant with vehicle: A video has been circulating on social media of a San Diego Border Patrol agent driving at significant speed on a road between the border walls and hitting a migrant with the SUV on Nov. 27. Customs and Border Protection told me that the CBP Office of Professional Responsibility and the United States Attorney’s Office are both reviewing the incident. Human rights advocates are pointing to the incident as further evidence of agent impunity. (Warning: the link includes the video footage, which is difficult to watch.)
• Federal fight: The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Alex Riggins looked back at the ways in which San Diego’s federal courts played a key role in the court battles over the Trump administration’s immigration policies and what could happen this time.
• Agent charged: A former Border Patrol agent is facing charges of on-duty sexual misconduct, Riggins reported for the Union-Tribune.
• Deported vets: Gustavo Solis reported for KPBS that advocates for deported veterans see a potential opening to get legislation passed during the incoming Trump administration to help prevent future deportations of people who served in the U.S. military and to create a process to bring back veterans who have already been deported.
• No shelter contract: San Diego County has again ended negotiations with a potential contractor for a migrant shelter space, Emily Alvarenga and Alexandra Mendoza reported for the Union-Tribune.
• Checkpoints on checkpoints: Mendoza also reported that Mexico has once again added a layer of screening at the San Ysidro Port of Entry car lanes in order to get CBP to move officers from the border line to open up more inspection booths and reduce wait times. CBP started stationing a layer of officers on the yellow line after asylum seekers who were blocked from requesting protection on foot started trying to reach U.S. soil in cars.
• Asylum primer: If you’re looking for a thorough take on how the asylum system and border conversation reached where we are today, I found a recent episode of NPR’s Throughline to be particularly well done and informative.