The Brief

Since Feb. 14, Transportation Security Administration staff have worked without pay due to the ongoing partial government shutdown — and with many calling out of work, passengers across the United States have experienced hourslong security screening lines.

This weekend, President Donald Trump announced that as of Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be deployed to airports to support TSA operations.

The Trump administration said that ICE officers would be on duty to assist with airport security staffing. But the presence of ICE officers has sparked fear and uncertainty among travelers.

San Francisco International Airport, the Bay Area’s biggest airport, has been spared long wait lines by the fact that its security screening is contracted by a private company rather than TSA.

But on Sunday night, in an incident captured on video, plainclothes immigration officers were seen at SFO forcefully handling a woman in front of her young child. SFO was not on the list of 14 airports obtained by CNN where ICE would be appearing.

While standing in line, open up the airline app and rebook yourself, says travel reporter Chris Dong.

(

EschCollection

/

Getty Images

)

So what should you know about ICE in U.S. airports right now? Keep reading for what we know about immigration officers, air travel and your rights around ICE officers.

Bear in mind that the following information doesn’t constitute legal advice, and you should direct any specific questions about your individual situation to a lawyer.

Which U.S. airports have ICE been deployed to?

According to reporting by The New York Times, 14 airports around the country will host ICE agents.

CNN reported that these locations include Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports in New York and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

No California airports appear on CNN’s current list.

On Tuesday, a TSA spokesperson confirmed to KQED that ICE would be deployed to “airports being adversely impacted” by TSA callouts and resignations — and that none of these were in the Bay Area.

Why was ICE at SFO on Sunday?

In footage from around 10 p.m. Sunday that was posted to social media, men wearing dark clothing were filmed at SFO pulling a crying woman from an airport terminal bench and then pushing her into a wheelchair — as a girl of around 10 is heard crying nearby. San Francisco police officers were seen standing by as the arrest occurred.

The men are not wearing visible badges or agency markings, but the Department of Homeland Security said on the social media platform X Monday that they were, in fact, ICE officers.

According to a DHS spokesperson, the woman and her daughter were arrested at the airport and were being “escorted to the international terminal for processing” when the woman tried to flee. Read more about Sunday night’s incident at SFO. As reported by The New York Times on Tuesday evening, ICE had originally been alerted to the pair’s presence at SFO by TSA.

According to a statement released by SFO, the airport was “not involved in or notified in advance of this incident.”

“We understand federal officers were transporting two individuals on an outbound flight when this incident occurred,” the statement reads. “We believe this is an isolated incident and have no reason to suspect broader enforcement action at SFO.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie echoed the airport’s statement on Monday in a social media post. Lurie said in his statement that local law enforcement “does not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement,” although some immigration attorneys have nonetheless questioned SFPD’s presence during the arrest.

As of Monday afternoon, local immigration advocates said they were still assessing the situation and working to “confirm all the facts related to this incident.”

“After killing people in our streets and detaining U.S. citizens, ICE has lost all credibility and trust with the public,” Bay Area Rep. Kevin Mullin and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in a joint statement. “We demand immediate answers as to the mother’s and her child’s condition and the grounds for their detainment.”

Can ICE arrest people at the airport?

Yes, there have been documented instances of ICE arresting people at airports.

Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies and senior advisor at the American Civil Liberties Union, said that there is “nothing that categorically prohibits ICE from going into an airport as an immigration enforcement agent.”

For example, Blazer said, ICE agents have used commercial flights in the past to transport individuals on deportation flights — or to transfer arrested people to immigration detention centers.

Travelers and their luggage in a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport.

(

Mario Tama

/

Getty Images

)

Additionally, as first reported by The New York Times in December 2025, TSA has shared information about air travelers who are believed to be under deportation orders with ICE, enabling immigration agents to make arrests at the airport.

But Blazer said that this week’s deployment of ICE to airports — the “mere presence for this purpose, in an untargeted fashion, in large numbers” — was “unprecedented.”

