California’s Attorney General has filed a motion in the lawsuit against the city of El Cajon over its use of automatic license plate reader (ALRP) technology. Attorney General Rob Bonta claims the city is in violation of California’s sanctuary laws, which prohibits local resources from being use d to enforce federal immigration laws. The lawsuit was filed in October of 2025. A motion, filed in late January, claims that the city is sharing data pulled from its ALPR systems with out-of-state law enforcement agencies. Some privacy advocates, like Seth Hall with the Trust SD Coalition, believes that the technology has proven harmful to the immigrant community. “There’s no question that this data is being caught up in the aggressive — in my view, unethical policies of the federal administration,” said Hall. There’s no doubt that this mass surveillance data is being co-opted into that,” Hall added. An analysis published by KBPS in October of 2025 found that surveillance data collected by the El Cajon Police Department (ECPD) was used in immigration-related searches more than 550 times throughout 2025. In response to the Attorney General’s lawsuit, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells defended the city’s use of the technology, saying it’s a “cornerstone of effective policing”. “They’re in a special situation. They have been made aware that their sharing of that data all over the country — they share with hundreds and hundreds of agencies all over the country, everywhere from Idaho and the University of Iowa and all the way over on the east coast,” said Hall. NBC 7 reached out to Mayor Wells’ office for comment on the lawsuit. We did not hear back in time for this report. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Friday, February 13 at the San Diego Superior County Court. ...read more read less