A federal agency cast the sheriff as a border partner, but SDSO says it’s fake.
[SAN DIEGO COUNTY — Sat, May 16, 2026]
A U.S. Border Patrol Instagram account published an image on May 16 that appears to show a San Diego County Sheriff’s helicopter flying over a Border Patrol SUV, captioned as “joint operations” with “one mission: border security.” The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office says the operation it depicts never happened.
In a May 18 statement, the Sheriff’s Office Air Support Unit, ASTREA, said it did not stage a photo op with Border Patrol and that the picture appears to be a photoshopped image of one of its helicopters added to a Border Patrol stock photo. The unit’s lieutenant said no Border Patrol representative had asked permission to use the aircraft or to call the activity a joint operation.
The helicopter shown is the agency’s Bell 412 EPX, a firefighting and search-and-rescue aircraft that the office says is not used for law enforcement. Its crew consists of a deputy sheriff pilot, a CAL FIRE captain, and fire department personnel such as paramedics and rescue specialists. The Sheriff’s Office said it contacted Border Patrol about the post and that the agency agreed to take it down.
The post appears amid a documented dispute over the county’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities. inewsource reported in January that Sheriff Kelly Martinez has kept transferring people from county jails to ICE without judicial warrants, against county policy, and that her office says the Board of Supervisors does not set its policy. It also fits a broader federal social-media strategy that a Washington Post investigation found has used misrepresented and at least one digitally altered video to promote immigration enforcement.
SD Slackers also reached out to the state Attorney General’s press office and asked whether “border security” alone meets California’s joint-task-force standard, the office said on May 19 it could not provide legal analysis.
