UC San Diego's police department has dropped a federal grant that for roughly a decade sent campus officers to patrol La Jolla beaches at night alongside Border Patrol agents.

The university did not reapply for the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Operation Stonegarden grant for fiscal year 2026, as first reported by CalMatters and iNewsource in July. UCSD formally cut ties with the program on Aug. 1, according to the UCSD Guardian.

Under the grant, campus police worked 20 nights a year patrolling Black's Beach and Torrey Pines with night-vision binoculars, searching for people who crossed the border by sea on panga boats. Officers received federal overtime pay and submitted activity reports to DHS. Those reports are not public.

The UC San Diego Police Department had participated in Stonegarden since about 2012, according to CalMatters. The specific dollar amount UCSD received each year has not been disclosed. Statewide, the program allocates an average of $11 million annually to California law enforcement agencies.

Niraj Dangoria, UCSD vice chancellor of Operations Management and Capital Programs, confirmed the decision in a March 4 email to Patrick Velasquez, co-chair of the San Diego Chicano/Latino Concilio on Higher Education. Dangoria wrote that the university would not apply for any future grants tied to immigration enforcement.

In a March 11 message, Dangoria added that the police department might still seek other DHS grants unrelated to immigration, noting that DHS oversees agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

UCSD University Communications told the UCSD Guardian that campus police have not contributed to Stonegarden activities since 2024. The Guardian was not able to independently verify that claim.

Student pressure helped drive the decision. About 100 students attended a Feb. 26 demonstration organized by the Students' Civil Liberties Union and the Ellis Collective, condemning the partnership. The day before, Aryan Dixit, then-president of the Students' Civil Liberties Union and associate vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in student government, met with campus police chief Lamine Secka. Secka told Dixit the department would halt participation and not reapply, according to CalMatters.

The exit did not end questions about federal enforcement near campus. On Aug. 3, two days after the formal Stonegarden termination, the Students' Civil Liberties Union and Ellis Collective reported that Homeland Security Investigations allegedly used UCSD property near Eighth College on Capricorn Lane as a staging ground.

The agents were investigating a panga boat that washed ashore near Scripps Pier in La Jolla Shores, according to the UCSD Guardian. UCSD officials said no federal immigration enforcement was confirmed on campus property that day, though they acknowledged two law enforcement incidents occurred off campus nearby.

"Students are afraid, reasonably, of this rogue organization that is regularly violating human rights — not just civil rights, human rights," Aydın Yelkovan, a fourth-year student and organizer with the Students' Civil Liberties Union, told the UCSD Guardian in an Oct. 5 interview about the alleged incident.

Under California Senate Bill 98 (SB 98), all UC campuses must alert their communities when federal immigration enforcement is confirmed on or near campus. Student groups published demands on Aug. 4 calling for full SB 98 compliance and a working phone number for Campus Counsel under the Office of the Chancellor. No public response from the administration to those demands has been documented.

In a Sept. 18 email to students, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said federal immigration agencies "can and do enter campus for non-enforcement activities," including recruitment and visa verifications.