San Diego County Supervisors Vote 3-2 to End ICE and CBP Firearms-Range Agreements; Sheriff Says CBP Can Keep Training There
The Aug. 18 vote directs the county to cancel license agreements at two firing ranges, but Sheriff Kelly Martinez says she will keep letting Customs and Border Protection use the Otay Mesa range, and it is unresolved who has the final say.
A County Voted to Kick Out ICE. Then the Sheriff Said CBP Could Stay.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Aug. 18, 2026, to cancel the license agreements that let Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection train at two firing ranges the county controls[1][2]. Supervisors Terra Lawson-Remer and Paloma Aguirre brought the item, and Monica Montgomery Steppe joined them to pass it[1][3]. Republicans Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson voted no[1].
That same day, Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who runs the county's day-to-day law enforcement and answers to voters, not the board, said something different[5][6]. ICE would stop using sheriff's facilities, she agreed. But CBP could keep using the Otay Mesa range[5][6].
So the board banned both agencies. The sheriff is only enforcing half the ban. Both things are true, and nobody has settled which one governs the gate at Otay Mesa[6].
Why a County Can't Touch ICE but Can Touch a Lease
A county has no power over federal immigration arrests. It cannot tell ICE agents who to detain or CBP officers how to run a port of entry. What it does control is its own property, buildings, land, and the contracts attached to them[9].
That is why this fight landed on a firing range instead of anywhere else. CBP has used the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa since 2017. ICE signed on in 2021, and added a second range at Navy-owned Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, which the county leases, in 2022[4]. Cancel those licenses, and the county has done the only thing it legally can: pull the lease.
One detail sharpens that math. The 2021 ICE license ran 10 years but was signed administratively, without a board vote, because its dollar value fell under the threshold that requires one[9]. Supervisors are undoing, by public vote, an agreement none of them originally approved.
Federal agents logged more than 3,300 training hours at the center since 2024[3]. Under the board's action, the license agreements end 10 days after the federal government gets formal notice[4]. But notice and reality are not the same thing when the sheriff who runs the range disagrees with the board that owns it.
Two Elected Officials, One Range, No Referee
California sheriffs are elected separately from county boards. Martinez does not report to the supervisors, and they cannot order her how to run the department[6]. The board controls the county's contracts. The sheriff controls the range her office operates day to day. Both claims are real, which is exactly why this is unresolved.
Martinez explained her split this way: ICE makes interior arrests, the kind that generate fear in immigrant neighborhoods, so she agreed to stop hosting ICE training. CBP staffs the ports of entry that tens of thousands of workers, students and shoppers cross every day, and she does not want to disrupt that[1][6]. "Impacts at the border, workers traveling to and from their jobs; children, young adults and college students crossing the border to attend school," she said, describing her reasoning[1].
No court, no county counsel and no vote has decided whether her judgment or the board's policy controls Otay Mesa. That is the live dispute right now, more than the underlying immigration politics.
The Case for the Vote, and the Case Against It
Supervisor Montgomery Steppe put the board majority's reasoning plainly: "Federal immigration agents have harmed our communities many different ways here locally and throughout the nation[1]." The majority argues a taxpayer-funded range should not subsidize a federal deportation program many county residents oppose, and points to the county's own CLEAR ordinance, passed in January 2026, which already requires federal agents to get a judicial warrant before entering non-public areas of county facilities[9]. In this framing, ICE can still train, just not on county property, the same way a landlord ending a lease does not stop a tenant's business.
Federal officials reject that framing entirely. ICE Acting Director David J. Venturella said the agency "will not allow political obstruction to prevent our officers and agents from receiving the training they need[8]." His argument rests on officer competence: agents must requalify with firearms regularly, and losing the nearest range means travel time, scheduling backlogs, and fewer live-fire hours for officers who carry loaded weapons in the same neighborhoods they patrol.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott called the county's move "reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant" and warned it would cause "immediate economic harm[3]." Republican supervisors Desmond and Anderson echoed that pulling agents away for training elsewhere could slow staffing at the ports of entry and lengthen border wait times, a cost they say would land on the same working-class border commuters the board majority says it is protecting[2].
