San Diego's old City Hall. Photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl has told the City Council he will report more often when officers respond to scenes involving federal immigration agents, expanding notice beyond the narrow cases covered by the city’s Due Process and Safety Ordinance.
The pledge came in an Oct. 30 memo, one day after Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera accused the department of weak transparency. KPBS reported the exchange this week as local officials keep arguing over how visible SDPD should be when Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Homeland Security Investigations are nearby.
The ordinance, adopted last year, requires the chief to send the council a written report within three business days whenever officers are called to a scene where federal agents are conducting immigration enforcement. Wahl’s memo says some responses — for example, when agents are present but not making immigration arrests — fall outside that text. Going forward, he wrote, the department will still brief the mayor and council on those calls.
“Our goal is to ensure that elected officials have timely information about SDPD’s involvement and can respond to questions from their constituents with a clear understanding of its role,” Wahl said.
Four incidents, different readings
Elo-Rivera released details of four incidents involving SDPD and federal agents, saying the department had texted his office but that the public had not seen the same information. One July 23 call sent about 15 officers to a crowd of roughly 30 after an HSI vehicle broke down near 2500 Fairmount Avenue and someone smashed its windows. Officers kept people back from the vehicle while allowing the protest, according to the councilmember’s summary.
SDPD spokesperson Ashley Bailey said that call would not trigger the ordinance because agents were with a disabled vehicle, not running an enforcement operation. She said the department has met required notices and has shared extra incidents with council on request.
“I don’t think we can have safety without trust, and trust requires transparency,” Elo-Rivera said. He wants details — why officers were there, what they did, how long they stayed — published, not only filed to council offices.
Border context
The fight sits inside a wider Southern California season of ICE and Border Patrol activity, court orders on profiling and city rules meant to keep local police from becoming an arm of federal immigration work. For San Diegans who see dual-badged scenes in Barrio Logan or near the ports of entry, the distinction between “enforcement” and “presence” is easy to miss. Wahl’s broader reporting promise is an attempt to shrink that confusion. Whether texts to council and memos to the mayor are enough, or whether the public needs a running log, is now a City Hall argument as much as a policing one.
City attorneys will eventually have to say whether Wahl’s voluntary reports satisfy the spirit of the ordinance or whether the council should amend the text to cover any joint scene, enforcement or not. Amending is slower than a memo but clearer for the next chief.
Neighborhood groups in areas that have seen immigration arrests — including restaurant districts still talking about the 2025 Buona Forchetta warrant — are unlikely to accept “available on request” as transparency. They want timestamps and narratives they can read without filing an ask. Elo-Rivera’s public release of the four incidents is a template for that pressure. Wahl’s memo is a template for limited disclosure. The next council hearing on public safety will show which template gains votes.
Federal agents will keep working San Diego regardless of how SDPD writes its memos. The local variable is whether residents trust that blue uniforms at an immigration scene are referees, not partners. Wahl says better reporting will help. Elo-Rivera says reporting that never reaches the public will not. The ordinance’s next amendment draft will show who won the argument.
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