Category: Military

By Angelo Haynes

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors convened a meeting at the County Administration Center to discuss ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) use of county property and facilities for firearms training. A period of public comment was held on Agenda discussion item #24, which drew 57 public comments with 38
being in person. Many giving public comment in attendance represented groups from all over Riverside and San Diego counties, in some cases, working in coalition.

This issue of training of ICE and CBP officers at county facilities was brought about by a recommendation from County Supervisors Terra Lawson-Remer (District 3) and Pro-Tem
Paloma Aguirre (District 1). This was in response to the growing number of violent encounters in communities being targeted by ICE and CBP raids. The discussion was for whether or not the county should continue allowing ICE and CPB use of our facilities for training.

Groups represented in the meetings proceedings included: Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), San Diego Legal Aid Society, San Diego Immigrants Rights Consortium (SDIRC), Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) and CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations). Many of the comments were in support of the Aguirre’s and Lawson-Remer’s proposal.

By Steve Rodriguez

The NY Times recently reported that while departing Turkey after the NATO summit last month, President Donald Trump hid in an airport catering container and was taken to a military jet for a secret flight out of the country. The ruse involved Trump appearing to get on Air Force One but then secretly evacuated via an opposite side exit where he hid inside an airport catering container.

This container was subsequently transported by a catering truck to the military jet. According to the NY Times account, this action was taken in response to a credible threat posed by an Iranian terrorist cell armed with shoulder fired missiles. Most of the staffers and reporters on Air Force One were not notified of the president’s emergency evacuation or the threat, and continued the flight as unsuspecting passengers.

By Michael Angelo

On day one of the second Trump administration, a flurry of executive orders were signed reshaping immigration enforcement in the country by declaring a national emergency at the southern border, redirecting military funds for border enforcement, and restricting asylum access to anyone engaged in a so-called invasion of the United States.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was also directed to immediately and aggressively escalate operations and surge arrests by establishing high daily quotas which management would be held accountable for missing (increasing the likelihood of non-criminal arrests).

Just shy of 600 days later, we can see the direct and harrowing results of these actions. A recent ACLU research report titled Agents of Chaos and Cruelty documents the widespread violation of civil rights being committed by ICE agents during the second Trump administration’s first year. Across eight states, the report found more than 400 of the over 1,200 ICE incidents examined involved misconduct by agents. The report also emphasizes no one was off limits, and found dozens of instances of agents detaining U.S. citizens, asylumsees, and people with disabilities.

Agents were also reported to have “targeted, used force and intimidation against, and arrested” legal/ community observers, protesters, journalists, elected officials and their staff, and even members of the clergy. This cruelty has resulted in the killing of at least seven people during enforcement operations including 23 year-old Colombian immigrant and father Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, whose car was allegedly rammed by agents before he was fatally shot through the windshield a little over a month ago, and 37 year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot multiple times and killed by ICE agents back in January.

At the end of May, the Rag published an article titled ICE Capades in San Diego, compiling actions taken by ICE in recent months to explore how the agency has been conducting itself in America’s Finest City. Here is an update on recent events and articles involving ICE in San Diego:

Chaotic scene unfolds around Federal Agents in City Heights

By Ed Pilkington / The Guardian / August 12, 2026

Military families and Congress members are sounding the alarm about an intensifying mental health crisis onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment at sea tied to the war with Iran.

Two leading specialist military papers, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and mental stresses on the Lincoln reach the breaking point. The crew is in its ninth month at sea, and has spent 250 days consecutively without making land – a record for an aircraft carrier in modern times.

Worried families vented their anxieties about loved ones onboard the Lincoln at an emotional town hall meeting with navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported. One spouse among the 200 or so family members said that her husband had texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”.

The families’ worries were expressed directly to navy leadership, represented at the town hall by the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, and other top officials.

A woman at the meeting told Cao that the navy had “broken trust between us and the leadership”, the paper reported.

