A taxpayer-funded California university just kicked Border Patrol off campus because a handful of student activists complained.

UC San Diego has ended its decade-long participation in the Department of Homeland Security's Operation Stonegarden grant program, which pays local law enforcement to assist federal border security missions — including drug and human trafficking interdiction along the coastline near campus. The retreat came after students threatened rallies and flooded administrators with complaints, and campus police chief Lamine Secka privately agreed to walk away from the program in a late February meeting with Students' Civil Liberties Union president Aryan Dixit.

Here is the stake: a public university, bankrolled by California taxpayers, chose to sever a working relationship with the federal agents who patrol the border just miles from campus — because students who oppose immigration enforcement demanded it. The same institution that takes your tax dollars decided the people who stop cartels and fentanyl from reaching American communities are not welcome.

Internal emails from Vice Chancellor Niraj Dangoria, reviewed by CalMatters, confirmed the university intends to cease using the grant and has no plans to reapply. The San Diego County Sheriff's Office, which manages Stonegarden operations in the area, separately confirmed UC San Diego will not be involved in future grant operations.

The partnership dated to roughly 2012. Campus police used the grant to pay for overtime patrols along the coastline near campus. Much of the program targets drug and human trafficking, not immigration enforcement — a distinction the New York Post noted from an internal chancellor's email, but one the Los Angeles Times buried in its coverage, framing the story instead around the risk to "undocumented and international students."

Student Aryan Dixit, who led the charge, told a February rally: "We are concerned that these kinds of grants are hurting the community; they're hurting community trust in the police on this campus." Another student, Daniel Negrete, called it "crazy" that the university maintained the relationship and said he was "shocked that the university was letting this happen."

Chancellor Dangoria wrote in an internal email: "I want to reiterate that UC San Diego is deeply committed to cultivating and maintaining a campus environment that is safe and welcoming for all members of our community, regardless of immigration status."

Note the word choice. A public university chancellor explicitly prioritizing people in the country illegally over the federal agents who enforce the law. UC policy already bars campus police from working with ICE or detaining people based on suspected immigration status. The Stonegarden program was about border security and trafficking interdiction, but that distinction did not matter to the activists — or the administrators who caved.

Operation Stonegarden still operates with numerous California law enforcement agencies. In 2024, it pumped more than $12 million into the state, with $7.5 million flowing to San Diego County alone — the county that sits directly on the Mexican border and absorbs the brunt of cartel activity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has separately lobbied to kill the program, claiming it funnels money to surveillance technology companies. Follow the money: the privacy lobby wants the program dead, and now a public university has obliged.

The question nobody on campus is asking: when the cartels move product up that same coastline, who exactly do these students think is going to stop them?