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from Deborah BrennanCalMatters
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The Escondido City Council on Wednesday will discuss an agreement that allows ICE agents to share its police range, as critics urge the city to void the contract amid aggressive immigration crackdowns.
Escondido police conduct their own training at their shooting range on Valley Center Road and 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, said police Capt. Eric Whittold.
The $67,500 contract covers three years at $22,500 per year and allows up to 200 agents for up to 20 days during the year.
“They have the exclusive right to use the range of dates that they have proposed,” Whittolt said. “They go there, they train 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 protested the agreement and more than 2,500 people signed a petition urging city leaders to reverse it.
“The continued provision of local police training resources to federal agencies raises serious concerns about public trust, accountability and the proper use of city facilities,” the petition states.
The dispute has drawn unusual opposition from other elected leaders as well. On Monday the 33rd local officials sent a letter request by Escondido to rescind the contract. Democratic Assemblyman 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 say the partnership with ICE has “harmful effects that transcend city limits.”
“Contracting with an agency that operates without regard to the constitution is inconsistent with Escondido’s core values,” they wrote.
The backlash against the contract reflects the conflict surrounding ICE’s operations in California communities and the different ways local governments have responded to a crackdown on immigration and the state’s sanctuary laws. California limits this coordination by California Values Actbut some cities and counties add stricter restrictions, while others help ICE within the limits of state law.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said he would follow state law, but not additional local restrictions imposed by the County Board of Supervisors. The city of El Cajon passed a resolution declaring it not a sanctuary city, while other San Diego cities created new protections for immigrants amid a federal crackdown on mass deportations. University of San Diego Police have helped the Department of Homeland Security patrol the border.
As Democratic state lawmakers propose bills to tighten asylum policies by taxing private detention companies, barring law enforcement officers from working as federal agents and limiting arrests in courthouses, some conservative city officials are pushing back.
Escondidos Shared Shooting Range
The Escondido range is one of only a few in San Diego County, and the police department rents it out for about 200 days a year to agencies including the Port Authority Police, Carlsbad Police, California state agencies and the Internal Revenue Service, Whittolt said.
ICE officers began using the range in 2014 and then solidified it with a formal contract in 2024, which allows ICE to use the range for half or full days and provides basic facilities, including a rifle range, pistol range, equipment storage and classroom.
“There is no running water and no electricity from the shore,” Whittolt said. “We use a generator and have port-a-johns, so it’s a pretty primitive facility. They bring their own firearms, targets and personnel. We provide the grounds and they provide everything else.”
CalMatters requested records of ICE’s use 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 for conduct joint DUI checkpoints which also served as immigration stops. Critics have condemned the program, saying it discourages cooperation between local police and immigrant communities in the predominantly Latino city.
San Diego County’s Controversial Approach.
In San Diego and other parts of Southern California, other local governments have taken different paths navigating California Law of 2017 limiting such coordination. It prohibits local law enforcement from asking about immigration status, arresting people only for immigration violations, or sharing personal information with ICE or Customs and Border Patrol.
Several Supreme Court cases dating back to the 1800s have established that immigration enforcement is the exclusive duty of the federal government, and other court precedents have limited local or state agencies from enforcing immigration detainers.
In 2024, San Diego County took this a step further with a resolution that prohibits county officials from assisting ICEgiving immigration agents access to inmates or notifying ICE when the immigrant will be released unless that person has been convicted of a felony. Last month it was adopted another resolution which prohibits immigration agents from entering county property without a court order.
Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Terra Lawson-Remer, a Democrat, said the protections are needed to ensure people can use county services without fear of arrest.
“How do we ensure that people feel safe when accessing social services?” she said. “People come because they need food, they come because they need health care.
Some employees think this is too far. The Asylum Act allows, but does not require, local law enforcement agencies to report the release of violent offenders with immigration violations. In a statement to CalMatters, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said she follows state restrictions on coordinating with immigration officials, but does share information about undocumented immigrants with convictions for serious, violent or sex crimes.
“As Sheriff of San Diego County, my number one priority is protecting the safety and well-being of all residents of our diverse region,” she said. “Protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants is critical. I am also hyper-focused on ensuring that victims of crime are not overlooked or overlooked in the process.”
Local news agencies reported that Martinez may be offending country and asylum county policies by inappropriately transferring detainees to ICE. Martinez argued that she, not supervisors, determines how the sheriff’s department enforces 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 of the sheriff’s office.”
How cities interpret sanctuary laws
Some local governments resent the state restrictions and have passed resolutions declaring their disapproval.
In a split vote in February 2025, the El Cajon City Council passed the measure confirming that El Cajon is not a “sanctuary city” and reaffirming their commitment to comply with federal immigration law. Republican Mayor Bill Wells said the city would not oppose the state law limiting coordination with immigration agencies, but council members wanted to voice their opposition.
“We will not break the law,” he said. “However, we passed a resolution stating that it is the will of the people of El Cajon to cooperate with ICE.”
Wells said he also wants to support a challenge to the California law and hopes the Supreme Court will overturn it.
“We’re signaling 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 “is using a public safety narrative to mislead the public about asylum law,” Pedro Rios, director of the US-Mexico Border Program at the American Friends Committee wrote in a comment on CalMatters.
Other Southern California officials opposed California’s sanctuary law. Huntington Beach City Council lost two lawsuits against himincluding one filed jointly with Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor.
Meanwhile, other cities in San Diego have erected barriers between local police and immigration agents. in November Chula Vista passed politics to inform immigrants of their rights, prohibit federal agents from entering public areas without a warrant and prevent city contractors from disclosing the immigration status of employees, and in February condemned the federal immigration actionsfollowing the murders of protesters Renee Goode and Alex Pretty in Minnesota. in September, City staff directed to Oceanside not to assist immigration enforcement, and in October the San Diego City Council voted yes prohibits San Diego police from cooperating with ICE.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.