A Number Nobody Can Pin Down
Money sits underneath both arguments, and it will not hold still. Reported annual revenue from the range agreements ranges from about $110,000 to more than $170,000, depending on which outlet and which contract you count[1][3][9]. Aguirre has called CBP's warnings about economic harm a scare tactic, arguing a fight over a six-figure rental is not a real consequence but leverage[3].
That framing cuts both ways, though. The federal government treats this vote as a precedent problem: if San Diego's range ban sticks quietly, other California counties may copy it, which is part of why Venturella's statement leaned on the word "obstruction," a term that carries legal weight[8]. The board's vote works the same way in reverse, offering a template other counties can adopt.
No independent evidence has shown that losing range access has actually changed CBP or ICE staffing at the ports of entry, or slowed border wait times. That remains a federal prediction, not something anyone has measured yet.
Who Told the Story, and How
Coverage split along familiar lines. Fox News and The Epoch Times centered the sheriff's partial reversal, framing the story as a Democratic county turning on federal agents and then pulling back, with CBP and ICE's warnings carrying much of the narrative weight[5]. CalMatters, KPBS and NBC News led with the board's vote itself, treating it as the decisive event and leaning on the 3,300 training hours and the county's CLEAR ordinance as documentary anchors[2][3][4].
KPBS's follow-up reporting, two days after the vote, was among the few to name the unresolved authority question directly rather than assume the ban was self-executing[6]. inewsource's coverage, which first surfaced the administratively-signed 2021 ICE license back in April, took the least partisan framing of any outlet in this set, presenting the sheriff-board conflict as an institutional puzzle rather than a political one[6][9].
No major outlet outside the United States covered the story in any depth, which is itself worth noting. This has played almost entirely as American local and national news, not as an international immigration story.
What happens next depends less on politics than on plumbing: whether county counsel, a court, or simply continued negotiation between the board and Martinez settles who actually controls the gate at Otay Mesa. As of now, nobody has.
Summary
On Aug. 18, 2026, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to cancel the license agreements that let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection train at two firing ranges the county owns or leases[1][2]. The item came from Supervisors Terra Lawson-Remer and Paloma Aguirre[3]. Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe joined them. Republican Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson voted no[1]. The board directed staff to give notice, and the agreements end 10 days after the federal government receives it[4].
Then the story got more complicated. The same day, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said ICE would no longer use sheriff's facilities — but that she will keep letting CBP use the Otay Mesa range[5][6]. The sheriff in California is separately elected. She does not work for the board. So local reporting says it is not settled whether the board or the sheriff has the final word over a county-owned range that the Sheriff's Office runs[6]. That jurisdictional question, not the immigration argument, is the live dispute right now.
The two sides do not even agree on what the fight is about. Supervisors who voted yes say it is about county property: taxpayer-owned facilities should not support federal deportation operations they view as harming local residents[2][7]. Federal officials say it is about training. ICE Acting Director David J. Venturella said ICE "will not allow political obstruction to prevent our officers and agents from receiving the training they need"[8]. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott called the proposal "reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant" and warned of harm at the border[3].
One number to watch: how much the county earns from the deals. Reported figures range from about $110,000 to more than $170,000 a year[1][3][9]. Supervisor Aguirre has called CBP's economic warnings a scare tactic[3]. Neither the exact revenue nor the operational effect on port-of-entry staffing has been independently verified.
The Event
On Aug. 18, 2026, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve a policy barring federal immigration enforcement agencies from using county facilities for firearms training, and directed staff to terminate the existing license agreements[1][2]. The agreements covered the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa, which the county owns, and a Navy-owned range at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that the county leases[4]. The board acted after hearing public comment from dozens of residents, a majority of whom spoke in favor[1]. Later the same day, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said ICE would stop using sheriff's training sites but that CBP would keep access to the Otay Mesa range[5][6].
