In summary
Critics are urging Escondido to cancel its long-standing contract allowing ICE to use the city’s police firing range, as local governments across San Diego County differ over how much to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement under California Values Act.
The Escondido City Council on Wednesday will discuss an agreement that allows ICE officers to share its police firing range, as critics demand the city cancel the contract amid aggressive immigration raids.
Escondido police conduct their own training at their firing range on Valley Center Road and also lease it to other agencies. They have provided access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than a decade, and formalized it through a 2024 contract, Police Captain Erik Witholt said.
The $67,500 contract covers three years at $22,500 annually, and allows up to 200 agents for up to 20 days over the course of the year.
“They have the exclusive right to use the range, on the dates they were proposing,” Witholt said. “They go up there, they do their training on their own. We don’t train them, we don’t train with them, and then they leave for the day when they’re done.”
Local activists have protested the agreement, and more than 2,500 people signed a petition calling on city leaders to reverse it.
“Continuing to provide local police training resources to federal agencies raises serious concerns about public trust, accountability, and the appropriate use of city facilities,” the petition states.
The dispute has also drawn unusual opposition from other elected leaders. On Monday, 33 local officials sent a letter asking Escondido to cancel the contract. Democratic Assemblymember David Alvarez, three San Diego County supervisors, council members from San Diego, Oceanside, Vista, Carlsbad, Chula Vista and San Juan Capistrano, and numerous school board members, argued that the partnership with ICE has “harmful consequences that go beyond city limits.”
“Contracting with an agency that is operating without regard for the constitution does not align with Escondido’s core values,” they wrote.
Backlash against the contract reflects the conflict over ICE activity in California communities, and disparate ways local governments are responding to immigration crackdowns and state sanctuary laws. California restricts that coordination through the California Values Act, but some cities and counties are adding stricter limits, while others are helping ICE within the constraints of state law.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said she will honor state law, but not additional local restrictions that the County Board of Supervisors imposed. The city of El Cajon passed a resolution declaring that it is not a sanctuary city, while other San Diego cities established new protections for immigrants amid the federal mass deportation campaign. Campus police at UC San Diego have helped the Department of Homeland Security patrol the border.
As Democratic state lawmakers propose bills to tighten sanctuary policies by taxing private detention companies, banning law enforcement officers from moonlighting as federal agents and curbing courthouse arrests, some conservative city officials are pushing back.
Escondidos’ shared shooting range
Escondido’s firing range is one of a handful in San Diego County, and the police department leases it about 200 days per year to agencies including Harbor Police, Carlsbad Police, California state agencies and the Internal Revenue Service, Witholt said.
ICE officers started using the firing range in 2014 and then cemented that with a formal contract in 2024, which allows ICE use of the range for half or full days, and provides basic facilities including a rifle range, handgun range, equipment storage and classroom.
“There is no running water and no shore power electricity,” Witholt said. “We use a generator and have port-a-johns, so it’s a pretty primitive facility. They bring their own firearms, targets and staff. We provide the grounds and they provide everything else.”
CalMatters requested records for ICE usage of the facility since 2014, but the city has not provided them.
Escondido has a history of working with ICE; in the early 2000s, the city maintained a partnership with the agency to conduct joint DUI checkpoints that also served as immigration stops. Critics denounced the program, saying that it discouraged cooperation between local police and immigrant communities in the majority Latino city.
San Diego County’s conflicting approach.
Throughout San Diego and other parts of Southern California, other local governments have taken different paths navigating the 2017 California law limiting such coordination. It forbids local law enforcement to ask about immigration status, arrest people solely for immigration violations or share personal information with ICE or Customs and Border Patrol.
Several Supreme Court cases dating to the 1800s established that immigration enforcement is the exclusive duty of the federal government, and other court precedents limit local or state agencies from enforcing immigration detainers.
In 2024, San Diego County took that a step further with a resolution that prohibits county officials from assisting ICE, giving immigration agents access to inmates or alerting ICE when an immigrant will be released, unless that person has been convicted of serious crimes. Last month it passed another resolution that bars immigration agents from county property without a judicial warrant.
Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, a Democrat, said that protection is necessary to make sure people can use county services without fear of arrest.
“How do we ensure that people feel safe when they can access social services?” she said. “People come because they need food, they’re coming because they need health care.”
Some officials think that’s a step too far. The state sanctuary law allows, but does not require local law enforcement to communicate about the release of violent offenders with immigration offenses. In a statement to CalMatters, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said she observes state limits on coordinating with immigration officials, but does share information about undocumented immigrants with convictions for serious, violent, or sex crimes.
“As the sheriff of San Diego County, my number one priority is protecting the safety and well-being of all residents of our diverse region,” she stated. “Protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants is crucial. I am also hyper focused on ensuring victims of crimes are not overlooked or neglected in the process.”
Local news agencies have reported that Martinez may be violating state and county sanctuary policies by inappropriately transferring jail inmates to ICE. Martinez argued that she – not the supervisors – determines how the Sheriff’s Department applies the state law.
“The San Diego County Board of Supervisors does not set policy for the Sheriff’s Office,” Martinez said in the statement. “The sheriff, as an independently elected official, sets the policy for the sheriff’s office.”
How cities interpret sanctuary laws
Some local governments chafe at the state restrictions and have passed resolutions declaring their disagreement.
In a split vote in February, 2025 the El Cajon City Council passed a measure affirming El Cajon is not a “sanctuary city” and asserting their commitment to comply with federal immigration law. Republican Mayor Bill Wells said the city won’t defy state law limiting coordination with immigration agencies, but council members wanted to express their opposition.
“We’re not going to break the law,” he said. “However, we passed a resolution stating that it was the will of the people of El Cajon to cooperate with ICE.”
Wells said he also wanted to lend support to challenges against the California law, and hopes the Supreme Court will overturn it.
“We are signalling that when that happens we’re more than happy to coordinate with the federal government,” he said.
Critics of El Cajon’s policy denounced it as “fear-mongering,” and said it used public safety concerns to justify anti-immigrant bias. Wells “used a public safety narrative to mislead the public about the state sanctuary law,” Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s US/Mexico Border Program wrote in an op-ed for CalMatters.
Other Southern California officials have opposed California’s sanctuary law. The Huntington Beach City Council lost a pair of court challenges against it, including one filed jointly with Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor.
Meanwhile other San Diego cities have imposed barriers between local police and immigration agents. In November, Chula Vista passed a policy to inform immigrants of their rights, bar federal agents from public areas without a warrant and prevent city contractors from disclosing employees’ immigration status, and in February it condemned federal immigration action, after the killings of protestors Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. In September, Oceanside directed city staff not to assist with immigration enforcement, and in October, the San Diego City Council voted to prohibit San Diego police from collaborating with ICE.
