The decision follows a 3-2 vote by the County Board of Supervisors to terminate agreements with both federal agencies, although Martinez says she will continue allowing CBP officers to train at the Otay Range because cutting them off could create longer border waits, increased traffic and economic disruption throughout the region.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez has officially shut the door on ICE agents using Sheriff's facilities for firearms training, announcing Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer be permitted to access department training facilities or firing ranges.
The move followed a highly charged San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting in which the board voted 3-2 to direct county officials to terminate agreements allowing both ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use county-controlled training facilities.
Martinez, however, is not treating the two federal agencies the same. While ICE is being cut off, the sheriff says CBP will continue using the Sheriff's Otay Range for training and firearms qualifications, at least for now, despite the board's broader direction concerning county agreements. Martinez said her decision regarding ICE followed months of conversations and growing community concern about the conduct of federal immigration agents during armed encounters across the country.
"Community trust and strong relationships are the cornerstone of effective local policing," Martinez said. "Our authority to enforce the law depends on the trust and confidence of the communities we serve, and I always balance my decisions based on community trust and public safety."
The announcement represents one of the clearest institutional breaks yet between a major San Diego law-enforcement agency and ICE amid the Trump administration's intensified immigration enforcement efforts. County supervisors who supported ending the agreements argued that San Diego should not provide local infrastructure that facilitates federal immigration enforcement that many residents believe has become increasingly aggressive.
Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Supervisor Paloma Aguirre brought forward the proposal, while Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe joined them in voting to terminate the agreements. Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond opposed the move. Montgomery Steppe said federal immigration enforcement has harmed communities locally and nationally and argued that San Diego County should not be complicit in those actions. Desmond took the opposite position, arguing that restricting training opportunities for federal officers could be counterproductive.
"ICE has overreached and overstepped, but how do you fix that? You fix it with more training," Desmond said, according to reporting by The Associated Press.
The controversy is particularly significant in San Diego because the region sits directly along one of the busiest international borders in the world. According to figures released by the Sheriff's Office, more than 225,000 people enter the United States through San Diego-area ports of entry every day, including more than 90,000 vehicles, approximately 50,000 pedestrians and roughly 5,500 commercial trucks. The Sheriff's Office says current border waits generally range from one to three hours. That enormous flow of people and commerce is central to Martinez's decision to preserve CBP's access.
The sheriff emphasized that ICE and CBP perform substantially different primary functions. ICE principally conducts interior immigration enforcement, detention and removal operations, while CBP staffs ports of entry and is responsible for processing legal travel and trade, screening cargo and passengers, combating smuggling and performing border-security functions.
Martinez warned that removing nearby firearms-training access for CBP could force officers to travel considerably farther for mandatory qualifications, keeping them away from inspection booths and potentially reducing the number of lanes operating at San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and Tecate. CBP officers are required to maintain firearms qualifications in addition to classroom and other training requirements. According to the Sheriff's Office, CBP currently has no comparable alternative training facility close to the border.
The Sheriff's Office operates another substantial training complex at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, but says only limited non-Sheriff range capacity there is available for federal agencies. Moving officers from the border to Miramar for required qualifications could therefore increase the amount of time they spend away from ports of entry.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said approximately 1,700 officers rely on the county range and warned that losing access would force the agency to send officers elsewhere for mandatory training, potentially reducing local staffing and affecting both trade and travel.
The Sheriff's Office went even further, warning that reduced staffing could close inspection lanes, lengthen border waits and increase pollution as thousands of vehicles idle longer at ports of entry. Those effects could extend beyond San Diego County.
Some CBP officers assigned to Imperial County's Calexico Port of Entry also use the Otay facility for training, according to the Sheriff's Office. Martinez warned that disruptions there could cause travelers and commercial traffic to seek alternate routes through San Diego crossings, increasing congestion locally.
"Too many people on both sides of the border would be harmed by a decision to end CBP's use of the facility," Martinez said. "As Sheriff, I have a duty to protect and serve everyone who lives in or enters San Diego County."
That decision creates an unusual split between the Sheriff's Office and the Board of Supervisors. The board directed the county's chief administrative officer and Department of General Services to terminate agreements involving both ICE and CBP, while Martinez, an independently elected sheriff, has announced that CBP will continue using the Otay Range as alternative arrangements are explored. The precise administrative and legal mechanics of how those competing directives will be reconciled remain to be seen.
