Photo courtesy of Gavin Newsom on Facebook.
A new House Judiciary Committee report states that authorities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego ignored a combined 8,901 ICE detainers, allowing criminal aliens with records that included homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, weapons offenses, and child abuse to be released back into communities.
The 22-page interim staff report, led by Chairman Jim Jordan and Rep. Tom McClintock, was released on Thursday.
According to the report, the Los Angeles Police Department honored just four of the 4,177 ICE detainers it received between January 2020 and June 2026, a compliance rate below 0.1 percent.
The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office rejected all 2,201 detainers it received between January 2020 and August 2026.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office declined 2,527 detainers between January 2023 and June 2026, including 894 in the last year.
The report details:
The effects of Los Angeles’s longstanding pro-criminal alien policies have been devastating. Herbert Nixon Flores, an illegal alien from El Salvador, “had been ordered removed and physically deported from the United States 10 times” since 1990. His criminal history “included carrying a concealed weapon, trespassing, burglary, disturbing the peace, possession and transportation of a controlled substance, impersonation, driving under the influence, driving without a license, driving with a suspended license, resisting arrest, vandalism, criminal threats and illegal entry.” On September 7, 2020, he was arrested “for a domestic violence with injury charge by [LAPD].” The next day, ICE lodged a detainer with LAPD, but local law enforcement released Nixon Flores onto California streets. Four months later, Nixon Flores murdered his ex-girlfriend in front of their young child. In other cases, LAPD’s compliance with sanctuary laws meant declining detainers for criminal aliens who were later arrested for committing serious crimes, including murder.
Other examples used included David Mora Rojas, a Mexican national who overstayed a visa and was arrested five days before the February 2022 Sacramento church shooting in which he killed his three daughters and another man before killing himself.
ICE had requested notification of his release, but he was freed on bail.
The report also pointed to Anatoly Varfolomeev, who testified before Congress that his 19-year-old daughter Anya and her friend were killed in a November 2021 crash by Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiana, a previously deported Mexican national driving nearly 100 mph, and blamed California’s policies for enabling the deaths.
Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, told the New York Post that the “blanket disregard of all immigration detainers is one of the largest public safety threats to our country.”
“States like California are actively shielding criminal illegal immigrants from deportation to score political points. They would rather release these criminals back into the community than allow ICE to do its congressionally mandated job.”
Essayli concluded, “Sanctuary state policies are not only wrong, they’re deeply un-American.”
These reckless California policies stem from the 2013 Trust Act and the 2017 California Values Act, which generally barred state and local resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement, with some exceptions for certain serious crimes.
The report notes that California authorities released 4,561 immigrants sought by federal agents between January 20, 2025, and early February 2026, and that ICE had 33,179 active detainers for criminal illegal aliens in the state as of February 2026.
Governor Newsom’s office has previously claimed that California “blocks” cooperation with ICE are false and that the state has transferred more than 12,000 people from state prisons into ICE custody since 2019, while accusing federal officials of failing to pick up roughly one in eight state prisoners with outstanding detainers.
The governor’s office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on the new report.
Republicans are advancing the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, which would prohibit state and local measures restricting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The Judiciary Committee advanced the bill in March.
In the conclusion of their report, the committee wrote:
Democrats’ open-borders policies and sanctuary jurisdictions have had devastating consequences for U.S. citizens. Even after the American people resoundingly rejected Democrats’ pro-illegal alien policies in November 2024, Democrats across the country reinforced sanctuary policies to ensure that the millions of illegal aliens who entered the U.S. are never removed from the country. California is just one example of Democrats’ efforts to erase national borders and undermine immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, President Trump and House and Senate Republicans continue to work on commonsense solutions to secure the border, enforce federal immigration law, and protect American communities.
On March 5, 2026, the Committee favorably reported H.R. 7640, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act. The Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act protects American communities by prohibiting state and local laws and policies that restrict cooperation with federal immigration officials. The bill also would defend cooperative jurisdictions from frivolous lawsuits from sanctuary officials, allow jurisdictions to receive federal funding if they do not thwart federal law, and give much-needed relief to victims of sanctuary policies. The Committee will continue its oversight into sanctuary jurisdictions that prioritize the comfort of illegal alien criminals over the safety of U.S. citizens.
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