Chula Vista School Board Candidate Scrubbed ICE From Resume 

Earlier this year, Chula Vista Elementary School District Trustee Jessica Tolston’s job looked like it might pose a threat to her campaign for the school board. 

Tolston is a Democrat running for a four-year term in a predominantly Latino district where fears of immigration enforcement run high. She was appointed to her first partial term in office in 2025. 

When she sought county Democrats’ endorsement in May, a group of Latino party activists raised questions about Tolston’s job as a management and program analyst in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Biometric Identity Management. 

“Is a current DHS employee the best person to protect our immigrant school children and their families?” the group asked. 

Tolston assured Democrats her work did not involve immigration enforcement. 

She provided a resume to party leaders that listed various administrative and office management duties at DHS’s San Diego headquarters. None of the duties appeared related to immigration enforcement. 

But according to an earlier version of Tolston’s resume obtained by Voice of San Diego, her work for DHS actually involved extensive work with computer systems used by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to track, arrest, detain and deport immigrants. 

The earlier resume, which Tolston submitted to the Chula Vista Elementary district when she applied to fill a two-year vacancy on the school board in January 2025, listed six separate ICE-related duties. 

In a statement to Voice, Tolston acknowledged she used a different version of her resume when seeking Democrats’ endorsement. But she said she never intended to deceive anyone and has always been transparent about her work. 

“The different resumes reflect different points in my career and different purposes,” she said. “That was not an attempt to conceal my employment history or mislead anyone about my work.” 

Tolston acknowledged the earlier version of her resume “included responsibilities involving administrative access to ICE-related systems.” 

But she said her job had changed a year later when she sought Democrats’ endorsement. 

The point is moot now, Tolston said, because she’s had a change of heart. 

“I have now resigned from federal service,” she wrote in a statement emailed to Voice. “There are moments when your principles are tested, and you have to decide what you are willing to sacrifice for them. I could no longer continue serving in an environment that conflicted with my values simply because leaving would be difficult.” 

Tolston did not specify when she left her DHS job or how she now earns a living. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as a federal government program analyst. 

Tolston’s ICE-related work appears in close to half the duties she listed in the resume she sent to Chula Vista Elementary in January 2025. 

Among those duties: 

• Acting as the biometric identity office’s “direct representative with all… ICE… system-related issues.” 

• Supervising the process by which ICE agents gain access to databases and other tools used in immigration enforcement. 

• Helping ensure that fingerprints, facial scans and other forms of identification are readily available in databases such as ”the ICE Enforce Alien and Removal Module,” which tracks immigrants through detention and deportation proceedings. 

• Serving as the ”primary approver” for a software system that makes identification information collected in San Diego available to nationwide DHS databases. 

Apart from the removal of the references to ICE and one other reference to working on “special law enforcement” projects, the version of Tolston’s resume submitted to Democrats is identical to the one she gave the school district. 

At the time Tolston joined the Chula Vista Elementary school board, she had been working at DHS’ San Diego headquarters for close to 13 years. 

Previously, she worked for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency in Orange County and at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United States Coast Guard. 

In her application, Tolston said she wanted to join the board because her 7-year-old son’s school had provided crucial support to her family when Tolston’s husband, a military veteran, died of cancer in 2023. 

“I forever will be grateful for their attention and constant support,” Tolston wrote. 

From the start, Tolston found herself thrust into the tumultuous politics of the Chula Vista board. 

She was a compromise pick after divided board members deadlocked in their efforts to fill a seat vacated when one board member engaged in an unorthodox electoral maneuver to oust a fellow board member he disagreed with. 

She quickly became a reliable ally of the teachers union, which often plays a decisive role in district elections. 

Union leaders decided to endorse her this year over fellow Democrat Debra McLaren, a former principal and administrator in the district. 

Union President Rosi Martinez said, for teachers, Tolston’s “student-centered vision [and] frequent check-ins with labor groups to make sure she’s labor-friendly” outweighed McLaren’s more extensive educational experience. 

Tolston said she “discussed my work [with the union and] was also clear that I do not support ICE policies and enforcement practices that negatively affect students, families and communities.” 

The Chula Vista school board has been split in recent years between a three-member Democratic majority and two Republicans who frequently question board decisions and say current district leaders have steered the district into a deficit. 

Tolston’s opponent, McLaren, has echoed some of those criticisms. If elected, she could tilt the balance of power on the board away from what Martinez has described as a cooperative relationship between the union, the superintendent and the board majority. 

In divided votes at both a caucus of South County Democrats and the party’s Central Committee, party leaders looked past Latino Democrats’ objections and gave Tolston their endorsement. 

Neither Martinez nor Democratic Party Chairman Will Rodriguez-Kennedy said they felt deceived by Tolston’s characterization of her work. 

If anything, they said, they admired Tolston for deciding to quit her job. 

Rodriguez-Kennedy acknowledged Tolston did not give a complete picture of her work in the resume she provided to Democrats. 

“When… we see such cruelty in our government [in immigration policy], it tests a lot of people,” he said. “I think it tested Jessica Tolston as well. I think she thought it was best to obscure the references to ICE specifically.” 

Rodriguez-Kennedy said Tolston was more forthcoming in a one-on-one conversation with him during the party’s endorsement process. 

“She told me… she dealt with data systems, working for the office of biometric information and management,” he said. “She did not go into how much she dealt with ICE. [But] she did not try to obscure it.” 

Rodriguez-Kennedy said Tolston assured him “she was not in enforcement and was not an agent and did not detain people.” 

Tolston said her principles should not be in question. 

“I chose my principles knowing the personal and financial consequences,” she said. “I stand by that decision and will continue dedicating myself to serving and strengthening our community.”