Community members in Carpinteria confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on January 14, 2026, after ICE vehicles were reported in the area.
The confrontation led to a heated exchange between ICE agents and community members, according to videos posted on Instagram by Carpinteria Sin Fronteras, a grassroots community organization.
According to Carpinteria Sin Fronteras, residents were alerted after an ICE vehicle was spotted in Carpinteria on January 14, 2026. Community members then gathered, monitored, and patrolled the area.
In one video, a resident can be heard saying “La Migra,” a Spanish slang term referring to immigration authorities, as an ICE agent headed toward his vehicle after speaking with someone in another car. The agent is then seen deploying what appears to be a spray toward the resident filming the encounter.
The exchange escalated verbally, with the agent stating that interfering with enforcement is a felony. The community member told the agent to leave town, saying, “Go back to El Salvador,” to which the agent replied, “It doesn’t matter where I’m from.”
View this post on Instagram
The individual is also heard in the video asking the agents to uncover their faces if they were not afraid.
Later that day, Carpinteria Sin Fronteras shared a second encounter involving ICE agents. According to the Instagram post, the community identified the vehicle as belonging to ICE.
The video shows two agents questioning a resident about whether the person had touched their vehicle. The resident then asked why ICE was in Carpinteria. After being pressed to identify himself, one agent stated his badge number as 1325.
View this post on Instagram
The videos surfaced amid heightened national backlash against ICE following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by an ICE agent on January 7, 2026.
Following the shooting, a large protest was held on January 10, with more than 2,000 people gathering on State Street for the “ICE Out for Good” rally organized by Indivisible Santa Barbara. The demonstration focused on opposing ICE enforcement practices and mourning the death of Good.
Organizing efforts have expanded beyond Santa Barbara. The 805 UndocuFund group has increased outreach, rapid response training, and community patrols across Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Cal Poly, and Carpinteria.
Additionally, a volunteer with the group claimed that 1,430 community members had been detained by ICE across Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties, with about one-third of those cases occurring in Santa Maria, as reported by Edhat.
In 2025, ICE arrests across California rose sharply. Arrests increased from 687 in January to nearly double by May after officers were instructed to raise arrest targets. In subsequent months, arrests averaged about 3,125 per month, surpassing the 5,620 arrests recorded statewide in 2024.
Also Read
- California’s Most Spectacular and Famous ‘Fiery Waterfall’ Returns
- Governor Gavin Newsom Greenlights $90 Million in Funding to Protect Reproductive Health Care
- Santa Barbara City Council Votes to Crack Down on Single-Use Plastic and Mylar Balloons
- CDFW Cannabis Program Safeguards California’s Natural Resources
- Are TikTok and X Tracking You Across the Internet? Our Privacy Tool Can Tell You
US Citizens who voted for Trump and support the violent and illegal actions by ICE are the real enemy. Sadly, people in Germany did vote for Hltler, and support the Gestapo. If education were important, these people would have learned from history.
I believe ICE should calm down and control illegal immigration by employment. A felony charge and $50,000 fine should discourage greatly the employment of illegals. After a few convictions the law would self enforce by example.
ICE should hire the illegals.
No need to rewrite laws
Federal law, primarily the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, makes it illegal for U.S. employers to knowingly hire or continue to employ individuals not authorized to work, requiring verification of employee eligibility (Form I-9), with penalties including substantial fines and potential criminal charges for willful violations or “pattern or practice” offenses, although enforcement varies. Employers must verify work authorization using I-9 forms and can use the E-Verify system, but compliance rests on the employer to avoid hiring unauthorized workers, even if the individual misrepresents their status.
Yes, we just enforce the law when businesses and wealthy individuals don’t behave. And while we’re on that topic, also enforce the law against the abuser in chief and his thugs.
The “Don’t Tread on Me” crowd has gone deafly silent…
It’s weird to see how some folks can’t understand the concept of legality and law enforcement.
Yes, you RWers are certainly weird that way.
It is pathetic to see how some try to consume the whole boot and invite fascism in this country. Some very sick people bubbling to the surface.
Basic, honest question asked with respect, as I am really making an effort to understand the position of those I don’t agree with. So, given your comment about legality and law enforcement, I wonder how you feel about pardoning:
-convicted Jan 6 insurrectionists
-Honduran ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of large-scale drug trafficking, which he enabled by operating a narco-state.
-Elliot Broidy, pleaded guilty to secretly lobbying the US government on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests
-George Santos
-Michelle Fiori, who collected over $70,000 in charitable donations to erect a memorial to fallen Las Vegas police officers. She spent all the money on personal and political expenses, including cosmetic surgery and her daughter’s wedding.
-Scott Howard Jenkins Culpeper County Sheriff who received $75,000 in bribes, as cash and as campaign donations, from numerous individuals who he then appointed as auxiliary deputy sheriffs
-Changpeng Zhao, who pled guilty of money laundering billions of dollars, and was pardoned at the same time Trump’s crypto company tied into Zhao’s company
All of these pardons, and the dozens of other very questionable pardons were cases prosecuted in the US after a tremendous amount of effort, cost and due diligence. So I wonder, considering your comment about legality and law enforcement, how you feel about these and the rest of the long list of pardons for folks that did the crime, were tried and convicted, and now don’t have to do the time.
Good points for sure. Trump is literally *selling* pardons to enrich himself. It’s absolutely outrageous and there are dozens of examples. No other US president has pardoned as many people as trump has. Sometimes, such as in the CZ case you mention, he doesn’t even know who they are, and the money trail is there for all to see. Not a chance in hell he has ever considered the evidence nor circumstances of the people he pardons.
