{"id":365320,"date":"2026-06-18T06:09:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365320\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T06:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:09:31","slug":"rep-peters-says-ice-harassment-didnt-end-after-buona-forchetta-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365320\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Peters says ICE harassment didn’t end after Buona Forchetta raid"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year after grenade-wielding immigration agents raided the popular Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park, Rep. Scott Peters<\/a> warned that harassment and mass deportations are quietly continuing in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Fifty people were ordered deported Friday in the first \u201cmega\u201d master immigration hearings<\/a> in San Diego. The move is just one in a series of chaotic crackdowns<\/a> on immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by the Trump administration, which has been open about its mass deportation aims.<\/p>\n

The hearing was the latest in a new national effort by the Department of Justice to significantly increase deportations by fast-tracking hearings, according to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rep. Scott Peters, who represents an area of San Diego that includes Buona Forchetta<\/a>, the site of a violent immigration sweep (and an immediate, outraged community response<\/a>) in May 2025, said that San Diego is losing significant portions of its population to hard-line immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration has funded ICE and Border Patrol to an extent that\u2019s unheard of,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re better funded than the entire Israeli military already \u2026 it is ridiculous from people who are claiming to be fiscally responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic lawmaker said he is strongly against the $70 billion that was authorized for Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very bad for us in San Diego,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Some 850,000 immigrants live in San Diego \u2014 more than 21% of the population, according to the county<\/a> \u2014 and their daily lives have been tremendously disrupted, Peters said. \u201cMany of them have legal status through TPS or with green cards and are just being harassed and it\u2019s particularly terrible for San Diego \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re actually losing population,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a native-born citizen you may not see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With mass deportations and \u201crocket dockets\u201d the current norm, \u201cthis is really an indiscriminate cleansing of immigrants from the United States,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s unnecessary and it\u2019s political, and it\u2019s also just the wrong way for the country to be going.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may seem to be quieter around San Diego and other major cities with an ICE presence, but as this week\u2019s mass removal order shows, just because shows of intimidation have diminished doesn\u2019t mean vulnerable people are not being targeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the administration has turned away from the sort of militaristic demonstrations that we saw in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, but don\u2019t be deceived,\u201d Peters said. \u201cThey\u2019re just being conducted more quietly.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, instead of getting arrested in the streets, many people are now getting picked up on their way to court-mandated hearings or even appointments to receive a green card.<\/p>\n

But Peters said that those defending their neighbors against the threat of violence, removals from the country, and worse give him reason to hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a pretty good network of folks who are in communication with each other,\u201d he said, adding that the work of local volunteers is crucial for keeping immigrants and asylum-seekers safe, particularly if a Minneapolis-style confrontation came to San Diego. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo be out there in the streets with eyes on and cameras on probably prevented a lot more violence and death than what we actually saw,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The congressman added that Americans need to keep speaking out about violent removals and demand better treatment of those being targeted. He is also supporting immigrants by introducing legislation to limit the use of force by immigration agents, such as the Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should just hold Border Patrol and ICE to the same standards that we do local law enforcement \u2014\u00a0body cameras always on, no masks, very standard now \u2014 people are very comfortable with that,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n

He said that spreading the word about both immigration violence and efforts to stop it is a way to help the most vulnerable, because immigrants are not the only people hurt by immigration sweeps and mass deportations \u2014 society overall becomes less vibrant and resilient without their presence, hurting everyone in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust being aware of how harmful this is for all of us is very important,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after grenade-wielding immigration agents raided the popular Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park, Rep. Scott Peters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2871,14,76135,148245,74,76,75,15926],"class_list":["post-365320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-mass-deportations","tag-rocket-dockets","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-scott-peters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}