San Diego County Cut Off ICE’s Gun Range. Then the Sheriff Cut a Side Deal to Keep CBP’s.
- 3-2 the San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote to terminate both ICE's and CBP's license agreements to use county firearms-training facilities — AP / Baltimore Sun, Aug. 18, 2026
- $110,000 the value of the county training-facility contract Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer argued was too small to justify the federal government's leverage over county property — NBC 7 San Diego
- ~1,700 Officers the number of CBP personnel the agency says train at the Otay Range that Sheriff Kelly Martinez chose to keep open to CBP even after the board voted to close it — Fox News; CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott
- 16,368 people ICE reported apprehending in San Diego County between January 20 and April 1, 2026, the enforcement backdrop against which the county acted — KPBS Public Media
On August 18, 2026, San Diego County's Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to end both federal agencies' access to county firearms-training facilities — the range at Otay Mesa and a training site at Camp Elliott, near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Both agreements had run for years without public disclosure until an inewsource.org investigation surfaced them in April.
Then, the same day, County Sheriff Kelly Martinez — who controls the facilities directly and does not answer to the board on operational matters — announced her own, narrower call: ICE loses all sheriff-controlled access, but CBP keeps its use of the Otay Range.
“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, splitting from the board's own vote to end both contracts.
CBP's license to use the Sheriff's Office range dates to around 2017; ICE's separate agreement took effect in July 2021. Neither was public until inewsource.org's investigative reporting surfaced them in April 2026. Since 2024, the two agencies logged more than 3,300 hours of range and training-facility use, according to the county's own accounting.
The county had already been narrowing federal immigration access before this vote. On January 28, 2026, the Board of Supervisors passed the CLEAR (Civil Liberties Enforcement and Accountability Rules) ordinance 3-1, requiring a judicial warrant before ICE can access non-public county facilities and mandating annual public reporting on DHS activity. That ordinance followed an earlier, narrower December 2024 resolution restricting cooperation — one Martinez publicly rejected at the time, saying the board “does not set policy for the sheriff’s office.”
The August 18 termination motion, co-sponsored by Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer (D) and Supervisor Paloma Aguirre (D), passed with Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe (D) joining. Supervisors Jim Desmond (R) and Joel Anderson (R) voted no, with Desmond arguing that ICE “has overreached and overstepped, but how do you fix that? You fix it with more training” — not less of it.
“The very core bottom line is that we've seen too many people dying at the hands of armed ICE agents. And I don't believe we, at the county, should be complicit.”
Terra Lawson-Remer, San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair (D)
Under the board's vote, both agencies' agreements terminate 10 days after formal notice. Sheriff Martinez's separate decision — made the same day, and within her own operational authority over sheriff facilities — means CBP will keep training at Otay Range even as the board's own resolution treats that agreement as ended. The two actions point in different directions on the same day, from two different arms of the same county government.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott (Trump-appointed) called the board's vote “reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant,” adding: “It is unprecedented for a local partner, such as the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, to knowingly undermine border security and put our communities at risk.” CBP's San Diego field operations director, Sidney Aki, separately warned that losing the range could complicate operations at the nation's busiest land ports of entry, disrupting cross-border commerce.
CBP says roughly 1,700 officers staffing county ports of entry rely on mandatory firearms recertification at the Otay Range — the access Sheriff Martinez preserved even as the board voted the other way. No on-the-record statement from ICE or DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin (R) specific to this vote was located as of publication.
The pattern is now familiar in San Diego County: the Board of Supervisors' Democratic majority sets a policy restricting federal immigration cooperation, and Sheriff Martinez — who answers to voters, not the board, on how she runs her department — draws her own, sometimes narrower line. It happened with the December 2024 resolution, again with the January 2026 CLEAR ordinance, and again on August 18. Each time, the sheriff and the board have arrived at slightly different answers to the same underlying question of how much access federal immigration agents should have to county resources.
San Diego County's Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on August 18, 2026 to end both ICE's and CBP's access to county firearms-training facilities, following an April 2026 investigation that first exposed the years-old, undisclosed agreements. Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who controls the facilities directly, made her own narrower call the same day — cutting off ICE but preserving CBP's access to the Otay Range, citing cross-border economic impact. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott called the board's vote “reckless, irresponsible, and ignorant.” The county had already restricted ICE's facility access under a January 2026 ordinance requiring a judicial warrant. Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer (D) and Supervisors Paloma Aguirre (D) and Monica Montgomery Steppe (D) voted to end both agreements; Supervisors Jim Desmond (R) and Joel Anderson (R) voted no.
