S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. Investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis joins us with his latest reporting on a lawsuit against El Cajon over their data sharing , plus a check on Ice detentions. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So , California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing the city of El Cajon over its license plate surveillance program. Now , this comes two months after KPBS reported that El Cajon Police Department is sharing license plate data with outside agencies , despite a state policy prohibiting that. Here , with his latest reporting , is KPBS investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis. Gustavo , hi.
S2: When I started this.
S3: Jayden , how are you doing ? Good. Doing good.
S1: I hope you are , too. Um , listen , this lawsuit. It follows a back and forth between the city of El Cajon and the state over license plate data policies. Looks like this back and forth is going to end in court.
S2: Really ? It was. I mean , before Trump became president , uh , mayor Bill Wells was running for Congress. Uh , he failed that election , but he ran on a very Trumpian , tough on crime , anti-immigrant platform. And he's held on to that rhetoric since then. So from the very beginning , Trump has. I'm sorry. Wells has positioned himself as sort of like the Trump ally of San Diego politics.
S1: It's almost become a voice of unison there.
S2: There are limits to what the state can do when it comes to this kind of thing. Right. The federal government can send Ice over here and enforce their laws , especially if Ice has warrants , they can enter buildings. There's limits to what the state can do , but this lawsuit is an example of what the state can do. The state can enforce local laws that limit the scope of what we share with the federal government. So this lawsuit is an example of the attorney general flexing his muscles and doing what's within his power to limit what the Trump administration is doing.
S1: I also want to talk about what happened last week , when federal immigration agents took several people into custody at Home Depot stores in Encinitas and San Marcos.
S2: It hasn't been super transparent regarding the number of people they detained and things like that with us. We do know as part of a broader pattern , we saw these types of operations in Los Angeles. We also know that it a Supreme Court ruling , one of the shadow emergency docket rulings allowed this type of enforcement to happen. The Supreme Court said that Ice agents , at least for now , they could target people based on what they look like , what language they speak , and where they're working , essentially. Critics called it racial profiling going to random. I mean , there's videos , right ? The famous one is a bunch of Border Patrol agents unloading from the back of a pickup truck and just running into random day laborers at Home Depot. That is an example of what we're starting to see here in San Diego. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Well , some said the agents even were face coverings during that operation. And as you mentioned , last month , Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that banned agents from wearing those face coverings. But it does not go into effect until January 1st. So talk to me about that.
S2: Well , I think this would be an example of what the state cannot do to stop the federal government from , um , enacting or bringing to life President Trump's mass deportation agenda. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has already come out and said , we're going to ignore that state law. We are federal agents. We're going to continue to wear masks. The way they explain it is because of their safety. I think it's an open legal question whether or not the federal government can ignore this state law. Um , but while that open legal question is answered , the federal government is just not going to do it. So in a real practical sense , I think it is the law is well intentioned to try to to bring more transparency to these operations. I mean , there have been instances of people impersonating Ice agents to to rob people or assault people in other states. Right. So that I think the transparency is key in this. Right. A masked man claiming their federal agent not showing I.D.. It's not always a federal agent. So that's the theory behind these laws. But with the political climate and the animosity between DHS and the state of California. I don't see anything changing in terms of how they operate here. Hmm.
S3: Hmm.
S1: Well , you know , I know that they that our government is trying to reach a quota in terms of detentions. Ice arrests are on the rise in San Diego and across the US. Talk about what's driving that at this moment.
S2: Well , more more enforcement. I mean , you alluded to it in the spring or early , late spring , early summer. Stephen Miller , kind of the brainchild of Trump's immigration policy , was very upset that deportations weren't going up , arrests were not going up. And he pressured the agency to produce 3000 arrests per day. We're not at those levels yet , but we are a lot higher than we were before. And that looks like , um , it manifests itself in all kinds of ways. Right. We talked about the the arrest in the Home Depot parking lot. That's one of them. We've also covered ice arrests at courthouses. Ice arrest near and outside schools. Rules Ice arrests at workplaces. The Hyundai vehicle plant in Georgia was a big one. All of these little episodic operations are all part of the bigger picture of meeting the administration's goals of arresting a certain number of immigrants.