According to CNN on Tuesday morning, Trump said that agents will continue arresting undocumented people, but said of ICE agents in airports: “That’s not why they’re there; they’re really there to help.” (Most TSA officers are not commissioned law enforcement officers.)

“Part of what’s so challenging here is that the Trump administration hasn’t really made clear what authorities they are vesting with ICE as part of this mission,” Blazer said.

In its roundup of risks of air travel, the National Immigration Law Center said that for people who are undocumented, have temporary immigration status or who are under a deportation order, there is “a significant risk of arrest at a U.S. airport.”

However, NILC also said that “all non-citizens face some risk” while traveling through U.S. airports, including those with green cards, if they have certain criminal convictions or who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status.

Advocates encourage passengers who aren’t U.S. citizens to talk to a lawyer about their specific situation before traveling.

Customs and Border Protection already regularly works in airports. What’s the difference between their powers and ICE’s?

ICE and CBP are both immigration enforcement agencies within DHS.

While ICE conducts enforcement within the U.S. and manages detention and deportation operations, CBP conducts inspections at all U.S. “ports of entry” — at land borders, seaports and airports.

ACLU’s Blazer said that while CBP has a lot of “power when they’re screening people coming in on an international flight,” that doesn’t apply to domestic flights. For example, CBP — and ICE — should not be able to check your electronic devices without a warrant for a domestic flight.

Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago, told the Washington Post that ICE cannot search a passenger’s personal belongings without a warrant — and can only do this if they are working on behalf of an agency that can, like CBP.

“If they’re acting as a TSA agent, they have to follow TSA rules. If they’re acting as a CBP agent and doing Border Patrol work, then they have the authority that Border Patrol has,” Hallett said.

“And if they are just merely standing in the airport as ICE officers, then they have the same legal authority that any ICE officer standing in a public location has,” she said. (Regardless, she said that ICE can approach passengers anywhere in the airport, including after security.)

What should I do if ICE approaches me in the airport?

At border checkpoints — including airports — officers can ask questions, carry out personal searches and detain people with wide latitude, Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA School of Law’s Center for Immigration Law & Policy, told NPR.

But Blazer said that in order for ICE to arrest someone for an immigration violation without a warrant, they would need to establish probable cause that the person is in the U.S. in violation of U.S. immigration laws — and that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for the arrest. There has been recent litigation across the country challenging some of ICE’s warrantless arrests, he said.

(

AP

)

ICE officers “have no additional authority in an airport,” Blazer said. But in reality, he said, the constitutional protections and rights people have can be “a lot trickier to make the choice to exercise them” in an airport setting for most people — who are dealing not only with the added pressures of catching expensive flights but also the impatience of other passengers in the security line.

For example, people — whether citizens or immigrants — have the right to ask an immigration officer, “Am I free to go?” If they don’t have a specific, individualized, reasonable suspicion that you’ve committed a crime, they can’t question you further and you can go, Blazer said.

“But let’s think about how that works in the airport context,” he said. “‘Am I free to go?’ and leaving means that I’m probably leaving the airport to get myself out of a situation, and I may miss my flight at that point.”

Do I have to answer ICE’s questions at the airport?

If an ICE agent asks you questions in the airport, you “have the same right to remain silent as you do on the street,” Blazer said. “Nothing changes just because you’re in an airport.”

But this is another example of how the pressures of the airport setting can affect your situation, Blazer said. If you choose to exercise your right to remain silent, the officer may pull you out of the security line and try to ask more questions.

“We have the same rights, but in that environment, there are additional costs associated with exercising those rights,” Blazer said. “Many people in that situation, out of their own self-interest … ‘go along to get along’ as much as possible.”

What if ICE asks me for ID?

According to reporting from USA Today, travelers do need to provide identification and comply with TSA screening to board a flight. But generally, citizens and immigrants have the right to remain silent when talking to law enforcement, including ICE.

The Asian Law Caucus said that if you believe you are being taken into ICE custody, you should practice your right to remain silent and should not answer any questions. You should also not sign any documents without a lawyer reviewing them, the organization said.

