Good evening, Vice Chair Lawson-Remer and supervisors.
My name is Jeffrey Karahamuheto and I’m the senior organizer at the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU-SDIC) and a resident of District 4. The ACLU-SDIC is a proud member of the Fuera Migra Working Group.
We are here tonight to demand that the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office (SDSO) immediately adopt the county sanctuary policy (Board Policy L-2) to end all collaboration with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies and to stop using our local resources to advance the federal government’s anti-immigrant agenda!
All San Diego County residents deserve to live without fear that an encounter with law enforcement will result in deportation and being ripped away from their loved ones. Yet, San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez has refused to adopt the county sanctuary policy that the San Diego County Board of Supervisors passed in December 2024. In 2024 alone, the SDSO transferred 30 people into ICE custody – 30 people who had loved ones, ties to our communities, and whose potential deportation has caused ripple effects to entire families and communities for generations to come. The sheriff’s office continues to voluntarily collaborate with ICE, and we are unsure of how many people may have already been transferred in 2025. These transfers should not be happening in San Diego County at all.
The San Diego Sheriff Office’s choice to continue to voluntarily work with ICE wastes our limited local resources by costing taxpayers' tens of thousands of dollars annually. At a time when the state of California and the county of San Diego are both experiencing budget deficits, we cannot afford to throw away precious local dollars because the sheriff wants to do ICE’s job for them and defy the county sanctuary policy.
Past calculations have assessed the costs of transfers to exceed $2,000 per person.1 According to these calculations, for the 30 people that the SDSO transferred to ICE custody in 2024, it cost the county $60,000. SDSO transfers facilitate the deportation work of the federal government, but the federal government does not reimburse San Diego County for the cost of transfers. This means local taxpayers' foot the bill.
Every year for the last eight years, the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties and our community partners have attended these TRUTH Act Forums, demanding the same thing from the sheriff – that the sheriff’s office stop all collaboration with DHS agencies, stop transferring individuals into ICE custody and stop notifying ICE of people’s release dates. Our demands remain the same. It’s time for all collaboration to end.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office must immediately adopt the county’s sanctuary policy (Board Policy L-2) and stop using county resources to detain and deport our community members.
Thank you.
