UC San Diego Police Patrol La Jolla Shores for Border Patrol Under $10.9 Million DHS Grant

Grant-Funded Patrols on Campus Shoreline

On roughly 20 nights each year, officers from the UC San Diego Police Department leave their regular campus beats and patrol the coastline from La Jolla to Black's Beach and Torrey Pines, according to two Border Patrol agents assigned to the San Diego sector and a DHS official familiar with the operation. The patrols are funded by Operation Stonegarden, a Department of Homeland Security grant that provides $10.9 million annually to dozens of California law enforcement agencies to support Border Patrol operations, the officials said.

The university police unit has received the grant for more than a decade, according to Sgt. Patrick Dobbins, who oversees Stonegarden spending at the department. Dobbins said the patrols focus on the shoreline near the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which is campus property, and that officers look for pangas, the open-air fishing boats often used by smugglers to move migrants and drugs along the coast.

The patrols occur at night and are paid through federal overtime funds, the DHS official said. The official added that UC San Diego officers do not ask immigration status and do not participate in removals from campus. Their role is to spot maritime smuggling and report suspicious activity to Border Patrol and the Coast Guard.

In November 2025, a panga capsized near the San Diego coast, killing four migrants, according to the Los Angeles Times. One survivor of that accident was apprehended by federal immigration agents. Dobbins said such incidents illustrate why the university police focus on safety risks rather than immigration enforcement.

Equipment, Reporting, and Sanctuary-State Questions

Besides overtime pay and vehicle fuel, Stonegarden money can buy surveillance equipment. UC San Diego police used grant funds to purchase night-vision binoculars, Dobbins said. Activity reports are submitted to Border Patrol through the Homeland Security Information Network, a federal database that DHS shares with international and private-sector partners but not the public. Once entered, the reports become federal property and are exempt from state public-records requests, the DHS official said.

California's sanctuary law limits local cooperation with immigration enforcement, but Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has said that Stonegarden task forces target border-related crime, not immigration status. The state attorney general's office has said the law permits cooperation when the primary focus is not immigration enforcement. A Texas law enforcement source whose department also receives Stonegarden funds said the grant lets local agencies assist federal agents without violating state restrictions.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which distributes some Stonegarden money to UC San Diego, released activity reports through a California Public Records Act request. Those reports show that deputies frequently made traffic stops in 2023 and 2024 while working with Border Patrol personnel. Most stops resulted in no arrests, citations, or drug seizures but were labeled intel development, meaning federal intelligence was gathered on interactions between civilians and police.

Stonegarden grant documents from the Biden administration define border-related crime as trafficking of humans, narcotics, or weapons of mass destruction, or simply illegal border crossing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency measures the program's success by the number of participating agencies, overtime hours, and arrests.

The University of California Office of the President said there is no requirement for the regents to approve Operation Stonegarden acquisitions for UC police departments, according to Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the system. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department provides the grant to the UC San Diego police, Dobbins said.

National Scope and What to Watch

California is one of five sanctuary states that participate in Stonegarden, along with New York, Washington, Vermont, and Minnesota, according to DHS grant documents. The state ranks third in total Stonegarden funding after Texas and Arizona. While UC San Diego's participation has drawn little public criticism, privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation urged the administration to end the program in a January 2025 memo, arguing it funnels surveillance technology to local police.

The grant has also paid for mobile data laptops, GPS trackers, camera systems, unmanned aircraft, patrol vehicles, and license plate readers at other agencies, according to local records. UC San Diego's police department does not use Stonegarden funds to enforce immigration law on campus, Dobbins said, and the university website warns students about Border Patrol checkpoints in San Diego County.

Several agencies across the country have quietly stopped participating in Stonegarden, citing concerns about racial profiling and the risk to Latino communities, according to privacy advocates. One Arizona sheriff withdrew from the grant after President Trump took office in 2025, fearing his department would contribute to mass deportations.

In the next 48 to 72 hours, watch for DHS to release its fiscal 2026 Stonegarden guidance and for campus officials to face questions about whether a public university should use federal dollars for border enforcement. The San Diego sector, which includes the UC San Diego coastline, remains one of the busiest maritime smuggling corridors on the West Coast, the Border Patrol agents said.