Around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up at a homeless shelter in downtown San Diego.
At least one ICE agent stopped at the gate outside, according to Alpha Project CEO Bob McElroy, who oversees the site at 16th Street and Newton Avenue. The shelter is a large tent that holds hundreds of bunk beds, although the agent’s warrant appeared to be for a single individual.
An Alpha Project staffer wrote down what was on the document. Yet when they asked to take a photo of the warrant, the agent declined, McElroy said in an interview. ICE then entered the shelter.
“I figured it was just a matter of time,” McElroy said about the visit.
President Donald Trump’s push to expand deportations nationwide has left leaders at a range of organizations grappling with how to respond to immigration officers. One of the new administration’s early acts was to roll back a policy that had limited enforcement in so-called “sensitive locations,” such as schools or churches, and local faith leaders in particular have said some parishioners are now afraid to attend worship. But the region’s packed shelter system may also be affected.
ICE took one person into custody from the downtown shelter. It was not immediately clear what the warrant said — or where it was issued — and a spokesperson for the San Diego Housing Commission said they didn’t currently have a copy. Agents did not seem to be looking for information about other residents, according to McElroy.
Tamera Kohler, head of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, said this was the first such case she was aware of at a local shelter since the new administration took office. Kohler added that ever-changing dictates from the White House made it hard to know how the federal government would treat homelessness organizations going forward.
The city of San Diego is clear about where it stands.
Last month, officials issued guidelines for how shelters should respond to visits from ICE. If an agent approaches a staffer in an area open to the public, the employee is supposed to ask for the officer’s ID, notify a supervisor and then “document ICE agents’ actions” in “as much detail as possible, without interfering.”
Should agents inquire about specific people, employees are supposed to respond, “I am not authorized to answer your questions.”
The guidelines are stricter when it comes to “non-public areas.” Agents must show ID and a judicial warrant to be allowed inside, and if they barge in anyway, staffers are supposed to call San Diego police. “City staff should not attempt to physically interfere with the agent,” the rules say, “even if the agent appears to be acting without consent or appears to be exceeding the purported authority provided by a warrant or other document.”
Leaders at several shelters, including those overseen by Father Joe’s Villages and People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH, said they’d consider rooms where people sleep to be “non-public” and therefore subject to more protection. This is also in line with recommendations from the National Homelessness Law Center.
“The people we serve have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” said Deacon Jim Vargas, head of Father Joe’s.
The guidance only applies to city-funded shelters, although organizations that rely on philanthropy may nonetheless adopt a similar approach. Paul Armstrong, a senior vice president at the San Diego Rescue Mission, said in a statement that officers would be let in only if they carried “official documentation,” like a warrant, and were seeking a specific person. “We do not permit law enforcement or immigration officials to enter our spaces for general searches or checks.”
Immigration is not the main driver of local homelessness.
Surveys have repeatedly shown that the vast majority of people living outside or in shelters became homeless in San Diego County, and the crisis continues to grow despite a crackdown at the border. In February, the first full month of Trump’s second term, the regional task force found that the number of people countywide who lost a place to stay for the first time again exceeded how many homeless residents found housing. This has been true for all but two months since June, when former President Joe Biden limited access to asylum and border crossings promptly dropped.
Yet nobody knows exactly how many people enter the United States only to end up on the street. Shelters generally don’t inquire about citizenship to avoid violating laws prohibiting discrimination and the Homeless Management Information System, the region’s main database listing everybody asking for help, doesn’t record immigration status.
There is a separate, smaller set of citywide statistics detailing how many requests for a variety of aid were made by migrants. That data is kept by PATH, and the nonprofit declined to release those numbers on the grounds that any disclosure might invite an ICE raid.
“The potential for compromising the safety of the people we serve does not align with our mission,” spokesperson Tyler Renner wrote in an email. PATH doesn’t even give that data to the housing commission, an agency it contracts with, although the nonprofit shares other, general information about pleas for help. (In response to a records request from The San Diego Union-Tribune, the commission said it “does not ask for or maintain data about whether someone identified as a migrant.”)
ICE officials appear to have publicly said little about their approach to homeless shelters. The agency’s only press release mentioning the issue may be an archived statement from 2011 about two people arrested at a Las Vegas shelter who were suspected of making child pornography.
The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment or provide a copy of any shelter-specific policy.
Originally Published:
