SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—A confrontation inside the lobby of the Santa Barbara County Jail Tuesday morning is raising questions from a local group that monitors immigration enforcement.
Video provided to your News Channel shows a masked federal agent approaching SB Resiste volunteer Zach Cosseboom before spraying him in the face.
The video also captures one volunteer yelling, “Don’t touch him!”
Cosseboom says he and other volunteers were at the jail to document what they describe as federal immigration enforcement activity.
“We need to protect our most vulnerable people in our community,” Cosseboom said. “I do believe that we need immigration laws, but they’re obviously violating a lot of process rights.”
Cosseboom’s wife, Ana Garcia, who is also a SB Resiste volunteer, said they were not attempting to interfere with an ICE operation.
She said they were documenting what happens when someone is released from the jail and then taken into federal immigration custody.
“These are people who are either short-term misdemeanor crimes that are being in there to serve their sentences and then being released for a reason because they have paid their debt to society,” Garcia said.
Garcia and Cosseboom say the agent sprayed them without warning. They also allege the substance used was bear spray.
Garcia said Cosseboom had been backing away from the agents when he was sprayed.
“My husband started kind of backing up toward the front doors to give them space,” Garcia said. “And then they started approaching him and pushing him. And so he scooted back even more until he was basically backed up to the wall.”
Cosseboom said he had his hands raised when the agent sprayed him.
“I literally had my hands up and they came and pepper sprayed me,” he said.
The video shows the moments leading up to the spraying, but it does not establish from the footage alone what prompted the federal agent to use the spray.
Cosseboom also says he attempted to report the incident to Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies but that they refused to take a report.
“I tried to give a report to multiple sheriff’s officers who refused to take a report,” he said. “I took down their names, and I will be filing a complaint against those officers as well.”
Your News Channel reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office for their accounts of what happened.
As of publication, neither agency had responded.
Previous reporting on ICE activity at county jails
The confrontation comes amid ongoing scrutiny of federal immigration arrests at Santa Barbara County jails.
A Santa Barbara News-Press investigation published in April found that ICE agents arrested at least 99 people at Santa Barbara County jails in 2025, according to federal detention data obtained by the newspaper. The Sheriff’s Office had reported 12 official transfers to ICE under California's SB 54 requirements that year.
The investigation reported that some of the additional arrests occurred in jail lobbies and parking lots rather than through the secure jail transfer process.
The California Values Act, commonly known as SB 54, generally limits when local law enforcement agencies can transfer people in their custody to federal immigration authorities. The law allows transfers involving people convicted of certain serious crimes.
In June, Sheriff Bill Brown told the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors that ICE arrests can occur in public areas of county jail facilities, including lobbies and parking lots. Brown said his office would continue honoring ICE requests for transfers when they comply with legal restrictions, but said the Sheriff's Office would not monitor or count what he characterized as federal “peripheral arrests.”
The News-Press investigation also reported that federal data showed 30 people arrested near Santa Barbara County jails in 2025 had no criminal record listed in ICE records.
Santa Barbara County officials have continued to question the transparency surrounding those arrests.
The Sheriff’s Office has said it does not collaborate with ICE outside the limits of state law and is not always aware when federal agents make arrests following someone's release from jail.
The latest confrontation remains under review, and the circumstances surrounding the use of the spray have not been independently established.
Video shows a masked federal agent spraying an SB Resiste volunteer during a confrontation inside the Santa Barbara County jail lobby, victims speak out News Channel 3-12.
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