REGION — Reports of increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity across North County are putting neighborhoods on alert, with residents organizing patrols, sharing sightings and urging local leaders to do more to protect families.
The reports follow what the Washington Examiner described as a 45-day immigration enforcement crackdown known as “Operation Safe California,” beginning in and around San Diego.
According to that report, agents were directed to arrest immigrants without legal status regardless of whether they had criminal records, rather than limiting enforcement to those described by the administration as “the worst of the worst.”
The Coast News was unable to confirm the operation with the Department of Homeland Security.
“For operational security and the safety of our officers, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations,” a DHS statement reads. “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country including in California.”
The reports come amid a broader rise in regional immigration arrests. ICE arrested nearly 18,000 people in San Diego and Imperial counties between Jan. 21, 2025, and Aug. 6, 2026, according to federal records obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
Monthly arrests rose from 169 in January 2025 to 1,964 in July 2026, the outlet reported. The two counties accounted for about 35% of California’s roughly 51,000 ICE arrests during that period, despite representing about 9% of the state’s population.
About 60% of those arrested in the region in July had neither criminal convictions nor pending charges, according to inewsource.
In an April 14 letter to Rep. Mike Levin, ICE reported that 10,489 people were booked into its custody within the agency’s San Diego area of responsibility between Jan. 20, 2025, and April 1, 2026. Separately, the agency reported 16,368 removals originating from the region during the same period.
Those removed included 10,847 Mexican nationals, 996 Guatemalan nationals and 544 Venezuelan nationals, according to the letter, which Levin’s office released in May.
The letter did not provide criminal histories for those removed or a breakdown of enforcement actions by state or congressional district.
Todd M. Lyons, who served as ICE’s acting director from March 2025 to May 2026, wrote that the agency’s enforcement authority is not limited to people with violent criminal histories.
In the letter, Lyons also said officers generally work in plain clothes during enforcement operations and may initially identify themselves as police. He said agency equipment displays ICE or police markings and that officers must identify themselves as immigration officers, explain that a person is under arrest and give the reason as soon as practical and safe.
The letter also said authorized DHS officials, not judges, issue civil immigration arrest warrants.
Residents in Encinitas, Oceanside, San Marcos, Vista and Escondido have also reported an increased ICE presence. In recent weeks, community members have shared more videos on social media showing immigration arrests, while groups have been patrolling for ICE agents to alert residents to their presence.
Some local elected officials have also addressed the apparent increase.
Earlier this month, Oceanside Deputy Mayor Eric Joyce warned constituents on social media about ICE enforcement after a local father was taken into custody by federal agents on Oct. 8.
“Please be aware the surge of ICE enforcement is real. We are doing what we can to support this and other families, but the volume of people is growing rapidly,” Joyce said.
Joyce encouraged residents to document ICE activity when safe to do so and report sightings by texting 760-913-0306.
Escondido Councilmember Consuelo Martinez took to Facebook last week to share her concern about the increased ICE presence.
“My heart has been heavy seeing the increased ICE activity in Escondido and our surrounding communities, and knowing the fear, uncertainty, and pain so many of our neighbors are feeling,” she wrote.
Escondido community members have also pushed back against the city’s contract allowing ICE agents to use the Police Department’s firing range.
In Encinitas, more than 10 residents spoke against ICE’s actions at the Oct. 14 City Council meeting. They asked the council to do more to limit or document ICE activity and protect residents whose immigration status may be complicated or unclear.
Several residents expressed concerns about recent enforcement activity, including an attempted arrest near Capri Elementary School.
City Manager Jennifer Campbell said ICE told the city that the Oct. 9 incident, which occurred at 7 a.m., was a “targeted enforcement” action involving a father driving his child to campus for a before-school program.
“Several vehicles surrounded the father’s vehicle – which was approximately 150 yards from the school,” Campbell said. “The agents ordered the father out of the vehicle, declaring that he was under arrest. The father did not exit the vehicle. The agents then decided to let him go and leave the area.”
She added that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not give the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office advance notice of the action.
Campbell also reported an Oct. 10 arrest on Via Tierra and an Oct. 12 arrest “in the vicinity of Capri (Elementary).”
Many speakers said they believed immigration enforcement activity extended beyond what ICE was reporting, concerns that follow more than a year of enforcement actions affecting Encinitas families.
In August 2025, federal agents detained the parent of an Encinitas Union School District student near Park Dale Lane Elementary School while he was driving to work, prompting protests and an emergency City Council discussion.
ICE said the man was a Guatemalan national with a final removal order dating to 2017. The agency disputed initial accounts that his family was in the vehicle, saying he was alone when stopped and that a woman and child arrived separately. ICE also said the arrest occurred away from campus and out of view of the school.
Following the arrest, the council unanimously directed staff to develop a bilingual know-your-rights campaign, seek federal records on local ICE operations and explore additional measures to support residents, including potential legal action and protections for sensitive locations.
Over the summer, The Coast News documented additional detentions impacting families connected to Capri Elementary.
Two parents, identified in community fundraisers as Angel and Esmerelda, were detained separately in late June while traveling to work. Angel was released July 17, although his immigration case remained active at the time of the report. Esmerelda, a single mother, was later deported to El Salvador, according to the fundraiser supporting her family.
Another Encinitas resident, Gio Altamirano, was detained July 12 while driving to his job at the Chart House in Cardiff, according to a fundraiser organized for his family. Altamirano attended Capri as a child and is the father of a student in the district, the organizer told The Coast News.
Community opposition has also included student demonstrations. Hundreds of San Dieguito Academy students walked out of class Jan. 30, marching along Santa Fe Drive and nearby streets to support immigrant families and protest federal immigration enforcement.
In recent months, some residents have organized neighborhood patrols and shared sightings on social media to alert neighbors and document federal enforcement activity.
On Instagram, the volunteer-run grassroots patrol group North County Safe shares community reports of ICE and Border Patrol activity across coastal and inland North County, including Encinitas, Del Mar, San Marcos and Oceanside.
In Encinitas, North County Safe reported agents using parking areas at or behind two churches without the churches’ permission. The group said agents watched an elementary school before parking at one location and that a transfer occurred at the other, in spaces the group identified as city-owned.
In Del Mar, North County Safe reported that agents detained two men on Nogales Drive on Oct. 20 and a housekeeper at another nearby residence on the same street. Posts by Comité de Vista reported an ICE stop near a middle school on Woodland Parkway in San Marcos around 8:45 a.m. Oct. 15 and agents in an Aldi shopping center parking lot near San Marcos High School later that morning.
An Oct. 18 community alert reported Border Patrol vehicles circling downtown Oceanside near a lowrider car show after being seen along the South Oceanside beach, with the latest sighting at Coast Highway and Morse Street around 4:30 p.m.
Some community members have begun conducting “ICE patrols,” looking for officers who often travel in unmarked vehicles. These patrols include efforts affiliated with larger organizations as well as those undertaken independently.
Sarah Garfield told The Coast News that she has been conducting patrols as a private citizen, without affiliation with a greater effort.
“We just see these families are really scared,” Garfield said, “and they sometimes don’t go to school.”
Garfield said she might park next to a vehicle associated with ICE “just so they have a heads up because they’re making this community really uncomfortable,” or share its location “through all different communities throughout north county.”
“I’d like to make ICE uncomfortable when they’re here,” Garfield said. “There’s people here that are not O.K. with living in fear that they’ll be hunted out there.”
Cameron Adams contributed to this report.
