San Diego County officials are moving to sever ties between local firearms training facilities and federal immigration enforcement agencies, with two supervisors arguing that county gun ranges have no business supporting what they describe as the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation push.
Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Chair Pro Tem Paloma Aguirre announced the proposal at a press conference Monday outside the county administration building, framing it as a matter of principle for a county they say should not be lending its resources to immigration operations they view as harmful to due process.
“Our local public facilities serve our residents, not support Federal immigration operations that disregard and trample upon due process and rule of law,” Lawson-Remer said.
The measure heads to a full board vote Tuesday. If approved, it would terminate agreements allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to train at the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa, along with a separate range the county leases from the Navy at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
The debate echoes one that played out in Escondido earlier this year, where the city council voted in February to keep its own firing-range contract with the Department of Homeland Security intact despite vocal public opposition.
Aguirre said the timing of the county’s proposal reflects mounting anxiety among immigrant families amid a wave of enforcement actions. “Parents are afraid to drop their kids off from school, afraid to go to the grocery store, afraid to walk to work: simple moments that should feel safe,” she said. “And while all of this is happening, ICE and CBP have been training at county firing ranges.”
That fear has been stoked by a string of visible enforcement operations across the region. In May 2025, ICE agents raided Buona Forchetta restaurant in San Diego’s South Park neighborhood, detaining four workers and drawing widespread criticism. Months later, in August, agents detained parents outside elementary schools in Encinitas, Chula Vista and San Diego.
The numbers behind those headlines are substantial. A CalMatters analysis of federal data found immigration arrests in the region jumped roughly 1,500% between May and October compared with the same stretch the previous year. Rep. Mike Levin, a Democrat whose district spans parts of San Diego and Orange counties, has said federal figures show more than 16,000 people were removed from San Diego County between January 2025 and April of this year. Levin noted that ICE has not disclosed how many of those detained actually had criminal convictions, despite federal officials’ insistence that enforcement focuses on serious offenders.
Supervisors contend that such tactics carry a public safety cost of their own, discouraging immigrant residents from reporting crimes or cooperating with local law enforcement out of fear of being targeted. “Providing training grounds for Trump’s deportation force is a slap in the face of our residents and undermines our clear commitment to rule of law and civil rights here in San Diego County,” Lawson-Remer said.
According to county records, federal immigration agents have logged roughly 3,350 hours at the Otay Mesa training facility since 2024. The arrangements, first signed in 2021, generate about $126,780 in revenue for the county — a sum small enough that the deals were approved administratively rather than through a board vote.
“The federal government cannot terrorize our families all week and rent our firing range on the weekend: not on this county, not anymore,” Aguirre said.
Federal immigration officials did not respond to inquiries from CalMatters about the proposed cutoff. However, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott expressed disappointment with the county’s move, warning that losing access to the training facilities could result in longer wait times at border crossings and at San Diego International Airport.
Aguirre pushed back on that characterization, saying the contract’s limited scope means its cancellation would have little practical effect on federal operations. “Lines at San Ysidro would not be a consequence of this board’s actions,” she said. “They would be a choice made by the Trump Administration and paid for by us here in San Diego.”
The firing-range measure is the latest in a series of steps county leaders have taken to distance local government from federal immigration enforcement. In January, the board approved the Civil Liberties Enforcement and Accountability Rules ordinance, which restricts federal immigration agents from entering non-public county buildings and spaces. That measure passed on a party-line vote, with Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and fellow Democrat Monica Montgomery Steppe in favor, and Republican Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson opposed.
In June, the county also prevailed in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security that secured health inspection access to the Otay Mesa Detention Center — a facility Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and County Public Health Officer Sayone Thihalolipavan had previously been barred from entering.
Original source: CalMatters
