Hoping to score a vantage point that gives Santa Barbara County a clearer view of local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, the Board of Supervisors recently asked the Sheriff’s Office to publicly disclose its interactions with the federal agency on a regular basis.
Disclosures of this kind were previously limited to annual reports, mandated by California’s TRUTH Act, 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps told the Sun.
“They do a hearing every year that’s to provide some transparency, but that’s really the only opportunity we have to find out their level of interaction with ICE,” Capps said. “That’s been a bone of contention for a long time. Previous Boards of Supervisors before I got on the board have had serious concerns. … But now it’s just far more extreme and heightened, given the climate, given what’s happening.”
Capps was elected in 2022, six years after former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the TRUTH Act into state law in 2016.
One public speaker at the Board of Supervisors’ Sept. 16 meeting reminded county officials that the TRUTH Act doesn’t limit local jurisdictions from asking for ICE updates from the Sheriff’s Office more than once a year.
“You are not helpless when it comes to the sheriff. … He routinely receives deconflicting notices informing him when ICE enters our community and where they will be so he can protect his officers from harm,” 805 Immigrant Coalition member Larry Behrendt said during public comment. “What could happen is this: The sheriff could share these notices with you after the fact so you would know when and where ICE had been here.”
The Sun reached out to the Sheriff’s Office and Santa Maria’s ICE facility for comment but did not receive responses from either agency before press time.
“With this information you could gauge the extent of ICE activity and measure trends,” Behrendt told the board. “Per the Values Act—SB 54—the sheriff’s cooperation with ICE is subject to local policy. That’s literally what the law says. And you set this policy.”
Behrendt pitched his suggestion during a discussion about potentially amending the Board of Supervisors’ legislative platform on immigration reform, specifically to address some supervisors’ frustration over ICE’s lack of transparency about the Glass House Farms raid on July 10.
“I think this is the first time in 15 years that I don’t even know who to go to for information. That’s the scary thing,” 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said in July, a few days after that raid. “I want to be part of the solution, but I also feel like we’re blocked out and I don’t know why.”
In mid-July, county staff filed a Freedom of Information Act request with questions about individuals detained during the Glass House Farms raid and the warrants obtained before the arrests. As of mid-September, staff had not received the requested info from the Department of Homeland Security.
“We’ve been very frustrated,” Supervisor Capps told the Sun. “At a minimum, we’re just trying to get basic information.”
Moving forward, Capps said that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t expect to get advance notifications from the Sheriff’s Office ahead of any ICE operations, “but after there’s been a roundup of some sort, then we can be notified and there can be more transparency about how many people were detained and what was the impact of that effort.”
The board’s recent update of its legislative policy on immigration also includes endorsements of state policies that rubbed one supervisor the wrong way.
“I’m going to abstain on this one,” 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson said before the vote. “There’s some politicalization here that I don’t necessarily want to have my name on.”
Nelson said he supported some of the update’s broad language amendments—“especially upholding constitutional civil rights protections, including due process, equal protection, and freedom from unlawful searches and seizures. I couldn’t be more supportive of that.”
“That said, I think this is wrapped up in a certain amount of politicalization especially with [state Senate Bills] 627 and 805, which I’m already on the record as not supporting,” Nelson said on the dais.
In August, the board adopted resolutions to support SB 627 (No Secret Police Act) and SB 805 (No Vigilantes Act) with a 4-1 vote that Nelson dissented on.
While SB 627 would make it a misdemeanor for law enforcement officers to wear masks while interacting with the public except under certain circumstances, SB 805 would require officers to visibly display some kind of identification while performing their duties.
Nelson described the context of both bills as creating “a vigilante on the other side, toward law enforcement,” before criticizing an unnamed publication for printing photos taken during the Glass House raid of ICE officers, some with masks and others without.
“We’re already complicit here in our community. … We had one of our local newspapers post pictures of every single person that didn’t have a mask on that was working there,” Nelson said. “I am concerned for the safety of Homeland Security and federal agents that work in our communities, that live in our communities.”
U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) co-sponsored the No Secret Police Act’s federal counterpart, House Bill 4176. He met with ICE officials at the agency’s Santa Maria facility in June and August. Supervisors Nelson and Lavagnino joined Carbajal during his June visit.
Carbajal told the Sun he remembers the mask issue coming up and heard from one ICE official who said that officers “are concerned that people are trying to identify them to go after them.”
“I understand that, … but there’s got to be a happy medium,” Carbajal said, “where both the officers are protected, and the public is protected in terms of their rights. … Wearing all these masks and military garb, that raises tensions and makes people question whether you’re legitimate or not. You’ve got to have some identifiable information.”
While vouching for the Board of Supervisors to add language inspired by SB 627 and SB 805 to its legislative platform, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann described federal immigration enforcement officers’ use of masks as one of the Trump administration’s tactics “to instill fear and intimidation.”
“In my world, no name, no badge, no agency means there’s no way to hold somebody accountable, and that just opens the door to potential abuse,” Hartmann told the board in August. “It creates a culture of impunity.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
Correction, September 25, 2025 2:46 pm: This story was updated to include the correct bill, House Bill 4176, that U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) co-sponsored.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 2, 2025.