The contracts themselves are longstanding. CBP has reportedly used the county's training center under an agreement dating to 2017, while ICE has had an agreement since 2021. ICE has also used a Navy-owned firing range at MCAS Miramar that is leased and operated by the county. Federal agents have logged more than 3,300 training hours at local facilities since 2024, according to information presented in connection with the board action.
The decision comes during an increasingly intense local debate over federal immigration enforcement. San Diego's proximity to the international border has historically required extensive cooperation among local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies, but recent ICE operations have generated growing opposition among immigrant-rights advocates and elected officials.
Martinez appears to be attempting to navigate directly through that divide: ending Sheriff's assistance to ICE while preserving cooperation with CBP where she believes eliminating it would negatively affect routine border operations and the regional economy. Her announcement also arrives the same day that a separate ICE detention involving the San Diego Padres has drawn national attention.
As SanDiegoVille reported earlier Tuesday, Padres minor league catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela remains in ICE custody after being detained at El Paso International Airport while returning home from a work assignment. Pirela's family says the Venezuelan-born coach has lived in the United States since 2014, has a pending asylum case and has been legally authorized to work here.
There is no indication that Pirela's detention played any role in Martinez's decision, which the Sheriff's Office says followed months of consideration and conversations with local stakeholders.But the timing illustrates how rapidly immigration enforcement has become one of the most consequential and divisive issues facing San Diego County.
Supporters of the board's action argue local governments should not provide resources that facilitate an immigration enforcement system they believe has become overly aggressive and harmful to immigrant communities. Opponents argue that law-enforcement training should not become a political bargaining chip and contend that better-trained federal agents ultimately make both officers and the public safer.
Martinez's approach effectively splits those positions. ICE agents will no longer train or qualify with firearms at Sheriff's facilities.
CBP officers, however, will continue doing so at Otay Mesa because Martinez believes the practical consequences of forcing them elsewhere would extend far beyond federal immigration policy, potentially affecting commuters, students, businesses, international trade and hundreds of thousands of daily border crossers. The Sheriff's Office says alternative training options will continue to be explored.
For now, however, San Diego County's relationship with federal immigration enforcement has fundamentally changed: ICE is out, while CBP remains in.
Originally published August 18, 2026.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez has officially shut the door on ICE agents using Sheriff's facilities for firearms training, announcing Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer be permitted to access department training facilities or firing ranges.
The move followed a highly charged San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting in which the board voted 3-2 to direct county officials to terminate agreements allowing both ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use county-controlled training facilities.
Martinez, however, is not treating the two federal agencies the same. While ICE is being cut off, the sheriff says CBP will continue using the Sheriff's Otay Range for training and firearms qualifications, at least for now, despite the board's broader direction concerning county agreements. Martinez said her decision regarding ICE followed months of conversations and growing community concern about the conduct of federal immigration agents during armed encounters across the country.
"Community trust and strong relationships are the cornerstone of effective local policing," Martinez said. "Our authority to enforce the law depends on the trust and confidence of the communities we serve, and I always balance my decisions based on community trust and public safety."
The announcement represents one of the clearest institutional breaks yet between a major San Diego law-enforcement agency and ICE amid the Trump administration's intensified immigration enforcement efforts. County supervisors who supported ending the agreements argued that San Diego should not provide local infrastructure that facilitates federal immigration enforcement that many residents believe has become increasingly aggressive.
Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Supervisor Paloma Aguirre brought forward the proposal, while Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe joined them in voting to terminate the agreements. Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond opposed the move. Montgomery Steppe said federal immigration enforcement has harmed communities locally and nationally and argued that San Diego County should not be complicit in those actions. Desmond took the opposite position, arguing that restricting training opportunities for federal officers could be counterproductive.
"ICE has overreached and overstepped, but how do you fix that? You fix it with more training," Desmond said, according to reporting by The Associated Press.
The controversy is particularly significant in San Diego because the region sits directly along one of the busiest international borders in the world. According to figures released by the Sheriff's Office, more than 225,000 people enter the United States through San Diego-area ports of entry every day, including more than 90,000 vehicles, approximately 50,000 pedestrians and roughly 5,500 commercial trucks. The Sheriff's Office says current border waits generally range from one to three hours. That enormous flow of people and commerce is central to Martinez's decision to preserve CBP's access.
