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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made a high-profile visit to San Diego County Thursday, where she touted the Trump administration’s border policies as more than 100 protesters attempted to drown out her news conference.
Noem spoke in front of cardboard boxes marked “evidence” and plastic bags filled with pills that officials said were illicit drugs. She said the administration had seized 188,218 pounds of narcotics at the border and described meetings she had with parents who lost children to fentanyl overdoses.
“President Trump has cut off the flow of trafficking down at the southern border, and just of fentanyl, we’ve seen a decrease of 56% – a 56% drop in fentanyl coming into this country,” said Noem, flanked by U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks and Rosa Hernandez, the port director for Otay Mesa.
Noem said the amount of drugs in the vault and on display was enough to kill millions of people.
“In other words, that vault holds more than 1.7 billion lethal doses of narcotics,” said Noem.
Her visit came as new polls showed declining support for the Trump administration’s border and immigration enforcement tactics following two fatal shootings of protesters by immigration agents in Minneapolis. A poll for NBC showed that 49% of Americans strongly disapprove of the administration’s immigration policies. That’s an increase from 38% last summer.
California’s Democratic leaders have consistently condemned the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, which include arrests at courthouses and detentions of immigrants who have not been accused of criminal offenses.
Outside of Noem’s event, protesters, angry about civil rights and constitutional violations during the Trump administration, played loud music, sirens and screamed into bullhorns, at times making the secretary hard to hear.
Activist Arturo González wore a Mexico soccer jersey as he joined the sizable crowd, leading them in chants against Noem and ICE.
“We’re out here protesting against Kristi Noem’s presence in our community,” González said. “We’re letting her know she is not welcome here. I wanted to make it known. I wanted her to see us. I wanted her to see our anger.”
Jeremy Ross, who identified himself as “a protector of the Constitution,” said there were both Democrats and Republicans in the crowd.
“This isn’t about immigration,” said Ross. “This is about human rights. This is about standing up for our constitution and what our forefathers truly believed in.”
Noem said about the protesters, “They’re obviously expressing their First Amendment rights and we welcome that. As long as they do so peacefully, I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
Trump's border record
She and Banks said the administration has ended a policy they called “catch and release” where border officials parole non-safety threats into the community while they wait for their immigration court processes to play out.
“For nine straight months, U.S. Border Patrol has released zero illegal aliens into the United States with fewer people that cross illegally,” Noem said.
In the 2025 fiscal year, Border Patrol encounters at the U.S.-Mexico fell to the lowest annual total since at least 1970, with about 237,538 encounters. That’s way below the more than 1.5 million during the 2024 fiscal year and the more than 2 million during 2023.
Noem and others from the Trump administration have repeatedly said California policies, including its so-called sanctuary law, hinder their efforts to deport unauthorized immigrants.
“And while we stop threats from coming into our country, we can’t forget about the ones that are already in our borders right now in prisons and jails across California. ICE has lodged detainers on over 33,000 criminal illegal aliens,” Noem said.
California’s sanctuary law does not apply to people convicted of committing serious or violent felonies. The corrections department can and does regularly transfer inmates into ICE’s custody. In 2025, ICE placed 1,641 detainers on inmates in California’s correctional facilities. ICE agents picked up 1,453 of those individuals. Staff in California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation cannot control whether ICE comes to pick up individuals they’ve placed detainers on.
Immigration arrests soar in San Diego region
Asked whether her presence in San Diego signaled a larger-scale crackdown underway in Southern California, Noem deflected, stressing the agency’s strategy now centers on targeted operations. She said she would not put law enforcement at risk by commenting on future operations. San Diego County Assistant Sheriff Ken Jones attended the news conference.
Noem’s visit follows Gov. Gavin Newsom’s trip last week to the San Diego–Otay Mesa corridor, where he highlighted law enforcement partnerships, including fentanyl enforcement and federal immigration raids. He contrasted those collaborative efforts with the Trump administration’s decision to send the National Guard to Los Angeles and other Democratic cities against the wishes of governors and mayors.
Newsom also pointed to a CalMatters investigation that showed immigration arrests in San Diego have quietly surged by 1,500% over last year, “but without the fanfare of what you’re seeing in your living room and on your screen happening in places like Minneapolis.”
Noem responded by saying “I would hope Newsom would partner with us more.”
Noem under scrutiny in Congress
The trip also unfolds in the context of several headline-making policy and legal flash points involving the Department of Homeland Security.
In Congress, Democratic lawmakers have renewed calls for oversight and, and some have called for impeachment proceedings against Noem over immigration enforcement tactics by agencies under her authority. Democrats in Congress lack the votes to remove Noem.
Noem’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status designations for Venezuelans, Haitians and Somalians — immigrant groups with established communities in San Diego — have faced challenges in federal courts.
San Diego city officials recently filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense of unlawfully installing razor wire fencing on city-owned land near the border. The suit specifically names Secretary Noem as a defendant, asserting environmental and property damage claims.
Conservative influencer Nick Shirley has been circulating through San Diego County in recent weeks, reportedly recording videos in City Heights and near Somali-run child-care centers, provoking statements of concern from state and local officials about harassment and community safety.
Shirley, whose content has drawn millions of views online, has built a following by traveling to border regions and immigrant neighborhoods and portraying them as lawless. Immigrant advocates and local officials say his narratives misrepresent conditions on the ground and inflame tensions.
His video alleging fraud at Somali-run daycares in Minnesota was widely credited with bringing intense federal attention in the Twin Cities, including the sweeping immigration enforcement surge dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.”
The Otay Mesa Port of Entry is California’s busiest commercial land port, handling millions of vehicles annually and processing billions of dollars worth of imports and exports, making it vital to U.S.-Mexico trade.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.