Whether a new Santa Barbara County initiative helps alleviate or worsen residents’ concerns about local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity was up for debate at the Board of Supervisors’ April 21 meeting.
“We have people out there who are becoming constitutional scholars on both sides on what is lawful and what is not,” 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson said at the hearing. “We have people slashing law enforcement’s tires, attacking officers who are arresting people lawfully, and it’s because they think they have some vigilante obligation.”
“I’m concerned that this adds … fuel to that fire,” said Nelson, the sole dissenter in a 4-1 vote to establish a use and preservation policy that prohibits “unauthorized use of county-owned property, including for civic immigration enforcement activities, except as required by law.”
The board reviewed that protocol and two other policies related to immigration enforcement, including a “know your rights” educational item to prevent voter intimidation at local polling sites this June and November.
Nelson was part of the 5-0 vote to move that forward but dissented on the county property policy as well as a directive for staff to explore land-use and zoning tools that could allow the board to prohibit future ICE facilities from being developed on unincorporated county land.
“Where does the supremacy clause come in with these types of local ordinances and local control with the federal government?” Nelson asked county staff. “I hate to use the word, but does federal government trump local government when it comes to this? Sorry, pun really not intended.”
“Generally speaking yes,” County Counsel Rachel Van Mullem replied, “but it depends on whether the federal government has occupied the field so there is still ability for the states and local governments to regulate.”
Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann described the three-policy package as more symbolic than enforceable.
“It may be symbolic, but symbols are important,” Hartmann said. “Symbols say we’re trying and we’re doing what we can.”
As part of the majority that approved the package, 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said he didn’t consider his decision to support the policies to be controversial before commenting on Minnesota resident Alex Jeffrey Pretti’s death in January.
“It’s so murky of what you can and can’t do. But moving these items is not really controversial to me,” Lavagnino said. “What I’ve seen from ICE over the last year, it’s just unconscionable. I never thought in this country, honestly, that I would witness somebody get executed in broad daylight on a street that is an ICU nurse in the Department of Veterans Affairs because he’s out speaking his mind and doing what this country was founded [on]: letting your point be heard.”
This article appears in April 30 – May 7, 2026.
