Local privacy advocates are raising concerns about an obscure database managed by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) that might be allowing President Donald Trump\u2019s deportation forces to circumvent state and local immigrant sanctuary laws.<\/p>\n
For an annual fee of roughly $200,000 SANDAG grants immigration enforcement agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), access to the database, which is known as ARJIS.<\/p>\n
The database contains information from every law enforcement agency in San Diego County \u2014 which includes traffic citations, arrest records, field interviews, a local jail census and some driver license records.<\/p>\n
Local police agencies have shared data with their federal counterparts through ARJIS for decades. But now, the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics are raising new questions about what exactly is being shared with the federal government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not always great to share data because sometimes you don\u2019t know what the motivations of those people might be,\u201d said Seth Hall, a privacy advocate with the TRUST SD Coalition.<\/p>\n
Advocates are particularly worried that ARJIS does not have enough independent oversight protections in place to prevent agencies like CBP from using it to go after San Diego\u2019s immigrant population.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at a time where the Trump administration is attacking all immigrants \u2014 people with status, people without status, with no criminal record,\u201d said Homayra Yusufi, a senior policy strategist for the Partnership of the Advancement of New Americans (PANA). \u201cCBP and HSI are literally just out there to find as many individuals to detain and deport as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lack of protection<\/b><\/p>\n
During the first Trump administration, CBP agents used surveillance technology to spy on U.S. citizens<\/a> \u2014 immigration lawyers and human rights advocates \u2014 working with migrants from the Central American caravans.<\/p>\n Last year, Border Patrol agents gained backdoor access to license plate reader databases across the country, including El Cajon<\/a>, which they used to track down immigrants. In Chicago, a federal judge wrote that Border Patrol leadership was \u201coutright lying\u201d<\/a> about the agency\u2019s use of force tactics in her injunction limiting those practices.<\/p>\n Yusufi argues those incidents show CBP isn\u2019t a trustworthy law enforcement partner. She and other advocates also argue that ARJIS undermines sanctuary laws by granting access to CBP without enough oversight.<\/p>\n \u201cOur local law enforcement agencies are able to say, \u2018Yeah, we don\u2019t directly share this,\u2019\u201d said Erin Tsurumoto-Grassi, associate director of Alliance San Diego. \u201cBut if you are sharing it through your ARJIS database and then ARJIS is selling that information \u2014 you may not be directly sharing it, but that information is still being shared, and I think that\u2019s something we should be concerned with.\u201d<\/p>\n In a recent statement to KPBS, a CBP spokesperson said agents use ARJIS in the vast majority of their criminal cases and said the database improves the agency\u2019s cooperation with \u201cpartner agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWithout ARJIS, we would face significant delays in obtaining time-sensitive information, impacting operations and regional cooperation,\u201d the spokesperson wrote.<\/p>\n But the spokesperson did not respond when asked whether CBP uses ARJIS for immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n SANDAG has several restrictions in place aimed at preventing federal agents from using the database for immigration enforcement. The database requires users to enter a valid reason for each search, like a case number. And ARJIS added a disclaimer on the login screen telling users not to use it for immigration enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s unclear whether federal agencies are following those rules because SANDAG does not have the authority to run independent audits.<\/p>\n SANDAG declined to make Anthony Rey, the director of ARJIS, available for an interview. A spokesperson told KPBS that ARJIS\u2019s user agreement prevents SANDAG from conducting independent audits. Instead, audits only happen when agencies voluntarily audit themselves or when the California Department of Justice requests one.<\/p>\n The spokesperson said the last time CBP requested an audit was in 2017. When KPBS asked for a copy of that audit, SANDAG said it could not release it because it didn\u2019t have CBP\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n Who will be next?<\/b><\/p>\n The SANDAG board consists of elected officials from each of San Diego\u2019s 18 cities and the county. None of the board members agreed to an interview with KPBS.<\/p>\n Yusufi says the lack of oversight from SANDAG should be raising alarm bells in immigrant communities throughout the county.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for us to get our heads out of the sand and recognize the reality of the threats that are facing all of our communities right now,\u201d Yusufi said. \u201cAnd we have to reconsider selling this data with agencies that we know will harm San Diegans.\u201d<\/p>\n Hall, from TRUST SD, said this goes beyond immigration \u2014 that future administrations can easily use these mass data surveillance systems to target other \u201cdisfavored populations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re not an immigrant, then maybe this doesn\u2019t really bother you,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you better pay attention to who else is being disfavored.\u201d<\/p>\n Other privacy advocates say it\u2019s time for other local jurisdictions to act if SANDAG won\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat accountability measures are you going to put in place? Can you get those audits? How else can you make it transparent and accountable?\u201d Tsurumoto Grassi said.<\/p>\n One of the SANDAG board members is San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.<\/p>\n Gloria\u2019s office sent a statement that touted his commitment to strengthening local projections for immigrant families. And it referenced an executive order the mayor signed in July reaffirming that city resources will not be used for immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe order makes clear that City personnel, property, and resources will not be used to assist immigration enforcement unless expressly required by law, helps ensure accurate multilingual information about rights and services, and enhances coordination so that residents can live without fear while public safety is upheld for all,\u201d Gloria\u2019s spokesperson wrote.<\/p>\n But when asked whether the mayor thought ARJIS was undermining that executive order, his office did not respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local privacy advocates are raising concerns about an obscure database managed by the San Diego Association of Governments…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":511105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-511104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-sandiego","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115882835616870008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}