{"id":155150,"date":"2026-01-29T17:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/155150\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:12:11","slug":"immigration-arrests-quietly-increase-by-1500-in-san-diego-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/155150\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration arrests quietly increase by 1500% in San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/a>Protesters gather in front of Buona Forchetta in South Park. (Photo by JW August\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

This\u00a0story\u00a0<\/a>was originally published by CalMatters.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>\u00a0for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

While the\u00a0Trump administration\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0immigration 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.<\/p>\n

Government data analyzed by CalMatters show nearly a 1500% increase in arrests for May to October compared to the same time period a year earlier. The arrests occurred in San Diego and Imperial counties, a region the federal government refers to as its San Diego area of responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By September, the number of arrests recorded in the two counties surpassed immigration arrests in the\u00a0Los Angeles territory<\/a>, a much larger region that the Trump administration targeted for a headline-grabbing crackdown that summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September and October, federal immigration officers arrested more than twice as many people in the San Diego region than they did in all of 2024, according to government data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the temperature rising,\u201d said Patrick Corrigan, a volunteer who monitors U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity at the federal courthouse in San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As in other blue cities across the nation, activists are worried San Diego could be next on President Donald Trump\u2019s list for a major military-style immigration operation. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson would not comment about whether more high-profile operations were planned for the San Diego area. David Kim, a Border Patrol spokesman, said the agency cannot confirm future operations.<\/p>\n

In December, White House \u201cborder czar\u201d Tom Homan\u00a0visited the San Diego border<\/a>\u00a0with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we bring 10,000 more agents on\u2026you haven\u2019t seen anything yet,\u201d warned Homan. \u201cWait til\u2019 next year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that so-called \u2018sanctuary cities that have official policies that limit law enforcement cooperation with federal officers, such as San Diego and Chula Vista, would see more non-criminal arrests because agents would be forced into the community. \u201cIf you wanna be a sanctuary city, you\u2019re gonna get exactly what you don\u2019t want. More agents in the community and more non-criminals arrested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Advocacy groups and immigrants have noticed the skyrocketing arrests. In San Diego, federal immigration agents have clashed with protesters while arresting immigrants in the hallways of downtown courtrooms. Agents also swept Home Depot parking lots in Encinitas, National City and San Marcos in the past year and made arrests near public schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In May, ICE agents\u00a0stormed Buona Forchetta<\/a>, a small neighborhood restaurant in the upscale South Park neighborhood of San Diego.<\/p>\n

But San Diego hasn\u2019t felt like a city under siege \u2014 yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gregory Bovino<\/a>, the chief patrol agent of the El Centro Sector in California who made headlines around the nation as the Border Patrol\u2019s commander at large, has not shown up in San Diego. Even without his presence and the attention that follows, arrests here have been surging.<\/p>\n

Agents arrested more than 4,500 people between May and October of 2025 compared to less than 300 in the same period of the previous year, the data shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Immigration arrests in San Diego, Imperial counties increased drastically in 2025<\/p>\n

Federal immigration officers arrested about 4,500 people for civil violations of immigration law between May and October of last year in the San Diego area, a 1500% increase compared to the same period in 2024 where nearly 300 such arrests occurred. By September 2025, arrests surpassed those in the Los Angeles area, where ICE activity surged this past summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Federal immigration officers arrested about 4,500 people for civil violations of immigration law between May and October of last year in the San Diego area, a 1500% increase compared to the same period in 2024 where nearly 300 such arrests occurred. By September 2025, arrests surpassed those in the Los Angeles area, where ICE activity surged this past summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many arrests are occurring at immigration check-ins and courthouses. Some critics call that tactic illegal because they say it violates people\u2019s due process rights to legalize their status. They say it serves as a deportation trap: if you don\u2019t show up, you will probably be ordered deported; if you do, you may be arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just putting numbers on the board,\u201d said Andrea Guerrero, the executive director of Alliance San Diego, a community human rights organization that works to hold federal law enforcement accountable, including Border Patrol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re doing so in a way that is not just irresponsible, but is inhumane. There is no doubt that public trust is eroding in real time in the institutions of our government and that has an impact on the resiliency of our democracy,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Diego arrest data shows immigration agents are no longer focusing on people with criminal records. Only 25% of people arrested between May and mid-October had past criminal convictions, compared to over 60% in the same months of the final year of Joe Biden\u2019s presidency.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The data was provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a public records request by the\u00a0Deportation Data Project<\/a>, a group of academic researchers and attorneys, and analyzed by CalMatters.<\/p>\n

This data set only includes administrative arrests: when ICE agents arrest an individual for a civil violation of immigration laws, such as being in the U.S. without permission from the government. ICE can also make criminal arrests, but those figures do not appear to be included in this data set, according to researchers.<\/p>\n

Courthouse arrests<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a woman from Venezuela showed up at the federal immigration courthouse with her 5-year-old son and a social worker. She was nervous because agents previously arrested her husband. The family had waited in Mexico for an appointment through Biden\u2019s CBP One application in 2024, which was the legal way to enter the country and seek asylum at that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very afraid to go in,\u201d said Milagros about the Edward Schwartz federal court building. She said she asked the social worker to accompany her to her immigration check-in so that her son would not also be taken into custody if she was arrested. She planned to hand the boy off to the social worker if she had to.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they\u2019re constantly changing all the policies, it\u2019s very difficult. We don\u2019t feel like we can walk around freely,\u201d she said. She asked Calmatters to identify her only by her first name because she feared retaliation for speaking with the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As she approached the court building, Milagros spotted The Rev. Brad Mills, who helped\u00a0run a church shelter during a surge<\/a>\u00a0of Venezuelan asylum-seekers during the Biden administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw the father, I was able to relax a little,\u201d she said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\"AAdriana Jasso, and other members of Uni\u00f3n del Barrio, drove through Linda Vista in San Diego on the lookout for ICE agents and their vehicles, on Jan. 13, 2026. The group alerts communities in San Diego to the presence of ICE agents. Photo by John Gastaldo for CalMatters<\/p>\n

