An immigrant rights organization is claiming that ICE agents blocked access to the Santa Barbara County Jail lobby last week, in retaliation for the county’s “ICE-free zone” policy.
A video posted on April 22 by the group SBResiste shows federal agents standing in front of the lobby door.
“I'm not gonna interfere in any way, but I'd love to enter the public lobby,” a protestor tells an agent wearing a “POLICE ICE” vest .
“You're not allowed to,” the man responds, holding what appears to be a can of pepper spray.
At one point in the video, a Sheriff’s Office lieutenant tells the crowd that the agents “can’t lock down the lobby, unless they’re effecting an arrest.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed that ICE had visited the jail on April 22 and wrote that a Mexican national was “arrested without incident.”
In a statement posted to their social media, SBResiste accused the agents of blocking the lobby only one day after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved a package of policies that attempted to limit ICE’s reach in the county.
“The recent escalation and increased aggression by ICE agents are perceived by SBResiste as acts of retaliation,” the post said.
That incident is in direct contrast to a more recent video from this week, also posted by SBResiste. It shows multiple federal agents standing quietly in the lobby of the Santa Barbara County Jail.
In the video, the mostly-masked men interact very little with a small group of protestors, who mock them as “f-—-- sellouts.”
Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps co-sponsored a policy last week that she described to KCBX as establishing “ICE-free zones on county property, except for when federal immigration agents have a warrant.”
She said that she wasn't present for the most recent incident at the jail, but it seems that the ICE agents were authorized.
“It does appear in this instance that they had a warrant to be at the jail and they were not blocking,” Capps said. “ I'm proud of what we have done. Does it solve everything? No, absolutely not.”
Neither the DHS nor the Sheriff’s Office confirmed whether the agents had a judicial warrant, but a DHS spokesperson told KCBX that ICE agents had made an arrest at the jail on Monday.