The Navy Times gave details of thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the current deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had tried to jump overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended.

by Phoebe Huss / Cal-Matters /  July 31, 2026

Summary: Following a CalMatters investigation, students and faculty at UC San Diego protested against campus police for collaborating with Border Patrol through a federal grant program. The university will stop participating in the program and aiding patrols, sources and internal documents confirm.

A California public university cut ties with a federal program that paid for campus police to aid Border Patrol, within weeks of CalMatters revealing the decade-long partnership.

Operation Stonegarden, a grant managed by the Department of Homeland Security, allocates an average of $11 million each year for California law enforcement agencies to work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and its subagency Border Patrol on border security missions. Dozens of police forces throughout the state receive the grant, including campus police at UC San Diego, a recipient since around 2012.

On Feb. 10, a CalMatters article explained how UC San Diego police used the grant to patrol sections of the coastline near campus, which quickly set off an uproar among students who felt it placed undocumented and international students at risk. By Feb. 26, after students emailed complaints and threatened to hold a public rally, student Aryan Dixit said the campus police chief, Lamine Secka, agreed to leave the grant program in a one-on-one meeting.

By Marc Elias / Democracy Docket / July 27, 2026

Election Day is less than 100 days away.

Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. The Republican Party has little to show for its time in power. Prices are up, and the economy is stagnant. We are at war in the Middle East.

The GOP is not acting like a party trying to persuade voters to support its candidates — because it isn’t. Instead, the Republican Party’s entire strategy boils down to this:

1. Change the rules and misuse government resources to make it harder for Democratic voters to cast ballots.
2. Control and manipulate voter registration databases to disqualify enough Democrats from voting.
3. If all else fails, make false claims of fraud as an excuse to subvert the results.

Meeting Organized by Several Local Planning Groups

A number of local community planning groups have organized what they’re calling a “Town Hall” to discuss and debate several key development projects facing this area of San Diego: The Peninsula Community Planning Board, the Uptown Community Planning Group, Old Town Community Planning group and Protect Pt Loma Community Association are co-sponsoring this event. (Interesting that the OB Planning Board is not included.) The issues:

• NAVWAR redevelopment project
• Midway Rising for the sports arena area
• Senate Bill 958 aiming to pave the way for Midway Rising

It’s all happening:

Tuesday, July 28th, 2026
6pm – 7:30pm
Pt Loma Library
3701 Voltaire Street
San Diego, CA 92107

Organizers say they will have a brief presentation on the background and serious consequences if the Midway Rising and NAVWAR projects are approved.  Then they will open up the forum to public comment and discussion.  This meeting will be recorded, and they say they will send this to each of the Assembly members who sit on the Appropriations Committee the first week of August.

Eighteen US service members have died so far in Trump’s war with Iran and 420 have been wounded. These mounting casualties come with escalating attacks and strikes by both sides. Iran declares it is fighting a “full-scale war.” And Trump threatens to intensify bombings for every American killed. Bridges and ports are struck. The price of oil shot up as did gasoline of course, and stocks fell. (Closing on 300 points Monday.)

The big question as the conflict looks to inflame the whole Middle East region is whether negotiations between the two sides are continuing or not, and if not, is there a chance they can continue?

The US has just bombed Iran for the 9th day / night in a row in a dramatic shift in the four and half month old war after weeks of a so-called cease fire under the Memorandum of Understanding. Iran has retaliated — not in striking U.S. targets but in going after countries that host US military personnel and facilities, like Jordan and Bahrain and other Gulf allies for the U.S. Some sources report that diplomats said talks to de-escalate were continuing.

The Guardian reports:

Iranian media reported strikes around Tabriz, believed to hold underground missile bases, as well as Bushehr, home to the country’s only operational civilian nuclear power plant. The US military said it had struck “military command centers, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”.

Say his name: Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero.

