Santa Barbara City College staff sent out community alerts about reported federal agents including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and vehicles using the West Campus parking lot on Thursday night. 

ICE agents were on the West Campus’ third floor parking lot from 5:45 p.m. to 7:10 p.m., according to Jordan Killebrew, Santa Barbara City College spokesperson.

He said there were around eight vehicles with individuals dressed in federal law enforcement uniforms. 

“It appears they were using the SBCC parking lot as a staging area for their next action,” he said in an email to the campus community. 

Killebrew and Paloma Arnold, assistant superintendent and vice president of student affairs, arrived at the scene after getting notified by immigrant activist nonprofit 805UndocuFund. 

When SBCC staff arrived, they only saw some of the reported vehicles in the parking lot. Killebrew said he believes the agents were parking some of their cars in the parking lot and then loading into the other vehicles to go into nearby neighborhoods. 

“We are concerned that this happened during finals which is obviously a disruption,” he said. 

Cesar Vasquez, a rapid response organizer with 805UndocuFund, reported that two of the nonprofit’s volunteers were arrested Thursday night after reportedly requesting to see a warrant after law enforcement vehicles closed off the Westside area of San Pascual Street and Arrellaga Street.

They have since been released, he said, and added that the volunteers reportedly had large bruises after being “held against a wall for 15 minutes.”

A community member also reportedly got detained, Vasquez said.

He added that Thursday may not have been the first time federal agents used the campus to stage for nearby operations.

“This is the third time that we know of that ICE and agents working with ICE have been at SBCC,” he said.

ICE representatives did not respond to Noozhawk’s request for comment Friday.

Killebrew said the only interaction he and Arnold had with the agents was when they questioned their motives after the agents returned to retrieve the vehicles.

“We asked them what they were doing, and the only response we got was that they were leaving now,” he said. 

Killebrew also said he has since reached out to Congressman Salud Carbajal’s office to ask him to advocate for campus safety and to not have any more ICE presence. 

“We will be continuing to do our best to protect our students so that they can just focus on their studies,” he said.