By Madison Holcomb
REDDING, Calif. — In the heart of Redding, at 443 Redcliff Drive, there’s a building surrounded by 8-foot-tall fences and large shrubs, making the bottom half of the two-story structure nearly impossible to see.
Seemingly unbeknownst to many — even city officials — this building is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sub-field office.
Shasta Scout received an anonymous tip earlier this summer claiming that the facility located at the Redding address is an ICE office, but initial research online found very little information to back this claim. ICE officials, both national and regional, as well as local, did not respond to repeated requests for comment by phone and email. On the ICE Field Offices page, Redding is not listed as having a sub-field office. The closest similar office on the list is in Sacramento.
Several city officials, including the city manager and police chief, said they know little to nothing about the facility and ICE’s operations in Redding. But a series of California Public Records Act requests confirmed that this facility has been leased to ICE for years. A contract on file with RPD indicates active collaboration with ICE’s investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
HSI’s website describes the agency’s work as conducting federal criminal investigations into the illegal movement of people, goods, money, contraband, weapons and sensitive technology into, out of and through the United States. HSI has a map with its field offices, and Redding is shown on the map — though HSI doesn’t provide information online about the Redding office. While HSI is an arm of ICE, it doesn’t just deal with immigration matters — it also investigates child exploitation, financial and cyber crimes, human trafficking, identity fraud and more.
It’s important to note that Shasta Scout never received on-the-record confirmation from an ICE official about the facility; as a result, its exact operations are unknown. However, documents found through investigation directly label the facility as an ICE sub-field office that deals with “Enforcement and Removal Operations,” and an ICE website confirms the existence of an HSI facility in Redding.
Records show ICE presence in Redding for more than 10 years
The building located on Redcliff Drive used to house Lake College, according to a 2007 application to the city for a parking permit and remodel that lists the name.
The first indication of a possible ICE-related facility in Redding dates back to 2012, when two Shasta County residents were indicted for selling fake identification and immigration documents. An ICE press release from that case quotes someone listed as a resident agent in charge for “HSI Redding.”
It’s unclear exactly when ICE took over the property at 443 Redcliff Drive. The earliest record in Redding’s documentation that lists ICE as the tenant of the property is a letter from the city’s director of development dated April 1, 2013, explaining a request by ICE to the city to place an 8-foot-high security fence around a portion of the parking lot.
Redding’s zoning ordinance states that fences can’t surpass 6 feet in height unless they meet certain security needs, but according to the letter, ICE had a “legitimate security need warranting the additional fence height.”
In October 2019, an amendment to the earlier request asked permission to extend the fence in order to “encroach into the required front-yard setback” on the property — meaning ICE wanted to run the fence closer to the street than would normally be allowed under city rules.
At the time, the building was owned by Elman Redding Associates, LLC, which took ownership of the property in 2015, according to the Shasta County Assessor’s Office. The California branch of that company dissolved in 2022, which is the same year that the property resurfaced in city documents.
That’s when the council authorized the mayor to OK the issuance of bonds by a public agency known as the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA). The bonds would provide a $10 million loan for the “financing of a project at 443 Redcliff Drive.” The loan was made to TNRE 6, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company that’s now listed as the property owner. Documentation included with the loan agreement explained that TNRE 6, LLC, intended to lease the Redcliff Drive facility to the U.S. government for use by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). According to that document, the facility was already functioning as an Enforcement and Removal Operations sub-field office for ICE, containing several holding cells, office space, conference rooms, laboratory and storage facilities.
The loan description states the purpose of the loan was to “Refinance the Acquisition, Construction, Improvement and Equipping of the Redding Sub-Field Office for the Department of Homeland Security.”
“The sensitive nature of operations at the Facility requires a number of high security features for which the Government pays a higher rent per square foot than it does at its other leased facilities in the area,” the document states. Other federal facilities in the area include Bureau of Indian Affairs and Social Security Administration offices.
Just days before the 2022 meeting where the city council discussed approving the bonds for the loan, City Manager Barry Tippin also played a role in the process, signing a recommendation letter that would authorize the mayor to approve the issuance of bonds if approved by the council.
The letter signed by Tippin explains that the CMFA works to “promote economic, cultural, and community development through the financing of economic development and charitable activities throughout California” and helps local governments to issue bonds “aimed at improving the standard of living in California.”
Despite having recommended that bonds be issued for this particular project, Tippin told Shasta Scout by email that he has no information relating to the ICE office nor its operations, emphasizing that the city’s part in the process was “simply to ‘approve’ the issuance” of the bonds.
Further evidence of the facility surfaced in August 2024 when ICE sent a records request to DHS. The request detailed that ICE was seeking “available detention facilities” in the West Coast, such as local and state prisons and jails, and wanted these facilities to be located within a two-hour commute of an ICE field or sub-field office. The Redding ICE sub-field office is listed at the bottom of their request as an option for a supposed anchor point if there’s a suitable detention facility nearby.
About five months ago, ICE posted a job listing on LinkedIn for an Enforcement and Removal Assistant in Redding. The position entailed researching detainee history to identify citizenship, documenting detainee information and providing administrative support for the office.
Local, regional and national ICE officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment that included specific questions about why the facility is not listed on the field offices site, what it’s used for and if they could verify that it’s an ICE office.
2020 document shows collaboration between ICE investigative arm and RPD
In September 2020, Redding’s police chief at the time, Bill Schueller, signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Redding Police Department and ICE/DHS. That MOU authorized ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agency, or ICE’s investigative arm, to designate RPD employees as “customs officers.”
The term “customs officer” isn’t defined in the document, but the memorandum states that “customs officers are authorized to enforce the full range of federal offenses.” It states that the designation doesn’t “convey the authority to enforce administrative violations of immigration law” but that RPD employees could be called upon to “perform certain HSI duties.”
The MOU listed an individual with an ICE email whose title is resident agent in charge for HSI Redding, with an address that matches the Redding facility. The contact listed did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Police Chief Brian Barner initially said he was not aware of an ICE facility in Redding. Once he was presented with the memorandum signed by his predecessor, he said he thinks the office is used by a “resident agent” and referred to DHS to confirm. Barner later clarified that he is aware that the facility is being used as a DHS office, but he’s unaware of any ICE operations specific to illegal immigration in Redding.
In response to additional questions, Barner said the memorandum between ICE/HSI and RPD is still valid, and that RPD currently has a detective assigned to its High Tech Crimes Unit that’s starting the process to receive the cross-designation with Homeland Security to be listed as a customs officer. He explained that the purpose of the cross-designation is for information sharing between RPD and DHS regarding criminal activities related to child porn, sex crimes and financial crimes, stating RPD “has not participated in any ICE operations specific to illegal immigration.”
“We do stay in contact with Homeland Security on a regular basis to share information on the high tech crime occurring in our area,” Barner said. “They are a very valuable law enforcement partner in the area of these crimes.”
According to the California Values Act, California law enforcement, including state and local agencies, are restricted from collaborating with federal immigration authorities. The law specifically prohibits local law enforcement from using California resources to investigate, detain or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes.
Barner emphasized that RPD hasn’t been requested for assistance for immigration enforcement by ICE.
Madison Holcomb is a recent graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She’s reporting for Shasta Scout as a 2025 summer intern with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.
