U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials provided the Oxnard Police Department with a heads-up notice about immigration enforcement activity within the city 136 times in 2025.
This year, the number was 0 as of Feb. 12.
The police agency hasn’t received any of the courtesy notifications designed to prevent unexpected confrontations because Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest teams are no longer sharing information about their whereabouts, said Oxnard Police Chief Jason Benites.
“The fact that we are not receiving deconfliction notifications in no way means that DHS is not operating within Oxnard. They are,” Benites said, noting that police officers learn about ICE enforcement and removal activity when “we see social media posts.”
The check-ins usually involved a time, a place and information about unmarked ICE vehicles. They are called deconflictions because they are designed to help local police avoid possible “blue on blue” conflicts with federal agents who may be armed and not wearing conventional uniforms.
“An officer rolling up on that, it would be beneficial to know agents are there,” Benites said.
The notices also help local law enforcement know what’s happening when answering emergency calls from residents about masked agents, suspicious vehicles and allegations that people have been kidnapped.
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to repeated requests from The Star for information about notification practices.
The check-ins have been voluntary and offer little if any details of ICE operations, law enforcement officials from different Ventura County agencies said, noting that state law prevents them from helping ICE in enforcement. Though the notices never accompanied every ICE operation, they appear to have waned in recent months.
Benites said ICE check-ins about enforcement and removal activity started coming less often in Oxnard several months ago and stopped altogether in December.
Other agencies said they’re also receiving fewer notifications.
The Ventura Police Department has received four notifications in 2026 in a volume officials said started to decline several months ago. Officials at the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said their ICE deconfliction notifications have fallen off as well. The Port Hueneme Police Department hasn’t received any heads-ups this year as of early February after receiving eight last year.
In Santa Paula, the last ICE notification came in September, said Police Chief Don Aguilar. He said it’s hard to know if the pattern has changed, noting the department received just six notifications of ICE activity over 13 months.
Simi Valley Police Sgt. Rick Morton said the agency has seen no significant change in notifications with a half-dozen check-ins so far this year, including one earlier this month.
It’s not just Ventura County. Jason Salazar, board president for the California Police Chiefs Association, said other but not all law enforcement agencies in the state have expressed concern over the lack of deconfliction notifications. He said the check-ins are designed to protect police and community safety and are particularly important in ICE’s criminal investigations.
“We’re kind of left reacting to a problem we didn’t create and didn’t know was going on,” Salazar said.
Ventura Police Chief David Dickey said he’s not asking for details about ICE operations but wants to know when federal agents are taking enforcement actions in the city.
“We’re very, very concerned about staying apprised of actual activity in our city,” he said, asserting that the lack of information triggers public distrust in all law enforcement. “People mistake us for them, and it increases panic or concern in our community.”
He said he doesn’t don’t know why notification practices have changed.
“We’ve tried individuallly to reach out and also regionally,” he said. “We, quite frankly, haven’t received any answers.”
‘Sense of impunity’
To some observers, the apparent change reflects immigration enforcement activities that have become increasingly aggressive, bringing the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis and igniting protests across the nation and in Ventura County.
“It just seems to me it is another example of ICE operating with a sense of impunity and a lack of accountability,” said Willie Lubka, executive director of Buen Vecino, an immigration advocacy nonprofit in Westlake Village.
Gabe Teran, an Oxnard city councilmember, said the lack of notifications appear like payback to a “totality of actions.” The City Council voted in August to join a lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and council members have publicly criticized ICE tactics. Teran filed a complaint with ICE over an October operation in which tear gas and an armored tactical vehicle were deployed.
“I really feel there is some retaliation because we don’t align with their agenda,” Teran said.
Local law enforcement officials said they ask every law enforcement agency that comes to their communities on enforcement business to notify them.
“The lack of notification also creates an additional draw on resources when we receive calls of kidnappings, necessitating a response to determine if an actual crime occurred or if it was an arrest by federal authorities,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Robert Yoos in an email. “That being said, there is nothing requiring agencies to make these notifications other than professional courtesy.”
‘Gone to nil’
Immigration activists have long accused police agencies of collaborating with ICE in allegations that have consistently been refuted.
Now there appears to be less interaction between ICE and some agencies, including the Oxnard Police Department, said Leo Martinez, a member of the VC Defensa ready response group that follows suspected ICE vehicles and monitors enforcement activities. Martinez was arrested and released by ICE in October after a collision involving his vehicle and a federal agent’s vehicle.
“I think clearly that relationship has frayed, whatever it was,” Martinez said, offering no surprise that the federal agency may not be providing check-ins to police. “I think the gloves are off.”
Benites said there was never much communication from immigration enforcement teams.
“And it’s gone to nil,” he said.
Primitiva Hernandez is executive director of 805 UndocuFund. The nonprofit leads a coalition that has developed a pipeline of information about immigration activity. The ready response network sends out alerts to 35,000 people across Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
Hernandez contends the network provides more information about ICE activities than the agency’s deconfliction notices.
“We have eyes and ears on the ground over the three counties,” she said, suggesting police agencies should rely more on such networks. “They would be far better off getting information from us.”
Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com.
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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: ICE notifications to police decline in Oxnard, elsewhere in county
Reporting by Tom Kisken, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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