Blazer said that federal law said people with lawful permanent residency or other visas that grant them lawful status must carry proof of their status with them — like their green card. “And it may be in their interest, in terms of avoiding further improper questioning or improper unlawful arrests, to answer those questions and to show that proof of status,” Blazer said.

“So even though you have a right not to, I want to make clear that people are going to need to make an individualized decision as to whether it’s in their interest to exercise that right,” he said. “Especially if they are an adult green cardholder or somebody else who is subject to a federal law requiring them to carry proof of their status at all times.”

Is it legal to film ICE?

“Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes police and other government officials carrying out their duties,” the ACLU’s guidance reads.

And while there’s no Supreme Court ruling on an unambiguous First Amendment right to film law enforcement officers, “all of the seven U.S. Federal Circuit Courts that have considered the issue have pretty much said there is a First Amendment right to record the police and observe the police,” criminal justice reporter C.J. Ciaramella at Reason told KQED’s Close All Tabs podcast earlier this year.

Atlanta Police Department officers look on as travelers stand in long lines at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on March 23, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia.

(

Megan Varner

/

Getty Images

)

But airports could be a potentially harder environment to film, Blazer said.

“It’s not as though the First Amendment doesn’t exist at airports, but airports are not traditional public domain in a way that parks [are],” Blazer said. For example, some TSA security lines have a sign nearby that says “no photos.”

“They rarely enforce that, but it just shows you that it’s already a more regulated environment in which they can impose certain restrictions,” Blazer said.

It is lawful to film law enforcement in “any open, visible place when they’re performing their duties,” Blazer said, echoing the guidance laid out in this thorough guide by the ACLU.

“But at the same time, it can be permissible for airport operators to impose certain reasonable rules, and those rules might include restricting photographing in particular areas of the airport,” Blazer said.

Practically, it could be hard to argue against an airport official who is telling you not to take photos in an area, Blazer said. And there may be a legal fight after the fact, “if a person doesn’t comply with that order and is arrested or is taken out of the line,” he said.

“But, I think, the practical reality is that” in an airport “environment, it gets harder to exercise that right,” he said.

Bystander videos also provide important counternarratives to official law enforcement accounts. After the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by ICE officers in Minnesota earlier this year, Trump administration officials immediately claimed Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” intending to “massacre” officers — claims contradicted by the multiple eyewitness videos taken of the killing.

Officials with the Trump administration have, however, characterized filming ICE as “violence” and “doxing,” and Americans have faced detention by ICE after filming agents.

So all in all, while recording ICE might be your constitutional right, it also brings increasing risks. Read more about the logistics — and risks — of recording law enforcement officers like ICE agents.

What do immigrant advocates say about traveling during this time? 

San Francisco advocacy group Mission Action warns that noncitizens who do not currently have legal status “should carefully consider the risks of air travel, including domestic flights within the U.S.”

“Recent reporting suggests increased risks, including that TSA may be sharing traveler information with ICE, which could expose individuals to enforcement,” their social media post reads.

The Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership said people should “talk to an attorney before flying to understand your risk.” The guidance suggested people plan extra time before traveling and keep key documents — like proof of lawful status, pending applications or certified copies of criminal cases if the case was closed — on hand. The organization emphasized that people should not “sign anything” they’re given by immigration agents that they “don’t understand.”

The ACLU Northern California has a page that breaks down your rights at the airport and whether or not border officers can ask about your immigration status.

According to ACLU NorCal, U.S. citizens only have to “answer questions establishing your identity and citizenship (in addition to customs-related questions).”

However, the organization cautions that “refusing to answer routine questions about the nature and purpose of your travel could result in delay and/or further inspection.”

Noncitizen visa holders and visitors who refuse to answer questions could face a delay or be denied entry. Lawful permanent residents, like green card holders, only have to answer questions about their identity and permanent residency, according to ACLU NorCal.

“Refusal to answer other questions will likely cause delay, but officials may not deny you entry into the U.S. for failure to answer other questions,” ACLU NorCal advised legal permanent residents — noting that green card status “may be revoked only by an immigration judge,” and warning, “Do not give up your green card voluntarily!”

