How El Cajon became a flashpoint in the fight over immigration

Mariene Branham knocks on a lot of doors. As an immigrant advocate in El Cajon, part of her job is to check in on people and see how they’re holding up amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

“People are very hesitant to come to the door right now if they’re an immigrant,” Branham said, a co-founder of Latinos En Accion. “They are definitely peeking through the window first, scoping out who is at the door.”

Branham said several people broke down in tears when she told them she was there to help.

Immigration is a particularly divisive issue in El Cajon. Nearly a third of residents are foreign-born and the city's Republican mayor is eager to support Trump’s deportation agenda.

In January, Mayor Bill Wells introduced a controversial resolution declaring the city’s intent to help the federal government enforce immigration laws. The resolution failed to secure enough votes twice, but ultimately passed with a 3-2 vote in February.

At the time, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta called the resolution “performative” because it didn’t change anything about how the El Cajon Police Department approaches immigration issues. State sanctuary laws like SB 54 still prohibit local officers from questioning people about their immigration status or helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents enforce immigration laws.

But Wells’ message was clear — El Cajon is either with Trump or against him.

“Let me tell you what I think is really going on here,” Wells said during the Jan. 28 City Council meeting. “I don’t think this is about immigration. I don’t think this is about racism. This is about Trump versus non-Trump. This is progressivism versus conservatism. This is the cultural war that we are involved in right now.”

Councilman Phil Ortiz has joined Wells in promoting Trump’s agenda from the City Council dais.

“I want to be clear, the only people who should be living in fear are the people who are exploiting and terrorizing our communities that are criminals,” Ortiz said at a meeting earlier in January. “Whether they are citizens or not.”

Local advocates say such actions might be political theater, but they stoke already deep fears within the community.

“This type of resolution is not just a symbolic gesture, it is an invitation,” said Viveka Ray-Mazumder, the associate director of inclusive democracy at PANA, a local organization that supports refugees and new immigrants in San Diego.

In March, less than a month after the resolution passed, dozens of federal agents raided an industrial paint shop just outside the city. ICE arrested 26 immigrants.

The March raid was part of a significant increase in immigration arrests in El Cajon this year, according to the Deportation Data Project.

Latinos En Accion launched a recall campaign against Ortiz, who lives in a district where Democrats are in the majority.

“We want to push for a new election,” Branham said. “We want people to know who Phil Ortiz is, who he stands with.”

Wells and Ortiz did not respond to questions from KPBS for this story.

Undermining trust in local police

Wells and Ortiz cite public safety as their primary motivation for supporting Trump, but local advocates believe their resolution makes it harder for officers in the El Cajon Police Department to do their jobs.

“We need to have trust with the police because, regardless of your immigration status, if you witness a crime or you experience a crime you should know that you can call,” Branham said.

El Cajon Police Chief Jeremiah Larson acknowledged that the department’s community relations have taken a hit.

“The trust has been eroded for certain members of our community,” he said.

Part of the problem, Larson said, is that people tend to lump all law enforcement together. They don’t necessarily differentiate between the El Cajon Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Marshalls, or ICE. They are all police.

“It’s hard for some members of the community to see a delineation between federal law enforcement and local law enforcement,” Larson said. “Not everyone understands that, and that’s OK. It’s our job to make sure we communicate that with the public.”

Larson said the police department recently resurrected a community advisory board.

Wells and Ortiz framed their continued support for Trump immigration policies as an attempt to keep El Cajon safe.

They’ve argued that ICE wants to deport immigrants without legal status who have been convicted of violent crimes. Wells called the resolution “a no-brainer.”

That rhetoric largely mirrored the Trump administration’s talking points. That federal agents are prioritizing the worst of the worst.

As the police work to repair community trust, it is becoming increasingly clear that despite the rhetoric, the Trump administration is detaining far more criminals than noncriminals in El Cajon and elsewhere.

Councilwoman Michelle Metschel nearly cried when talking about an immigration arrest that happened just down the street from her house in late January.

“They went in and took him out in front of his 5-year-old daughter,” she said during the Jan. 28 City Council meeting. “Imagine that trauma of her father being taken away because he was an illegal. But he works a full-time job, lives in an apartment, and had a court date to become legal.”

Ray-Mazumder, from PANA, said arguments about Trump only going after violent criminals have “aged really badly.”

Data show that as ICE arrests have increased, the percentage of people arrested who are convicted criminals has decreased.

For example, in 2023 ICE arrested four people in El Cajon — all of them with criminal convictions. Through the first seven months of this year, ICE has arrested 17 people in El Cajon, yet only four have criminal convictions, according to data from the Deportation Data Project.

At the Otay Mesa Detention Center, the only immigration detention center in San Diego County, more than 80% of detainees do not have a criminal record according to data from ICE.