Members of congress inspect Otay

The Trump administration has driven most of the dominant news of the past 14 months, most prominently regarding immigration. And no department has dominated that conversation more than Homeland Security, and particularly one of the agencies it oversees, ICE.

That was true again this week, with new revelations about the interaction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers with local law enforcement and new observations from two members of Congress who gained access to a South Bay detention facility.

Rep. Sara Jacobs and Rep. Mike Levin, both members of San Diego’s delegation, toured part of the Otay Mesa Detention Center – and they weren’t pleased by what they found. Other elected officials, both congressional colleagues and county supervisors, have been turned away. They plan to make more visits. “Just that they know we’re watching is important,” Jacobs said. Our Lillian Perlmutter has more. 

She also just completed a months-long investigation delving into the numbers of migrants who, after being arrested by a California sheriff’s department, ended up in ICE custody even if they weren’t being held on serious charges. She takes a look at state law, yet also shows how ICE’s access to data helps agents get around it to intercept targets who are in custody.  

In a related local story, inewsource took a look at the San Diego County Sheriff Office’s policies on transfers of inmates to ICE. The transfers, our partner reports, have reached “their highest level in years.”

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