The Asian Law Caucus also has a helpful chart on what people of differing statuses can expect in airports when it comes to their baggage, device searches and length of potential detainment.

What should I do if I think I see ICE in an airport?

Instead of posting possible ICE sightings to social media, immigration advocates highly encourage people to call them first instead. With these hotlines, advocates can fact-check these sightings, with the goal of preventing the spread of misinformation online.

You can find the complete and updated list of rapid response numbers on the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice’s website.

You can also follow these organizations on their social media accounts to see if these are confirmed sightings or just rumors.

Immigration agents detained someone I know. How do I find them?

Typically, a person of any status can be detained up to 72 hours at a port of entry, according to the Asian Law Caucus. They can also be transferred to criminal or ICE custody.

KQED has a guide that walks you through how to potentially locate someone through different detention centers.

The primary way to find someone is through ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System. You can also call ICE at 866-347-2423.

According to the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, it may take a few days for a person to appear in the ICE database. If the name you’re searching for isn’t showing up in the ICE system — or if you’re concerned about their safety and possible deportation — you can seek out assistance from advocacy organizations such as Freedom for Immigrants.

This story contains reporting from KQED’s Katie DeBenedetti, Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí, Tyche Hendricks and Carly Severn.

A new law will require local agencies to publicly disclose audio recordings and written records of 911 calls originating from privately run immigration detention facilities. The bill was prompted by CalMatters reporting on alleged sexual assaults at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 423, called the Detention Facility Transparency Act, on Tuesday. It was one of 21 immigration-related bills in a package his office announced the same day.

The law will require local agencies to turn over recordings and written records of 911 calls from privately run detention facilities, if a member of the public requests them. It includes an exception if an active investigation is underway and requires redacting the names of affected individuals.

“Well, it goes without saying, these past two years, Donald Trump has brought fear and has brought anxiety, disruption and stress to our immigrant communities,” Newsom said in a recorded video statement on his website.

“So, today, I sign a number of bills to strengthen transparency and to strengthen accountability and oversight over federal immigration enforcement and civil detention in our state,” the governor said.

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat from Long Beach, introduced SB 423 as state investigations and courts found serious gaps in essential medical care within the facilities. She said the aim was to stop private operators, and the agencies that work alongside them, from keeping what happens behind detention walls from the public's view.

In February, L.A. Taco reported that detainees inside Otay Mesa were throwing lotion bottles wrapped with notes about conditions inside over the wall of the facility to organizers standing outside.

“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh," an Otay Mesa detainee wrote, the news outlet reported. "We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”

Gonzalez, who is chair of the Legislative Latino Caucus, said no person “should have to resort to throwing notes over the walls of a detention facility to have their needs met and their voices heard.”

Earlier this year, CalMatters sought information, including 911 audio records and other reports, about alleged serious incidents at detention facilities through a California Public Records Act request. While a San Diego County sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency was not investigating those cases, he said he was unable to turn over additional records because they were part of “a law enforcement investigation.”

“When journalists and reporters attempted to obtain records about reported incidents at these facilities through the Public Records Act, they faced severe pushback from law enforcement, citing vague investigatory records exemptions, despite there being no active investigation,” said Gonzalez.

Immigrant Defense Advocates and the First Amendment Coalition co-sponsored the bill.

“The governor has sent a powerful message: No more secrecy. SB 423 makes clear that 911 calls and related records about events in detention must be released upon request. This will shed more light on a notoriously opaque system, leading to stronger oversight and accountability,” Ginny LaRoe, Advocacy Director, First Amendment Coalition, said in a written statement.

Gonzalez’s bill was one of several detention oversight bills Newsom signed Tuesday. Others impose a new 25% tax on private detention facilities, expand health, safety and oversight requirements for the centers, and add to the state attorney general’s oversight role.

The new laws take effect Jan. 1.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Six Flags Magic Mountain is retiring its famous X2 roller coaster amid lawsuits alleging serious brain injury caused by the ride.

