To circumvent California’s immigrant sanctuary laws, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have begun issuing legal complaints and arrest warrants for inmates in county jails, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
From May 10-15, Operation Guardian Angel led to the arrest of 13 defendants on federal charges, prosecutors said.
The program aims “to neutralize California’s sanctuary state policy and protect Americans from criminal illegal aliens incarcerated in county jails by issuing federal arrest warrants for them,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
“Even the worst criminal aliens in state custody are frequently released into the community because California’s sanctuary state policies block cooperation with federal law enforcement,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. “These laws effectively render federal immigration detainers meaningless. The days of giving criminal illegal aliens a free pass are over. While California may be presently disregarding detainers, it cannot ignore federal arrest warrants.”
According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration detainer is a request to a federal, state or local law enforcement agency, including jails and prisons, to notify ICE “as early as possible before releasing a removable undocumented immigrant, and to hold the person for up to 48 hours beyond the scheduled release time so the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can assume custody under federal immigration law.”
Prosecutors highlighted the case earlier this year of José Cristian Saravia-Sánchez, a 30-year-old Mexican national charged in the shooting death of an Inglewood man who tried to stop him from stealing a catalytic converter.
“Despite the fact he was an illegal alien who had been convicted of vehicle theft, was removed from the United States in 2013, and had been arrested 11 times between June 2022 and August 2024, local law enforcement was prevented by state law from complying with an immigration detainer request,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said their goal through Operation Guardian Angel is “to neutralize — as far as possible — California’s sanctuary state policy and make our community safer.”
The Central District of California has jurisdiction in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The district is home to an estimated 1.5 million undocumented immigrants, prosecutors said.
