By Alex Riggins
The San Diego Union-Tribune
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to terminate three license agreements allowing federal immigration agents and customs officers to train at two county-run firearms ranges — but Sheriff Kelly Martinez, citing economic concerns, said she would continue to allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to train at one of those ranges.
The supervisors who proposed terminating the agreements said the measure was in line with their goal of ensuring the county does not support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
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But the head of CBP and local economic leaders argued such a move would complicate the ability for CBP officers to complete mandatory firearms training and qualifications, resulting in staffing issues and longer border wait times that would negatively impact the local economy.
Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Chair Pro Tem Paloma Aguirre , who proposed the measure, argued those concerns were unfounded, citing the hundreds of billions of dollars in funding that Congress has given to CBP and U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement over the past two years. The two supervisors argued the Trump administration was using the threat of border delays and economic impacts as a fear tactic.
“It boggles the mind to think that a $110,000 contract (with CBP) at a county training facility could be the linchpin for a multi-billion dollar, cross-border operation,” Lawson-Remer said during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
But shortly after the vote, the sheriff released a lengthy statement expressing her concern about the economic impact of stopping CBP officers from training at the county-owned San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa .
The Sheriff’s Office said that while Martinez already informed ICE that its personnel can no longer train at the Otay Mesa range and a second county-operated facility, she will continue to allow CBP to utilize the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center .
“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 in a statement. “As Sheriff, I have a duty to protect and serve everyone who lives in or enters San Diego County.”
Lawson-Remer and Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe did not immediately respond to Martinez’s assertion that she won’t fully enforce the action their vote directed.
In a statement, Aguirre promised that the board’s vote will be fully implemented as intended.
“Questions about implementation on County property are exactly that, implementation questions, and the (Chief Administrative Officer) and County Counsel are reviewing them,” Aguirre said. “The Board has spoken and taken action for the people in my communities who are living in fear. But one thing is clear, this decision has been made and will be carried out.”
Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson voted against the item. Both expressed concerns about the potential economic impact. Desmond said local and federal authorities are stronger when they collaborate.
“Our agencies should be training together, not in isolation,” Desmond said in a statement after the vote. “Wherever you stand on ICE, I believe we can all agree that more training is a good thing. Today’s action puts politics and optics ahead of common sense and public safety.”
At its most basic, the proposal that the board approved directed a county administrator to terminate three existing license agreements with ICE and CBP.
One agreement signed in 2017 allowed CBP personnel to train at the Regional Firearms Training Center , a county-owned facility jointly operated by the county Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office and FBI . The second agreement, signed in 2021, allowed ICE personnel to use the same facility.
The third agreement, signed in 2022, allowed ICE personnel to use the Miramar Training Facility, a firing range located on Marine Corps Air Station Miramar . The range is owned by the U.S. Navy and leased to the county. The Sheriff’s Office has operated the facility for more than two decades.
Lawson-Remer and Aguirre said the three agreements were executed administratively without public input or consideration by the board because they fell below the monetary threshold requiring board approval. The agreements were brought to light in April by investigative news outlet inewsource.
Lawson-Remer and Aguirre argued that while the agreements did not technically violate the county’s policies against assisting federal immigration enforcement, they violated the spirit of those policies.
“When residents fear that County facilities are connected to immigration enforcement, they are less likely to seek public health services, report crimes, or engage with emergency response systems, undermining the County’s capability to respond to community needs,” the two supervisors wrote. “Terminating these agreements helps ensure that all residents, regardless of immigration status, can access County services and participate in the systems that support individual, family, and community resilience.”
Dozens of members of the public spoke in favor of ending the agreements, and Aguirre read letters of support for the measure by local U.S. Reps. Juan Vargas and Scott Peters .
Similar to arguments made by Lawson-Remer and Aguirre, Peters blamed long waits at the border on the Trump administration, which he said “dragged CBP officers away from their jobs at the border to join ICE agents who are terrorizing our neighbors and neighborhoods.”
Peters said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security , the parent agency of both ICE and CBP, is “currently better funded than the United States Marines … They can get their certifications anywhere without closing lanes at the port.”
The counterargument made by CBP and local economic development leaders was that CBP officers have no other local training options, and thus more time spent traveling to distant training facilities would mean less time that CBP officers could spend staffing border entry lanes.
Sidney Aki , CBP’s director of field operations for the San Diego Field Office , told the supervisors on Tuesday that no other range in the county has the capacity for the roughly 1,700 local CBP officers to train and qualify multiple times per year. That includes smaller commercial ranges and a U.S. Border Patrol range near the San Diego International Airport .
Aki said the time each officer spends on training and training-related travel would double or triple if CBP lost access to the Otay Mesa range. He said that would affect staffing and border wait times despite DHS’ massive budget increases.
Alejandra Mier y Terán , executive director of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce , told the supervisors that if they terminated CBP’s agreement, wait times would “soar,” a pedestrian crossing in San Ysidro would close and “billions of dollars” would be lost from the San Diego economy.
“I’m literally begging you not to play a part in increasing wait times at our ports of entry,” Mier y Terán said.
Lawson-Remer and Aguirre acknowledged those arguments, but said they ignored reality. “Just last weekend, the wait times were eight hours at any regular lane,” Aguirre said. “The lines at the border are not caused by a firing range.”
Aguirre said the Trump administration, if it wanted, could send more officers and resources to the local border to help ease congestion.
“This county can’t close a single lane,” she said. “This is about whether this county keeps lending its own property to the agencies our residents fear the most. The federal government can’t terrorize our families all week and rent our firing range on the weekend.”
Tuesday marked the second time Martinez has asserted her intention to break with the Board of Supervisors over an immigration-related issue.
A month after President Donald Trump’s 2024 election, the board passed a resolution aiming to bar county agencies from cooperating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement. Martinez immediately pushed back, saying that her office already followed state law limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities and would not change its practices based on the board’s resolution.
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