Undisputed Facts
- The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Aug. 18, 2026, on an item brought by Supervisors Terra Lawson-Remer and Paloma Aguirre[1][2].
- Supervisors Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and Monica Montgomery Steppe voted yes; Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson voted no[1].
- CBP has had an agreement to use the county training center since 2017, and ICE has had one since 2021[4].
- ICE has also had an agreement since 2022 to use the Navy-owned range at MCAS Miramar that the county leases[4].
- The ICE license signed in July 2021 ran 10 years and was executed administratively, because its dollar value fell below the threshold that would have required a board vote[9].
- Federal agents logged more than 3,300 training hours at the center since 2024[3].
- The license agreements end 10 days after the federal government receives notice from the county[4].
- Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who is separately elected and does not report to the board, said she "will continue to allow CBP to utilize the Otay Range"[5][6].
- ICE Acting Director David J. Venturella issued a statement saying ICE "will not allow political obstruction to prevent our officers and agents from receiving the training they need"[8].
- CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott called the proposal "reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant"[3].
The Pressure
Strip away the moralizing and blame. What structural realities persist regardless of which narrative wins?
- Property is the only lever a county has
- A county cannot stop federal immigration enforcement. It has no power over federal agents' arrests. What it does control is its own buildings, land and contracts. So local officials who want to register opposition reach for the one instrument they actually hold: the lease. This is why the fight is about a firing range and not about arrests[9].
- California sheriffs are not employees of the board
- In California, the sheriff is elected by county voters, not appointed by supervisors. The board controls the county's budget and its property agreements. The sheriff controls day-to-day law enforcement operations, including the range her department runs. That structural split is what makes it genuinely unclear who prevails here — it is not a matter of anyone defying anyone, but of two offices with real, overlapping claims[6].
- Deterrence by precedent, on both sides
- The federal response is aimed past San Diego. Calling a range cancellation "obstruction" is meant to raise the cost for the next county considering the same move[8]. The supervisors' vote works the same way in reverse: it is a template other California boards can copy.
- The border economy is a real constraint, not just rhetoric
- San Diego and Tijuana form one of the busiest land crossings in the world. Daily crossers include workers, students and truck freight. Any claim that staffing shifts will slow the ports lands on a region that feels port delays immediately — which is why the sheriff cited commuters and students specifically, and why the argument has traction beyond partisan lines[1][6].
Material realityTwo ranges exist and will keep existing. ICE has already agreed to stop using the Otay Mesa facility[6]. CBP's access there continues for now, because the sheriff says so[5]. The county's paperwork terminates 10 days after the federal government is notified[4], but paperwork and practice are different things when the officeholder running the facility disagrees. The revenue at stake is small by county-budget standards and is not even consistently reported — roughly $110,000 to more than $170,000 a year appears across accounts[1][3][9]. No independent evidence has yet been published showing that losing range access has changed federal staffing at the ports of entry or lengthened border wait times; that remains a prediction, not a measurement. Federal agents can and do train at federal facilities. The practical question is distance and scheduling, not whether training happens at all.
Narrative as a weaponThree actors are shaping this hard. The board majority wants you to read the vote as a moral line: public property, public consent, and a local government refusing to be a silent partner in deportations. Federal officials want you to read it as sabotage that endangers officers — the word "obstruction" is chosen carefully, because it borrows the vocabulary of a crime. The sheriff wants you to read her split as pragmatism rather than politics, separating interior arrests from port staffing. Watch two things everyone is glossing over. First, the money: the annual figure is unsettled across reports, and both sides argue from it as if it were fixed. Second, the authority: most national coverage describes the ban as accomplished, but who actually controls the gate at Otay Mesa has not been decided by anyone — not a court, not the county counsel, not the voters.
How Each Side Sees It
Each major actor’s view — how it frames things, its underlying incentive, and how it’s materially affected. Tap a side to read it.