The Southern California theme park said Tuesday that it is permanently shuttering the ride after nearly 20 years. Six Flags recently settled a wrongful-death lawsuit from the family of a 22-year-old man who died after riding the coaster in 2022, and three more lawsuits alleging traumatic brain injuries were filed last week.

“While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” park President Brian Oerding said in an online announcement. “Ride safety is a cornerstone of our business, and when we see guest confidence affected, we take it seriously.”

The ride has been closed since the evening of July 12, after two women who rode the coaster less than a week apart both needed to be rushed to the hospital after they exited.

One of them, 25-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson, collapsed shortly after the ride ended and was found to have massive brain bleeding inside the skull that required emergency brain surgery. She remains in a vegetative state in the hospital, unable to speak or move and dependent on a ventilator. Her family filed a lawsuit against Six Flags on her behalf.

Her attorneys said more than 100 people claimed they suffered brain injuries from the roller coaster in the past two years, and more lawsuits would be filed in the coming weeks.

According to the Six Flags Magic Mountain website, the X2 roller coaster reaches a top speed of 76 mph (122 kph) and has a total length of 3,610 feet (1,100 meters). The seats rotate 360 degrees “so your body will be flipping around the entire time,” and the ride features two “raven turns” — half loops that turn into sheer drops midway.

It debuted at the park in 2002 under the name X as the world’s first “fourth-dimension” roller coaster and reopened in 2008 as X2 with new trains and special effects. The uniqueness of the ride drew thrill-seekers from around the world and garnered a fervent fanbase.

The park settled a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old who died the day after he rode X2. He was taken to the hospital after the ride with severe brain bleeding. The medical examiner’s office said his death was from blunt head trauma. The case was settled at the end of August, a few days before the trial was scheduled to start.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the administration to resume, for now, deportations of migrants to countries that are not identified in their removal orders, handing President Donald Trump another victory in his aggressive immigration agenda.

The court also said it would take up the case for full oral argument in December.

The court's brief order granting the petition did not outline a reason for staying a lower-court order that blocked the third-country deportations. It noted the court's three liberal justices objected to staying the order.

Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices the third-country deportation policy amounted to "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens" in court papers earlier this month. The administration said it has used the policy to deport tens of thousands of noncitizens to Mexico and countries in Africa and Latin America after the migrants' home countries refused to accept them.

"While certain aliens may benefit from stalling their removal, the Nation does not," Sauer wrote in an emergency application Sept. 24.

The action by the high court marks the third time the justices have rejected efforts by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston to pause the deportations, which the judge said violate due process rights and fail to give detainees meaningful notice to raise arguments that they have credible fears of torture or abuse in the countries where they could be sent.

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which is representing migrants facing deportation, said in court papers that their clients are facing significant harms.

"The record shows that class members removed without meaningful notice or an opportunity to present country-specific protection claims have faced prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings and sexual assault, disappearance, and chain refoulement to countries from which the United States had already granted them protection," wrote lawyer Trina Realmuto. "These harms cannot be undone."

The Department of Homeland Security said Murphy's rulings have created a logistical nightmare, including canceled flights, potential diplomatic clashes, and a lag in removing people convicted of assault and drug crimes.

The administration argued that if a country has assured Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it will not engage in persecution or torture, that should be enough to deport a noncitizen to a country that's not their own.

The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority has recognized the president has substantial authority over the border. Last summer, in a 6-to-3 decision, the court ruled President Trump has sweeping power to end the temporary protected status program for people who can't return to their home countries because of wars and natural disasters.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The bell had already rung on a recent morning at Newport Beach’s Ensign Intermediate School. But two of the school’s students hadn’t made it to class. Instead, they were sitting on a sidewalk across from campus, detained by a police officer for parking their e-bikes on the street.

The situation at Ensign has gotten messy since the school district, Newport-Mesa Unified, voted to ban e-bikes from middle and elementary school campuses, citing safety concerns. Many students kept riding their e-bikes to school anyway, parking them in swarms in the surrounding neighborhood.

