Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a comment from the Department of Homeland Security.
Rep. Josh Harder is again pressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement for answers about enforcement activity in Stockton and the surrounding Central Valley.
In a letter to ICE acting director David Venturella, Harder (D-Tracy) renewed his demands for information after citing what he said were months without “substantive responses” from the agency and as “troubling” reports from Stockton constituents continue.
The agency’s alleged activities, outlined in Harder’s letter and described in a Friday news release asserting ICE as “out of control,” include instances of ICE agents conducting enforcement in unmarked cars, patrolling near schools and bringing unaccompanied children to the city’s ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office.
“Such actions raise due process and civil rights concerns,” Harder wrote, adding that what he termed the agency’s lack of transparency has hindered his ability to conduct oversight, including during his site visit earlier this year. “(It) fosters mistrust of ICE within the community,” he added.
Harder told Venturella he has until July 28 to respond. His letter does not specify what action he might take if the agency fails to meet that deadline. Harder’s office did not respond to a request from Stocktonia about what the congressman plans to do next.
The letter follows what Harder described as recent “violent operations” in the Valley and across the country — including a traffic stop in Patterson where agents fired at Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernández — and the agency’s continued lack of communication.
That includes “nonanswers” Harder received during his visit to Stockton’s ERO office in late January, which came months after dozens of people were detained at the facility over an October weekend when the office is not normally open. According to a 2024 federal appropriations law, members of Congress and their staff are permitted to enter Department of Homeland Security facilities, including ICE buildings, without prior notice. Despite that provision, DHS directed members of Congress earlier this year to provide seven days’ notice before visiting its facilities.
Following his visit — where the Democratic congressman described seeing cramped, one-person holding cells — Harder said he came away “frustrated” by staff refusing to answer questions about conditions at the facility, the detention and transfer of individuals and ongoing enforcement activity.
“I’m not satisfied with what I just heard,” Harder said then.
In his first letter to ICE after the weekend of arrests, Harder demanded then acting national director Todd Lyons explain how the agency’s activities, including the use of force, aligned with its “community safety mission.” Harder said constituents had reported agents using chemical sprays, zip ties and other crowd-control tactics. One protester, Stocktonia reported, was allegedly maced by an agent outside the facility where protestors gathered.
El Concilio, a Stockton-based immigrant advocacy group, said in a statement regarding Harder’s letter that it could not corroborate some of his allegations, including the reported transportation of unaccompanied children to the facility. However, the group said it could attest to a growing and widespread sense of fear among Stockton residents, said President and CEO José R. Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said El Concilio has documented a growing number of calls from individuals who are “afraid for themselves and their families.” Many are questioning whether it is safe to attend required immigration appointments, report crimes, seek medical care or even send their children to school, he said.
“The uncertainty itself is causing harm,” Rodriguez said. “The resulting fear does not affect only the person being approached. It spreads through entire households and neighborhoods.”
EMAC, another advocacy group focused on deportation defense for Southeast Asian communities in Stockton, said in a statement that they have also received reports consistent with Harder’s claims. Unmarked vehicles have come and gone from the ERO office, the group said, where children have arrived unaccompanied. ICE agents in the area, they added, have grown more aggressive.
“Conditions have only worsened and/or escalated after Harder’s tour,” EMAC wrote in a statement to Stocktonia.
In a statement emailed to Stocktonia, an unnamed DHS spokesperson said claims about an ICE facility’s “subprime conditions” were “false.” ICE, the spokesperson added, does not “separate families or deport U.S. citizens.” They did not deny whether any children had ever been present at the Stockton ERO facility.
Stocktonia asked DHS to identify the spokesperson but has not received a response.