Frames it asTheir case is about ownership, not about policing the border. A county range is taxpayer property, and a county is not obligated to subsidize a federal program its residents oppose. Lawson-Remer and Aguirre argue the arrangement clashes with the county's own CLEAR ordinance — the Civil Liberties Enforcement and Accountability Rules — which limits federal law enforcement access to county facilities without a warrant[9]. Montgomery Steppe put the harm plainly: "Federal immigration agents have harmed our communities many different ways here locally and throughout the nation"[1]. The analogy their advocates use: a landlord ending a lease is not obstructing a tenant's business. Nobody is stopping ICE from training. ICE can train on federal land, as it does elsewhere. And on the money, Aguirre's argument is that a border shutdown over a six-figure range rental is not a real consequence — it is leverage[3].
WhyAll three are Democrats in a county where immigration enforcement has become the defining local political issue, on a board whose 3-2 margin is narrow and contested. Delivering a concrete anti-deportation action costs the county little and answers an organized constituency that turned out in force at the hearing[1][2].
Impact on themThey give up a modest, disputed revenue stream — reported between roughly $110,000 and more than $170,000 a year[1][3][9]. They also now face a public standoff with an elected sheriff who is not bound by their vote, which is a governing problem, not just a messaging one[6].
Frames it asTheir strongest argument is officer competence, and it does not depend on agreeing with deportation policy. Federal agents must qualify with their firearms on a regular schedule. Take away the nearest range, and qualification means travel time, backlogs, or fewer live-fire hours. Fewer practice hours means less-practiced agents carrying loaded weapons in the same San Diego neighborhoods — a safety cost borne locally. That is why Venturella framed the vote as blocking "the training they need to safely and effectively enforce the laws"[8]. Their second argument is operational: CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott warned of "immediate economic harm"[3], and Republican supervisors echoed that pulling agents away for training could slow port-of-entry staffing and lengthen border wait times[2]. Their third is constitutional in flavor — immigration enforcement is a federal power, and a county using its property portfolio to frustrate it is doing indirectly what it cannot do directly.
WhyThe Trump administration has made deportation numbers a central commitment, and it treats local non-cooperation as a precedent problem: if San Diego's range ban stands quietly, other counties copy it. Publicly labeling it "obstruction" is as much about deterring the next county as about this range[8].
Impact on themConcretely, agents lose access to two convenient ranges and must find alternatives; ICE has already agreed to stop using Otay Mesa[6]. CBP's practical loss is smaller for now, because the sheriff is keeping its access open[5].
Frames it asHer position is that operational judgment over a facility her department runs belongs to her, and that she reached a different conclusion than the board after two weeks of talking to community stakeholders[6]. She separates the two agencies deliberately: ICE does interior arrests, which is what generated the fear her constituents describe, so she agreed ICE would stop using the range. CBP staffs the ports of entry that tens of thousands of workers, students and shoppers cross daily. Her stated reasoning cites "impacts at the border, workers traveling to and from their jobs; children, young adults and college students crossing the border to attend school"[1]. In her framing, a blanket ban that lumps CBP in with ICE trades a symbolic win for a real cost to border residents.
WhyAs an independently elected official, her accountability runs to county voters, not to three supervisors. She also has a working relationship with federal agencies that she has to maintain past this vote, and a department that shares the range.
Impact on themShe is now the person who decides whether the board's policy has teeth at Otay Mesa. That puts her in direct public conflict with the board majority, and makes her the test case for an unsettled question of county authority[6].
Frames it asTheir argument is that the board picked a fight it does not have to fight and cannot win. Federal enforcement continues either way; the county just loses the revenue and the relationship. Cooperation between federal officers and local law enforcement — shared training space included — is how agencies avoid stepping on each other during real incidents. And the border economy is not abstract in San Diego: slower ports mean longer waits for workers and trucks, a cost that lands on the same working-class communities the majority says it is protecting[2].
WhyThey represent more conservative inland and North County districts, where border enforcement polls better, and they gain from being the ones warning about consequences if wait times do rise.
Impact on themThey lost the vote, so their practical influence now runs through the sheriff's decision and any federal response. If the county's revenue loss or port delays materialize, they own the told-you-so.