S1: I'm going to ask you a question , but but later , I want to touch on where they're sending folks. And what are we doing with all of these folks that they're taking off the streets here ? But our colleague Katie Hyson , she reports that the number of local Ice arrests of people with citizenship in Asian and Pacific Islander countries has really spiked. About half of AAPI people arrested in San Diego this year have no criminal record. So tell me about the fear that this is sending through immigrant communities.
S2: Well , it's so difficult to quantify , but you see it manifesting in all kinds of different ways. Um , I was interviewing with gentleman from El Cajon , and I asked him , you know , how has your life changed since the administration , you know , took over and started implementing this mass immigrant arrest agenda ? He leaned back , reached into his pocket , pulled out his wallet and showed me his passport card. He's been a US citizen for decades , but he feels compelled to have his passport card on him just in case. There are mutual aid groups that are responding to different needs. One of them is. Some immigrants feel too unsafe to go grocery shopping , so they rely on a neighbor. You know , they give them their grocery list. That neighbor does the shopping for them. I believe we'll see it towards the end of the year with sales tax revenue in certain cities. And we'll see how much shopping has declined in certain immigrant zip codes. So I do think the fear is just palpable. And you see it in people not showing up to work , students not showing up to school. Just people essentially removing themselves from civil society out of concern.
S1: It's terror. You know , you've talked about overcrowding within the Otay Mesa Detention Center on our show.
S2: I'm sorry. It's not a very transparent agency. It's privately run. Um , they're not subject to the same record requests. Laws that that are privately or publicly run facility would be there. I know anecdotally , I'm just talking to immigration lawyers. They are concerned for their clients health needs. There have been some reporting done about people in very serious medical conditions not receiving treatment. I'm talking about , um , diabetics who are losing their eyesight. Uh , people , uh , in cancer who are not getting proper treatment. Um , little things like open wounds not treated right away. They fester and develop infections. Right. Things that if they were treated ahead of time , they would not require hospitalization. But they do. So you see you see a little bits and pieces of it , but I can't tell you definitively what is or isn't happening. I mean , one of the questions I've been asking is since the Biden administration , they do not publish detention facility inspection reports on their website. They haven't done it since September of 2022. So there's just very little transparency on that front right now. But what we do know is that they are expanding immigrant detention. Right. They talked about alligator , Alcatraz , these other facilities. They're just greatly expanding the system that already before the expansion had a bad reputation for for being dangerous. I mean , so far this year alone , uh , more than 14 people have died in immigration detention.
S1:
S2: Some are run by the federal Government. Some are run by the state and the state. You know , contracts with Ice , but a fair amount of them are privately run. I mean , here in San Diego , it is a privately run facility. It's run by CoreCivic , a company based in Tennessee that really started as a prison. A federal prison contractor. They did privately run federal prisons. But if you remember , during the tail end of the Obama administration , there was criminal justice reform , this move away from federal detention. These companies essentially just shifted from federal criminal prison to federal immigration detention , which is technically civil detention. But I think that's a whole other conversation.
S1: Well , well , answer me this. I mean , what's the average stay for people inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center ? Are they getting hearings ? And and also when someone's family member is taken by Ice.
S2: It varies by facility. I don't have the numbers in front of me , but I could get back to you on that one in terms of finding your loved one in there. Ice does have a relatively transparent detainee locator function on their website. If you just google Ice detainee locator , you type in that person's name , their nationality. You should be able to see them in there. Now , amid this expansion of Ice detention , there have been instances of of delays. So somebody will be detained. They won't show up on the system 2 or 3 days later , and they're kind of digitally missing for a little bit. And that's been a big criticism. But in terms of who is there , I can tell you that at the Otay Mesa Detention Center , and it kind of matches with what Katie Hyson was reporting. Right. Half of the folks do not have criminal record at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. It's even more , uh , it's a higher portion of the population. More than 85% of the detainees there are classified as no threat level , right ? They don't have criminal Backgrounds , and we've seen that that's been a massive growth in the Trump administration. Whereas before during the Biden , it would be a substantial portion of the detainee population had a criminal record is much , much , much lower now. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Very interesting. Well , for more information and resources , uh , and also to follow along with Gustavo's reporting and Katie Hansen's reporting , you can find it all on our website at KPBS. Again , I've been speaking with Gustavo Solis. He's investigative reporter for KPBS. Gustavo , as always , thank you so much. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Thank you. Jade , I'd really like coming on here and explaining these.
S1: Thank you. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