Hey Papi, I happen to disagree with Trump’s pardoning of the 1/6 rioters. Thanks for asking. And the others sound like bad ideas as well. Guess what? Biden pardoned a lot of shady players as well, as have many other presidents. You must be aware of that. If you think I blindly support everything our president is doing, you’re wrong.
Basic, A sick conservative mindset, with smarmy false equivalencies, is always an endless source of entertainment.
Biden, Biden, Biden…. all this coming from the king of saying “yOu haVe TdS!”
Biden never pardoned drug kingpins while at the very same time killing people on small boats for allegedly “trafficking” drugs even though they were no were near US soil or even heading in that direction.
Biden never pardoned violent criminals who had past convictions for rape, child abuse, drug dealing, etc, who were serving time for violently beating and killing police officers during a violent insurrection.
Trump released people from prison who VIOLENTLY BEAT and even KILLED our fellow Americans.
Biden never did.
Now STHU about Biden. He’s not the president anymore.
Get help with your Obama/Biden Derangement Syndrome.
Basic, I know better to guess or assume what you blindly support or don’t, that’s why I asked how you felt about it. I’d have a better chance guessing why my girlfriend’s pissed at me without me asking ten times first. Trump’s pardons have taken on a life of their own, and I wonder how the “tough on crime” and “law and order” folks feel about these pardons. If I was in charge there would be no pardon power by any governmental official, except for the two turkeys every Thanksgiving.
I just told you what I don’t support, answering your direct question. Straightforward. Don’t act like I’m confusing you.
BASIC – racial profiling and using excessive force are not “legal” and ICE is not “law enforcement” in the way the PD or SO are.
But, since you bring it up, please answer the question Papi poses below: why are you OK with J6 violent criminals being pardoned?
Also, why are you still ok with child rapists walking free? You said yourself you don’t care if the Epstein files are released.
So which laws do you have your little heart all torn up about? 1st Amendment rights to protest or actual violence against actual police officers on a large and deadly scale and the refusal to investigate and prosecute billionaire child rapists?
We all know who’s side you’re on.
you mean, like the party you are representing and attempting to defend? right. don’t even talk about that when you’re dear leader has time and time again, shunned the courts and legal systems, pardoned and released over a thousand violent convicted felons, broke more laws nationally and internationally than any sitting president. zip it.
KNEIN – thank you. It makes me crazy when these MAGAmorons whine about “law and order” after they’ve voted for a confirmed rapist who brags about sexually assaulting women and walking in on naked children while they’re dressing who was convicted of felony fraud and ignores the courts at every turn.
Sure, we can all be a little hypocritical about things we believe in, but the MAGA crowd is on another level entirely. They applaud rape, the protection of child sex traffickers and the release of violent criminals and murderous drug kingpins who have killed who knows how many people by flooding our schools with deadly drugs.
To be MAGA now, there are only 2 options: 1) You are a vile racist bigot who supports all this or 2) You are brainwashed due to poor education and/or blind loyalty to a billionaire who hates you and believe that all these things Trump has done are “liberal lies” and have no truth to them. There is no 3rd option.
What creates the most problems is HOW the immigration laws are being implemented. No one (meaning the majority of people) is against immigration laws being enforced, which they should be just as previous non-Trump administrations have done. Obama was able to have the laws enforced the right way and that is why there weren’t the problems that we are having now. Every day there’s another ICE issue somewhere in the country. Let’s just hope that Renee Good’s death isn’t simply forgotten because it’s no longer in the news cycle. I feel sorry for her wife and son, especially the wife who was present when things unfolded. Very sad.
The wife is being harassed and investigated by the corrupt Trumpian Department of Justice.
ZIPS – just stop it. It’s exhausting explaining the clear and blatant differences between Obama and Trump. At this point, you understand the difference and just choose to ignore objective and obvious facts.
We’re so sick of your kind asking the same questions despite knowing the answer.
You people choose lies, hate and cruelty over historical facts. Stop feigning ignorance, it’s trashy.
Thanks to CarpSinFronteras for providing the video and for standing up courageously for our community! The first reel shows an agent triggered by mere words to the extent that he sprays at someone for simply shouting, then he walks into the spray and delivers incorrect info with an accent that the watcher recognized as El Salvadoran. Shouting is not interfering, and the agent not knowing this shows a lack of training. These guys are making up the rules as they go, simply to intimidate people.
A note to Mr/s Basic: This is not “law enforcement”. ICE spreads misinformation and uses extremely escalated violence aiming to bully and intimidate, because they are poorly trained and apparently very easily triggered. They detain people without cause, or fabricate causes. They have an *entire wing* of the MN detention center just for US citizens, and they are treated with the exact same gratuitous cruelty and lack of due process as immigrants. They steal people’s phones and resell them. They have killed and maimed people on the street without true cause, and at least 10 ppl have died while being detained so far this month. This is not law enforcement. They are rewriting and ignoring laws, such as not wearing masks in CA, and using chemical sprays indiscriminately. When you call their actions “law enforcement” you are showing either profound ignorance or outright support for lawless, violent behavior.
A note to Editor: the 805 freeway is not in this area. Was it supposed to say 101, 192, or 150? Thank you.
Wait wait wait, you are documenting this and saying go back to El Salvador while protecting illegals ???? What in the world type of tornado do you have going on in your brain
You’re the one with cognitive dissonance here. This is a case of an immigrant ICE thug terrorizing other immigrants, based on ethnicity, even though he shares that ethnicity.
In addition, he’s illegally trying to block a citizen from documenting his behavior. That’s uncontitutional.
Vile, indeed.