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The Bias Ledger average rating 3.8
The same story, as framed by outlets across the spectrum, ordered least to most biased. The bias score (1 = straight, 10 = heavily spun) is an AI assessment of that framing — click an outlet to see its track record. The tell is the word choice or omission that reveals the angle.
| Outlet | Vantage | Bias | How they frame it | The tell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| inewsource | U.S. center; San Diego nonprofit investigative newsroom, foundation- and donor-funded | 2 | "San Diego County sheriff, supervisors at odds over gun range use by CBP" — leads with the institutional conflict rather than the immigration politics. | The least-spun framing available, and the one that surfaces the documentary detail others skip — that the 2021 ICE license was signed administratively because it fell under the board-approval threshold. That fact cuts both ways and is reported without a verdict. |
| KPBS | U.S. center-left; San Diego public radio/TV, licensed to San Diego State University | 3 | "San Diego County Supervisors end gun range agreements with ICE and CBP," followed two days later by "County Supervisors and the Sheriff are at odds over CBP training at Otay Mesa gun range." | The follow-up is the most useful reporting in the set, because it names the unresolved authority question instead of assuming the vote is self-executing. The lean shows in emphasis on public-comment supporters as a proxy for community sentiment. |
| NBC News | U.S. center-left | 3 | "San Diego County will stop letting federal immigration agents train at local firing ranges" — plain, action-focused. | The construction "will stop letting" states a future certainty that the sheriff's stance complicates. Federal objections appear, but the county's rationale sets the story's frame. |
| CalMatters | U.S. center-left; California nonprofit newsroom, foundation-funded, focused on state government | 4 | "San Diego County bans ICE agents from its firing range" — treats the board action as the decisive event. | Uses "bans" as settled fact in the headline, which is what the board voted but not necessarily what will happen on the ground given the sheriff's position. The word choice front-loads the outcome the majority wanted. |
| The Epoch Times | U.S. right; founded by practitioners of Falun Gong, editorially pro-Trump | 5 | "San Diego County Votes to End Firearm Training Contracts With Federal Immigration Agents" — neutral headline, with CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott's "reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant" quote given prominent placement. | The headline is straight, but the sourcing tilts: federal officials' warnings about economic harm run at length, while Aguirre's rebuttal that this is a scare tactic gets less room. The dollar value of the contracts is used to imply the county is throwing away money. |
| Fox News | U.S. right | 6 | "San Diego County sheriff bans ICE from training at county sites" — foregrounds the sheriff's split decision, noting she blocks ICE "but keeps CBP access." | Centers the sheriff rather than the 3-2 board vote that actually set the policy. That framing makes the story about a Democratic official's inconsistency instead of about a legislative act, and it lets the federal officials' "obstruction" language carry the narrative while resident testimony about agent conduct is summarized rather than quoted. |
References
- SD County Supervisors OK ban on ICE using county firearms facilities — KESQ · U.S. center; California local broadcast, carrying City News Service wire copy
- San Diego County will stop letting federal immigration agents train at local firing ranges — NBC News · U.S. center-left
- San Diego County bans ICE agents from its firing range — CalMatters · U.S. center-left; California nonprofit newsroom, foundation-funded
- San Diego County Supervisors end gun range agreements with ICE and CBP — KPBS · U.S. center-left; public media licensed to San Diego State University
- San Diego County sheriff bans ICE from training at county sites — Fox News · U.S. right
- San Diego County sheriff, supervisors at odds over gun range use by CBP — inewsource · U.S. center; San Diego nonprofit investigative newsroom, foundation- and donor-funded
- Supervisors approve policy to ban immigration agencies from using county facilities for firearms training — Times of San Diego · U.S. center-left; San Diego digital local news
- ICE banned from using San Diego County firearm training facilities — NBC 7 San Diego · U.S. center-left; NBC owned-and-operated local station
- San Diego County could stop ICE, CBP from using this gun range — inewsource · U.S. center; San Diego nonprofit investigative newsroom, foundation- and donor-funded