Mills said he comes to the courthouse to accompany people to their hearings and check-ins because they \u201care trying to go through the legal pathways to seek residency or seek some legal right to stay here and work here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany come here with a lot of fear,\u201d Mills said. \u201cThe presence of the faith volunteers, we\u2019ve been told, has kind of a peaceful calming effect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Corrigan, another\u00a0FAITH volunteer<\/a>, accompanies people at the courthouse four days a week and five to six hours a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen increases in detention, a lot of detentions in the courthouse,\u201d Corrigan said. \u201cThere were two weeks in October where it was 10 to 20 (people) a day, and then lately maybe one or two a day,\u201d he said in mid-January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The arrests include people who likely would have been allowed to remain in the country in past administrations. They include a Cuban man who had been in the U.S. for 15 years, a Turkish man\u00a0married to a U.S. citizen<\/a>, and a Mexican mom granted withholding from removal, court records show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018How much longer is this going to go on?\u2019<\/p>\n

On a crisp January morning before dawn, a group of volunteers gathered in a parking lot in Linda Vista, a San Diego neighborhood that\u2019s home to the University of San Diego and Skate World, the only indoor roller rink in the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Armed with megaphones and walkie-talkies, they were preparing to patrol the neighborhood block-by-block, street-by-street to warn Latino, Filipino and Vietnamese community members about Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area. The day before, ICE arrested a day-laborer here. A week earlier, agents took four people: three Guatemalans and one Mexican national, according to members of the group\u00a0Union del Barrio<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Union del Barrio volunteers are not nervous, even though less than a week prior to their patrol, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis for doing exactly what they say they\u2019re trying to do: protect their streets from the Trump administration\u2019s massive deportation machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for many years, so I think it is fair to say that it shakes you, as a person \u2026 the violent way agents or the agent in particular decided to act or react to the situation,\u201d said Adriana Jasso.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not going to stop them, she adds.<\/p>\n

They patrol six, sometimes seven days a week, and they respond to calls from neighbors afraid to go outside when they see a passing SUV. They\u2019re looking for fancy cars; the grade of tint on their windows; the type of haircut and color of pants a 20-something is wearing \u2014 clues that agents are operating in the area. If they confirm ICE is here, messages go out to a WhatsApp group with more than 700 members for the Linda Vista neighborhood.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That day was quiet, but others have not been. In July, community members clashed with agents from Homeland Security Investigations outside the Mesa Vista Apartments in Linda Vista,\u00a0according to news reports<\/a>. The federal agents requested and received backup from the San Diego Police Department, fueling further community outrage. In August, ICE arrested a parent waiting nearby to pick up his child from Linda Vista Elementary School,\u00a0according to Voice of San Diego<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t reached the fever pitch seen in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. \u201cNo, we haven\u2019t seen that, that degree of presence or force,\u201d says Jasso.<\/p>\n

\"AFirst:\u00a0At sunrise, Rommel Diaz, left and Adriana Jasso, of Uni\u00f3n del Barrio, patrol the Linda Vista neighborhood in San Diego.\u00a0Last:\u00a0A bullhorn sits in the trunk of the car. The group patrolled the area in the early morning hours to see if they needed to alert residents of the presence of ICE agents in the community. Photos by John Gastaldo for CalMatters<\/p>\n

Later in the week, Union del Barrio volunteers were just wrapping up their shift patrolling Barrio Logan, one of the region\u2019s oldest Mexican-American communities. It has a history of immigration, labor and grassroots activism. A wave of phone pinged and alerts rippled through the group. A neighbor has spotted a suspicious vehicle back in Linda Vista, about 10 miles to the north.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The volunteers sprang into action, getting to Linda Vista with the same determination as cops rolling to a crime scene. In an alley in the Village apartment complex, they found a dark blue minivan with no front license plate and visible collision damage on the passenger side. In the back, there was a handicap plate. A reflective sunshade propped against the windshield partly concealed the agents inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jasso got out and tentatively approached the car. Once she confirmed two men wearing Department of Homeland Security uniforms were inside, she got on the bullhorn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLa migra! La migra est\u00e1 aqu\u00ed en Linda Vista! This is an ICE vehicle!\u201d her voice echoed across the parking lot in English and Spanish.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to move or you\u2019re going to get arrested for impeding,\u201d an agent told a Union del Barrio driver, who asked CalMatters not to identify him because he fears arrest because of his involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The volunteer backed up slowly as Jasso kept screaming. Once the Union del Barrio car was out of their way, the agents peeled out of their spot and continued out of the parking lot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just way too much for people,\u201d Jasso said. \u201cOne of the constant questions we get is: \u2018How long is this going to go on? \u00bfCuant\u00f3 tiempo m\u00e1s?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt breaks your heart because what can we say?\u201d she added. \u201cNobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

CalMatters<\/a>\u00a0is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.<\/p>\n

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