The neighbors did not like this. Shouting matches ensued between students and homeowners. At least one student returned from class to find her tires deflated.

The city responded to the tension by putting up “No e-bike parking” signs on several streets.

The city of Newport Beach prohibited e-bikes on some streets around Ensign Intermediate School after neighbors complained.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

“I wouldn't want it in my neighborhood either, like, I get it,” said Corey Gulbranson, who got a $100 parking ticket on behalf of his daughter, one of the Ensign students detained for allegedly illegally parking her e-bike. “But at the end of the day, we're just trying to get our kids to school on a legal mode of transportation.”

Crucial teen commuting tools? Or dangerous devices?

E-bikes and significantly more powerful e-motorcycles have become very popular in many Orange County suburbs, where the streets are wide, public transit is spotty, and distances are longer than some are willing to pedal on a regular bike. For teens and tweens, e-bikes provide a taste of independence. They also relieve parents of some of their driving duties. Plus, e-bikes can replace polluting cars.

But their popularity has brought an alarming increase in serious injuries, especially among young riders.

At Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, e-bike crashes are now sending more kids to the ER than any other cause, according to Dr. Tetsuya Takeuchi, the hospital’s trauma medical director. More than 70% of those patients had some level of head injury, from minor concussions to devastating brain damage, he said, often because they were not wearing a helmet.

But even Takeuchi recognizes the nearly irresistible draw of e-bikes.

“If you ride one, you realize how easy it is to go everywhere with it,” he said.  “I am not by any means surprised at how popular this is, especially amongst kids.”

‘Bicycle-shaped devices’

Not all e-bikes are equally fast, or equally dangerous. California uses a three-tier system, developed by the bike industry, to classify e-bikes depending on:

• engine power
• max speed
• whether the bike has pedals 
• whether a cyclist has to use those pedals before the engine kicks in 

California law prohibits children under age 16 from riding Class 3 e-bikes with engines capable of reaching 28 miles per hour. In reality, though, many kids are riding e-vehicles that go faster — in some cases, much faster.

“There are lots of what I will call 'bicycle-shaped devices' being ridden,” said Asha Weinstein Agrawal, a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. “Some of them are legal e-bikes. Some of them are not.”

Agrawal recently co-authored a 210-page report on e-bike safety. It includes data collected from middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties, which showed that only 12% of students’ e-bikes fit into the legal classification system. The other 88% were more powerful than legally allowed under California law.

A Newport Beach Police officer tickets a middle schooler for parking her e-bike on the street across from Ensign Middle School on Sept. 4, 2026.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

Any bicycle-shaped device that goes faster than 30 miles per hour is technically an e-motorcycle, which requires a special driver’s license and, if ridden on public roads, insurance and registration.

Agrawal said it’s hard for parents, and even police officers, to figure out what’s legal and what’s not.

“Nobody understands this,” she said. “It’s very hard to enforce.”

The crackdown

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has taken some unusual approaches to addressing the e-bike dilemma. To date, he has pressed criminal charges — including for child endangerment — against four parents after their children were involved in collisions, all of them on e-motorcycles, not e-bikes.

One of those parents, a woman from Aliso Viejo, was charged with three felonies, including involuntary manslaughter, after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck and killed an 81-year-old man while doing wheelies in the street in Lake Forest on an e-motorcycle souped up to reach 60 miles per hour.

People with e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos move through the long line at the Orange County District Attorney's buyback event at Angel Stadium, Sept. 13, 2026.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

The DA’s office said it has also sent letters to retailers reminding them of a ban on selling products used to modify e-bikes to go faster than legally allowed.

Spitzer recently tried another novel approach: buybacks. On a recent Sunday, hundreds of people brought their e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos to an event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, hoping to turn them in for up to a thousand dollars in gift cards. The county event was paid for with $100,000 in asset forfeiture funds.

One man near the front of the line said he had arrived at 1 a.m. By the time the event started at 10 a.m., sheriff’s deputies were turning people away.

