Border Report: On The Lookout For ICE

By Kate Morrissey, the Voice of San Diego

March 20, 2025

A group of nearly a dozen volunteers gathered at a Logan Heights park at 5:45 a.m. on a recent Friday morning to patrol the community for signs of immigration enforcement.

They set out in five cars, communicating via walkie-talkie as they combed through the streets watching for teams of dark-colored, U.S.-made cars with tinted windows that they said Immigration and Customs Enforcement typically uses. They carried megaphones to alert the community to stay inside their homes if they spotted ICE at work.

“Once you gain the experience of what you’re looking for and typically how they work, it’s not that difficult to identify them,” said Adriana Jasso of Unión del Barrio, the group that organizes the patrols, “but for a community member that is fearful, that is confused, that has so many emotions running through them and wanting to verify but not feeling entirely comfortable, it can be more of a challenge.”

With President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations, fear has risen in immigrant communities throughout the county since he took office. On social media, community members report potential sightings of immigration enforcement — including some that turn out to be false reports.

And, those false reports can have major consequences, too. People who are worried about potential deportation from an ICE arrest might keep their children home from school or skip doctor’s appointments or grocery shopping if they think immigration officers are present, Jasso said.

“The ability to inflict pain on millions of people, it’s a lot,” Jasso said. “How long will people have to deal with this level of survival?”

ICE officers often go to a specific residence because they are targeting someone whom they believe lives there. Under changes from Trump, officers can now also arrest anyone who is potentially deportable whom they encounter in the process. There have also been reported cases, particularly in other parts of the country, of ICE going door-to-door in certain complexes looking for people to arrest and try to deport.

Unión del Barrio conducted the community patrols under the first Trump administration and the first half of the Biden administration as well.

“It’s the terror in our community that empowers us,” said Marysol Duran, a high school teacher who volunteers with the morning patrols. “As a teacher, it is our duty to protect, serve and educate our children, our families. We need to be at the forefront of our community.”

Some of the volunteers have been patrolling the Logan area since 1993, including Romuel, who drove on that Friday morning as Jasso watched for dark gray Dodge Chargers, Ford Explorers and Chevy Impalas, among others. The group also fields calls during the day and tries to send a volunteer to scope out reports of ICE activity.

The week before the Friday morning meetup, Romuel, who asked not to be fully identified out of concern that the government might target him, responded to a call about an unrecognized black Ford with polarized windows parked on a street near an elementary school in City Heights, he said. After investigating, he said he saw that the car had a limo rental ID on it, and he called the woman who reported it to tell her that the coast was clear.

“She said, ‘Gracias por cuidarnos,’” Romuel said. Thank you for taking care of us.

On Friday, drivers in Logan and Sherman Heights waved their thanks at the patrol cars, which had magnetized placards affixed to the sides explaining their work. The morning ended up being a quiet one.

Around 7:15 a.m., the cars turned back to the park where they had started. A local tamalero gifted the volunteers breakfast as they wrapped up.

But, sometimes the patrols aren’t so quiet. In the first month and a half of the new Trump term, the patrols have come across ICE activity about five times, Jasso said. That’s a notable increase from previous experience, she said. When they find ICE, the patrol volunteers get on their megaphones and go live on social media to alert the community, she said.

Meanwhile, the community in and around Bakersfield is all too familiar with the fear stoked by mass immigration arrests.

Border Patrol agents from the El Centro Sector arrested dozens in January before Trump’s inauguration, including some U.S. citizens, as they targeted people who appeared to be Latino, particularly those working in agriculture, landscaping and day labor, according to court filings.

The American Civil Liberties Union branches in California, including the San Diego and Imperial counties office, have filed a lawsuit alleging that agents illegally used racial profiling to detain people and even slashed the tires of a U.S. citizen who refused to give them the keys to his truck.

Brisa Velazquez, an attorney with the ACLU in San Diego, called the agents’ behavior outrageous. The lawsuit hopes to prevent future similar operations from Border Patrol, she said.

“Border Patrol has already stated that they’re going to continue to do these kinds of mass operations without regard to people’s constitutional rights and protections throughout the state,” Velazquez said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Customs and Border Protection said that it does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit includes two people who were deported from the United States as a result of the Bakersfield operation. The ACLU is aware of roughly 40 people who were sent out of the U.S. after agents profiled and arrested them, Velazquez said.

According to Unión del Barrio, ICE typically moves in gray or black Fords, Chevys, Dodges or GMCs. When I went on a ride-along with ICE years ago, they had a group of three or four of these cars. Jasso said it’s common for them to move as a group and would expect to see at least two cars.

Border Patrol often gets mistaken for ICE on social media. They use white SUVs and trucks with a prominent green stripe down the side. Agents sometimes take people in their custody to local hospitals for care, including the UC San Diego Health and Scripps Health trauma centers, as well as Rady Children’s Hospital. Jasso said Unión del Barrio has fielded many calls about Border Patrol at these hospitals.

CBP uses similar vehicles to Border Patrol, except its cars’ stripes are blue instead of green. CBP officers typically work at a port of entry rather than out in the field.

Readers interested in contacting Unión del Barrio about a potential immigration enforcement sighting can call 619-916-7215 for the San Diego area and 760-913-0306 for North County. The group also has a hotline for Los Angeles at 213-444-6562.

Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit news organization supported by our members. We reveal why things are the way they are and expose facts that people in power might not want out there and explain complex local public policy issues so you can be engaged and make good decisions. Sign up for our newsletters at voiceofsandiego.org/newsletters/.