A three-prong Santa Barbara County response intended to shield the public from federal immigration raids, fight the potential construction of ICE detention centers and safeguard elections won the support of elected officials on Tuesday—as they also acknowledged the new measures might not be always enforceable.
In a 4-1 vote, the Board of Supervisors prohibited ICE from using county properties, parks, and recreation areas for activities considered “unauthorized.”
At the same time, the board directed county planners to identify and assess how the county might be able to to prevent or constrain the creation of federal detainee housing.
In a separate 5-0 vote, the supervisors requested reports and public education on election safety and voting rights—to help prepare people, they said, for the possibility that immigration enforcement officers may attempt to intimidate or deter voters.
“We need to try everything that we can,” said First District Supervisor Roy Lee. “As an immigrant myself from Taiwan, I understand what the immigrant community is going through. My mom and dad walk down the street with their U.S. citizen papers every single day, because they are terrified. They are terrified that ICE will pick them up and take them somewhere that they don’t know and I can’t find them.”
Second District Supervisor Laura Capps characterized the response as a necessary step toward clarifying what lines immigration officials should or should not cross.
“We have a responsibility to respond and to stand up for our county, and the things we control in our county—our public spaces, our land use, our elections,” Capps said. “However one may feel about the broader national debate that goes on, that’s one thing. But the reality on the ground here in Santa Barbara County is that the current enforcement actions are causing chaos in our county, in our community, and they are making us less safe.”
Is it enforceable?
As the hearing in Santa Maria unfolded, questions about how much bite key aspects of the response will have in practical terms shaped debate.
Could the county prevent the type of event—ICE agents staging at Santa Barbara City College in December without notifying the school—that inspired supervisors Capps and Lee to propose the new policies?
What would happen, Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavignino asked, if ICE occupied Tucker’s Grove Park?
“I don’t think our Sheriff’s Department is going to arrest ICE,” Lavignino said. “I’m just trying to figure out what the real-world situation would be.”
Key to enforcing the prohibition against ICE activity on county properties would be determining whether an operation in question is in fact “authorized.” And that could swing in part on whether ICE agents are operating with an administrative warrant or obtain a judicial warrant, and case-by-case on what they’re using the warrant for. It could also depend on exactly where the activity occurs, officials said.
What about county jails?
Sheriff Bill Brown cautioned the board against approving the proposals. And Tuesday marked the first time he publicly acknowledged the focus of a recent Santa Barbara News-Press investigation that found ICE agents arrested dozens more people in the lobbies and parking lots of county jails in the past year than previously known.
“There are instances, some that we’re aware of, apparently a lot more that we haven’t been aware of, where ICE does use our parking lots and our lobbies at times to go there when they know that someone is going to be released and make an arrest,” Brown told the board.
“From a practical standpoint, if we were to say ICE may no longer come onto jail parking lot property or may no longer come into a lobby of the jail, we would probably see them staking out the jail itself and being on a public street, and then watching someone get out and get in a car and take off,” Brown said, adding this could lead to enforcement in an adjacent neighborhood, at a home, during a traffic stop, or even a vehicle pursuit. “And that puts everybody in danger.”
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office says that in 2025, it transferred 12 people to ICE under the tenets of SB 54, a state law intended to prevent migrants from fearing police. It prohibits local law enforcement from transferring anyone into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents unless the person has already been convicted of a felony or certain serious misdemeanors.
The Sheriff’s Office says a qualifying inmate is notified about the transfer, and when the time comes, is taken to a secure set of doors known as a “sally port,” where an ICE vehicle is waiting.
While the official number of transfers for the year was 12, federal data suggests in 2025, ICE arrested more than eight times that number at county jails.
One ‘No’ vote
Describing himself as a “law and order guy,” Lavignino on Tuesday voiced concerns but ultimately supported the county response, stating he didn’t view prohibiting unauthorized activities as controversial.
“The one thing I hate is lifting people’s expectations,” he said. Still, “What I’ve seen from ICE over the last year is just unconscionable. I never thought in this country, honestly, that I would witness somebody get executed in broad daylight on a street, who is an ICU nurse in the Department of Veterans Affairs, because he’s out speaking his mind… The scariest part of that is it just kind of got forgotten.
Federal agents shot and killed that nurse, Alex Pretti, 37, on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis during an immigration operation.
“Now, what’s going to happen when folks expect us to show up and roust ICE off of jail property?” Lavignino asked, noting it might not be possible. “It’s going to be difficult.
“What do we do? I don’t want to be sitting here explaining to my grandkids that I was splitting the hair of what I thought was legal or not legal. You’ve got to do something, so I’ll totally support this.”
Board Chairman Bob Nelson, who represents the Fourth District, wasn’t convinced. His was the lone dissenting vote.
“We have people out there that are becoming constitutional scholars on both sides,” Nelson said “We have people slashing law enforcement’s tires, attacking officers who are arresting people lawfully, and it’s because they think that they have some vigilante obligation to enforce a law that’s not being enforced somewhere else.
“With this, I’m concerned that this adds another layer for people in our community that believe that they’re going to be now telling ICE, ‘You can’t be at a county property.’ And the Sheriff’s Office isn’t going to enforce it, so does that give somebody the feel of the right to, you know, put their hands on law enforcement?
“I think it (the new policy) potentially adds fuel to that fire,” Nelson said. “So much is unclear… It’s very facts-specific.”
Public sentiment: strongly in favor
The vast majority of residents who spoke to the board about the proposal on Tuesday supported its passage.
The county also received dozens of letters of support from residents, some of whom characterized ice detention centers as concentration camps and warehouses of intimidation and cruelty.
In addition, several organizations lended support including the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN), the Immigrant Legal Defense Center, Unidos 805, the Future Leaders of America and the Carpinteria Immigrant Rights Coalition.
“The use of county facilities for federal immigration enforcement actions undermines trust in local government, discourages residents from accessing essential services and erodes public safety,” Beatriz Molina, co-founder of the Milpas Eastside Business Association, wrote to the supervisors prior to Tuesday’s hearing. “When families fear that visiting a clinic, reporting a crime or attending a public meeting could expose them to immigration enforcement, the entire community suffers.
“The integrity of our local elections is foundation to our democracy,” Molina wrote. “The potential development of large-scale immigration detention facilities in unincorporated areas of the county raises profound concerns… Santa Barbara must not become a site for policies that separate families and institutionalize fear.”
The national picture
In February, President Trump suggested the federal government should “take over” voting in at least 15 states.
ICE funding has surged in recent months, which critics concerned about the expansion of immigrant detention centers are quick to note. No such facilities are currently expected to be built in Santa Barbara County, officials said Tuesday.
ICE for years ran on about $10 billion annually, but that changed last year when Congress passed the 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which provided $75 billion in supplemental funding to be used over four years.
