Local privacy advocates are raising concerns about an obscure database managed by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) that might be allowing President Donald Trump’s deportation forces to circumvent state and local immigrant sanctuary laws.
For an annual fee of roughly $200,000 SANDAG grants immigration enforcement agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), access to the database, which is known as ARJIS.
The database contains information from every law enforcement agency in San Diego County — which includes traffic citations, arrest records, field interviews, a local jail census and some driver license records.
Local police agencies have shared data with their federal counterparts through ARJIS for decades. But now, the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics are raising new questions about what exactly is being shared with the federal government.
“It is not always great to share data because sometimes you don’t know what the motivations of those people might be,” said Seth Hall, a privacy advocate with the TRUST SD Coalition.
Advocates are particularly worried that ARJIS does not have enough independent oversight protections in place to prevent agencies like CBP from using it to go after San Diego’s immigrant population.
“We are at a time where the Trump administration is attacking all immigrants — people with status, people without status, with no criminal record,” said Homayra Yusufi, a senior policy strategist for the Partnership of the Advancement of New Americans (PANA). “CBP and HSI are literally just out there to find as many individuals to detain and deport as possible.”
Lack of protection
During the first Trump administration, CBP agents used surveillance technology to spy on U.S. citizens — immigration lawyers and human rights advocates — working with migrants from the Central American caravans.
Last year, Border Patrol agents gained backdoor access to license plate reader databases across the country, including El Cajon, which they used to track down immigrants. In Chicago, a federal judge wrote that Border Patrol leadership was “outright lying” about the agency’s use of force tactics in her injunction limiting those practices.
Yusufi argues those incidents show CBP isn’t a trustworthy law enforcement partner. She and other advocates also argue that ARJIS undermines sanctuary laws by granting access to CBP without enough oversight.
“Our local law enforcement agencies are able to say, ‘Yeah, we don’t directly share this,’” said Erin Tsurumoto-Grassi, associate director of Alliance San Diego. “But if you are sharing it through your ARJIS database and then ARJIS is selling that information — you may not be directly sharing it, but that information is still being shared, and I think that’s something we should be concerned with.”
In a recent statement to KPBS, a CBP spokesperson said agents use ARJIS in the vast majority of their criminal cases and said the database improves the agency’s cooperation with “partner agencies.”
“Without ARJIS, we would face significant delays in obtaining time-sensitive information, impacting operations and regional cooperation,” the spokesperson wrote.
But the spokesperson did not respond when asked whether CBP uses ARJIS for immigration enforcement.
SANDAG has several restrictions in place aimed at preventing federal agents from using the database for immigration enforcement. The database requires users to enter a valid reason for each search, like a case number. And ARJIS added a disclaimer on the login screen telling users not to use it for immigration enforcement purposes.
But it’s unclear whether federal agencies are following those rules because SANDAG does not have the authority to run independent audits.
SANDAG declined to make Anthony Rey, the director of ARJIS, available for an interview. A spokesperson told KPBS that ARJIS’s user agreement prevents SANDAG from conducting independent audits. Instead, audits only happen when agencies voluntarily audit themselves or when the California Department of Justice requests one.
The spokesperson said the last time CBP requested an audit was in 2017. When KPBS asked for a copy of that audit, SANDAG said it could not release it because it didn’t have CBP’s approval.
Who will be next?
The SANDAG board consists of elected officials from each of San Diego’s 18 cities and the county. None of the board members agreed to an interview with KPBS.
Yusufi says the lack of oversight from SANDAG should be raising alarm bells in immigrant communities throughout the county.
“It’s time for us to get our heads out of the sand and recognize the reality of the threats that are facing all of our communities right now,” Yusufi said. “And we have to reconsider selling this data with agencies that we know will harm San Diegans.”
Hall, from TRUST SD, said this goes beyond immigration — that future administrations can easily use these mass data surveillance systems to target other “disfavored populations.”
“If you’re not an immigrant, then maybe this doesn’t really bother you,” he said. “But you better pay attention to who else is being disfavored.”
Other privacy advocates say it’s time for other local jurisdictions to act if SANDAG won’t.
“What accountability measures are you going to put in place? Can you get those audits? How else can you make it transparent and accountable?” Tsurumoto Grassi said.
One of the SANDAG board members is San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.
Gloria’s office sent a statement that touted his commitment to strengthening local projections for immigrant families. And it referenced an executive order the mayor signed in July reaffirming that city resources will not be used for immigration enforcement.
“The order makes clear that City personnel, property, and resources will not be used to assist immigration enforcement unless expressly required by law, helps ensure accurate multilingual information about rights and services, and enhances coordination so that residents can live without fear while public safety is upheld for all,” Gloria’s spokesperson wrote.
But when asked whether the mayor thought ARJIS was undermining that executive order, his office did not respond.