“Holy smokes,” Spitzer said from behind a podium mounted in the parking lot. “Look at the participation. … And you can see why, because we have a serious problem here in Orange County and across the nation with individuals who have e-bikes and e-motorcycles.”

Spitzer spoke about the dangers, but also the attractiveness of a high-powered personal vehicle, especially for teen boys.

 “We're not gonna change our internal DNA about who we are as young people and the fact we wanna go places, and we wanna experiment, and quite frankly, we like fast things,” he said. “ But the fact of the matter is when you have a machine, and you don't understand its capabilities, you can find yourself in harm's way very quickly before you can control that mechanism.”

Orange County District Attorney is testing out a range of strategies to crack down on illegal e-bikes and e-motos, including a buyback event at Angel Stadium on Sept. 13, 2026.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

Are unsafe riders ‘ruining it for other people’?

Paul Dumont drove to the buyback event all the way from Chatsworth in hopes of exchanging five e-bikes he had bought for his kids and grandkids.

“They got injured on them when we first got them, so they've been sitting in storage,” he said of the bikes.

Dumont said he wished he had bought less powerful e-bikes. “But I bought them the best ones,” he said. “I thought they'd be better.”

Denise Mills and her 17-year-old son Nathanael came from Torrance to turn in three e-motorcycles that he had been riding to and from his high school last year. He stopped after the school told him it was illegal. A new state law defining e-motorcycles took effect in January.

A student at Ensign Middle School runs to campus after parking his e-bike at a nearby park, Sept. 4, 2026.

(

Jill Replogle

/

LAist

)

“That was very unfortunate because it's his primary source of transportation,” Mills said. “Now it's his dad and I.”

Nathanael said he had logged several thousand miles without an accident.

“ Partially it's, like, people ruining it for other people,” he said of efforts to tighten the rules for young riders.

Local leaders grapple with the flood of e-bikes

Cities and school districts are testing a variety of approaches to decrease e-bike crashes and injuries, from prohibiting riding on sidewalks to outright bans for young riders. The Brea City Council has even discussed using police drones to follow unsafe youth riders home in order to inform their parents.

In a more typical approach, the Huntington Beach City School District requires all student e-bike commuters to pass a safety course in order to get a permit to park their bike on campus. Newport-Mesa has a similar program for high schoolers.

Marin County limits youth under age 16 to riding Class 1 “pedal-assist” e-bikes, which have motors that kick in only while pedaling, and shut off once the bike reaches 20 miles per hour. The ban on more powerful e-bikes for young riders is part of a pilot program approved by the state legislature that sunsets in 2029.

At the federal level, O.C. Congressman Dave Min, D-Irvine, co-authored a bill earlier this year, the Safe SPEEDS Act, that would develop nationwide safety standards for e-bikes, including minimum age recommendations.

A dilemma for parents

Parents of student e-bike commuters have said they do not oppose regulating the vehicles, and they want authorities to crack down on dangerous and illegal riding. But an outright ban goes too far, they’ve said.

“ I know there are kids that are a little wild,” said Kellie Newcombe, whose 13-year-old daughter is still riding her pedal-assist bike from their home in Costa Mesa to Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach.

“That is not my child. That is not her friends. They are so ridiculously safe and by the book,” she said. “It's just super frustrating that they would say every kid cannot ride an e-bike.”

A spokesperson for Newport-Mesa Unified told LAist in an email that the school district’s new e-bike restrictions have gone smoothly and are helping to reinforce safety. But that is not how Gulbranson and Newcombe see it.

“We've had my daughter intimidated by multiple neighbors now,” Gulbranson said. “This whole guise of doing it under safety is totally misguided.”

Newcombe said she worries about her daughter’s safety more now that an increasing number of parents are driving their kids to school.

“They're in a rush because the traffic is insane,” she said. Plus, her daughter now has to cross a busy street to get to campus.

Newcombe said she wishes the school district would work with local leaders and police to enforce e-bike rules and to create safer paths to school for responsible riders.