The second murder of an innocent man — this one in Biddeford, Maine — in one week by ICE agents — throws the entire nation in an uproar. These murders are sanctioned by our government, are performed on our watch and … we are responsible. It’s on us, the rest of America.

From CNN on July 15:

A simple memorial of flowers and candles has gone up near the spot on a Maine street where Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero’s partner fell to her knees and his 3-year-old daughter cried after he was fatally shot by an ICE officer on Monday.

Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old food delivery driver from Colombia, died Monday in the historic Atlantic coast city of Biddeford, where neighbors remembered him as a good man and hard worker.

“Immigrants make Biddeford great,” read a sign at the makeshift memorial.

It was the second fatal shooting by a federal officer within a week, leading Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make a major reversal and direct officers to largely suspend vehicle stops until further notice, according to a source familiar with the guidance.

An ICE officer fired his weapon “fearing for public safety” as Durán Guerrero, in a vehicle, “attempted to flee the scene,” the Department of Homeland Security said in its first official statement nearly 12 hours after the shooting. He was not the target of the enforcement operation.

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

Linda Vista may not always be the first San Diego neighborhood that comes to mind when people think about local history, but its story is deeply connected to the growth and transformation of the city itself.

Located on a mesa overlooking Mission Valley, the neighborhood was born out of necessity during World War II, when San Diego was rapidly becoming one of the nation’s most important defense and aviation centers.

What began as a federal housing project for wartime workers eventually grew into a diverse community with its own identity, traditions, and history.
The name Linda Vista, which means “pretty view” in Spanish, dates back to the late 1800s. But the Linda Vista we know today began taking shape in 1941, when the federal government purchased land to build housing for thousands of workers arriving in San Diego to support the war effort.

At the time, companies such as Consolidated Aircraft were expanding rapidly, producing aircraft needed by the military. Workers poured into the city, creating an urgent need for housing. The answer was Linda Vista, one of the largest wartime housing projects in the United States.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo lived in Houston for 35 Years, Built Homes for Others; Videos and Witnesses Contradict ICE Narrative of Murder

PBS  / July 10, 2026

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who lived in the U.S. for decades, as the homebuilder drove his construction crew to a Houston job site.

His death set off protests in Texas’ largest city and calls from Democrats and Salgado Araujo ‘s family for an independent investigation. The shooting on Tuesday in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood is at least the eighth death during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said federal officers were looking for someone else when they attempted to stop Salgado Araujo’s vehicle. DHS said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that an officer opened fire in self-defense.

Salgado Araujo’s family said he was very close to obtaining legal status in the U.S. after living in the country for 35 years, and that he knew what to do if approached by ICE officers. Ronaldo Salgado, his son, said his father may have been scared that the people in unmarked vehicles were going to steal his tools.

Here’s what we know about Salgado Araujo’s shooting.

By Quinta Jurecic / The Atlantic / July 6, 2026

Nearly six months have passed since federal officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. No one has been arrested, the Trump administration has provided no reason to believe that any serious investigation is taking place, and federal officials continue to stonewall state and local investigators in Minnesota.

This inaction was predictable. The day after Good’s death, Vice President Vance insisted at a press conference that the agent who shot her would face no criminal charges. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vance told reporters. “He was doing his job.” Soon, Stephen Miller doubled down on the message, announcing “to all ICE officers” that “you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.” Federal agents apparently received the message: The next day, an ICE agent fired a gun into a Minneapolis home, wounding a Venezuelan immigrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The week after that, Pretti was killed outside a doughnut shop. The Department of Homeland Security called him a “domestic terrorist” and said that the officers who shot him had acted in self-defense.

Typically, after a contentious killing by a law-enforcement officer, the Justice Department would launch a criminal civil-rights probe. Following George Floyd’s murder, for example, DOJ conducted an investigation alongside Minnesota law enforcement, and both federal and state prosecutors brought separate charges against the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. So far, though, the federal government has succeeded in protecting immigration officers from serious consequences for the violence of what DHS termed “Operation Metro Surge.”