The sheriff emphasized that ICE and CBP perform substantially different primary functions. ICE principally conducts interior immigration enforcement, detention and removal operations, while CBP staffs ports of entry and is responsible for processing legal travel and trade, screening cargo and passengers, combating smuggling and performing border-security functions.
Martinez warned that removing nearby firearms-training access for CBP could force officers to travel considerably farther for mandatory qualifications, keeping them away from inspection booths and potentially reducing the number of lanes operating at San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and Tecate. CBP officers are required to maintain firearms qualifications in addition to classroom and other training requirements. According to the Sheriff's Office, CBP currently has no comparable alternative training facility close to the border.
The Sheriff's Office operates another substantial training complex at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, but says only limited non-Sheriff range capacity there is available for federal agencies. Moving officers from the border to Miramar for required qualifications could therefore increase the amount of time they spend away from ports of entry.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said approximately 1,700 officers rely on the county range and warned that losing access would force the agency to send officers elsewhere for mandatory training, potentially reducing local staffing and affecting both trade and travel.
The Sheriff's Office went even further, warning that reduced staffing could close inspection lanes, lengthen border waits and increase pollution as thousands of vehicles idle longer at ports of entry. Those effects could extend beyond San Diego County.
Some CBP officers assigned to Imperial County's Calexico Port of Entry also use the Otay facility for training, according to the Sheriff's Office. Martinez warned that disruptions there could cause travelers and commercial traffic to seek alternate routes through San Diego crossings, increasing congestion locally.
"Too many people on both sides of the border would be harmed by a decision to end CBP's use of the facility," Martinez said. "As Sheriff, I have a duty to protect and serve everyone who lives in or enters San Diego County."
That decision creates an unusual split between the Sheriff's Office and the Board of Supervisors. The board directed the county's chief administrative officer and Department of General Services to terminate agreements involving both ICE and CBP, while Martinez, an independently elected sheriff, has announced that CBP will continue using the Otay Range as alternative arrangements are explored. The precise administrative and legal mechanics of how those competing directives will be reconciled remain to be seen.
The contracts themselves are longstanding. CBP has reportedly used the county's training center under an agreement dating to 2017, while ICE has had an agreement since 2021. ICE has also used a Navy-owned firing range at MCAS Miramar that is leased and operated by the county. Federal agents have logged more than 3,300 training hours at local facilities since 2024, according to information presented in connection with the board action.
The decision comes during an increasingly intense local debate over federal immigration enforcement. San Diego's proximity to the international border has historically required extensive cooperation among local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies, but recent ICE operations have generated growing opposition among immigrant-rights advocates and elected officials.
Martinez appears to be attempting to navigate directly through that divide: ending Sheriff's assistance to ICE while preserving cooperation with CBP where she believes eliminating it would negatively affect routine border operations and the regional economy. Her announcement also arrives the same day that a separate ICE detention involving the San Diego Padres has drawn national attention.
As SanDiegoVille reported earlier Tuesday, Padres minor league catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela remains in ICE custody after being detained at El Paso International Airport while returning home from a work assignment. Pirela's family says the Venezuelan-born coach has lived in the United States since 2014, has a pending asylum case and has been legally authorized to work here.
There is no indication that Pirela's detention played any role in Martinez's decision, which the Sheriff's Office says followed months of consideration and conversations with local stakeholders.But the timing illustrates how rapidly immigration enforcement has become one of the most consequential and divisive issues facing San Diego County.
Supporters of the board's action argue local governments should not provide resources that facilitate an immigration enforcement system they believe has become overly aggressive and harmful to immigrant communities. Opponents argue that law-enforcement training should not become a political bargaining chip and contend that better-trained federal agents ultimately make both officers and the public safer.
Martinez's approach effectively splits those positions. ICE agents will no longer train or qualify with firearms at Sheriff's facilities.
CBP officers, however, will continue doing so at Otay Mesa because Martinez believes the practical consequences of forcing them elsewhere would extend far beyond federal immigration policy, potentially affecting commuters, students, businesses, international trade and hundreds of thousands of daily border crossers. The Sheriff's Office says alternative training options will continue to be explored.
For now, however, San Diego County's relationship with federal immigration enforcement has fundamentally changed: ICE is out, while CBP remains in.
Originally published August 18, 2026.
