A scathing congressional investigation is accusing Californias Democratic leadership from Gov. Gavin Newsom to big-city officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego of systematically turning loose violent criminal aliens while brushing aside nearly 9,000 requests from federal immigration authorities.
According to the New York Post, the 22-page report from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee portrays Californias sanctuary framework as a deliberate shield for dangerous noncitizens who should have been handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The document, obtained exclusively by The California Post, alleges that state and local officials have elevated ideological hostility to federal immigration enforcement above their basic duty to protect law-abiding residents.
It is a stark indictment of a progressive experiment that conservatives have long warned would end in bloodshed and chaos.
The inquiry, spearheaded by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), zeroes in on the states three largest urban counties and their refusal to cooperate with ICE detainers. These detainers are formal requests that local jails either notify ICE before releasing an immigrant or hold that person for up to 48 hours so federal agents can assume custody.
The report follows a series of letters Jordan and McClintock sent in June to police and sheriffs departments in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, demanding records that would reveal the extent of non-cooperation. What emerged, Republicans say, is a portrait of a state government and its local allies effectively nullifying federal law.
The numbers cited in the report are staggering and, to critics of sanctuary policies, damning. In Los Angeles, the nations second-largest city, police honored just four of 4,177 ICE detainers received between January 2020 and June 2026 a compliance rate of less than 0.1%.
In San Francisco, the Sheriffs Office reportedly rejected every one of the 2,201 detainers it received between January 2020 and August 2026, signaling a blanket refusal to assist federal authorities even in the most serious cases. San Diego Countys Sheriffs Office, for its part, is said to have declined 2,527 detainers between January 2023 and June 2026, including 894 in 2025 alone.
Combined, the three agencies allegedly turned away 8,901 ICE detainers over the periods examined.
To federal prosecutors on the front lines, this pattern is not a technical dispute over jurisdiction but a direct threat to public safety. The blanket disregard of all immigration detainers is one of the largest public safety threats to our country, Bill Essayli, first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California, told The California Post.
He argued that Californias political class is putting ideology ahead of safety and the rule of law. 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.
In a pointed rebuke to Sacramentos progressive orthodoxy, he added, Sanctuary state policies are not only wrong, theyre deeply un-American.
The House report leans heavily on ICE data to underscore the human cost of these decisions. It cites federal figures alleging that California authorities released 4,561 immigrants sought by ICE between Jan. 20, 2025, and early February 2026.
Many of those individuals, according to the committee, had serious criminal histories, including homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, weapons offenses and child abuse. Because of Californias sanctuary policies, local law enforcement officers have been forced to release repeat and dangerous criminals onto California streets, the report states.
For Republicans, this is not an abstract policy debate but a pattern of preventable tragedies.
To drive that point home, GOP investigators highlighted several high-profile killings they say were made possible by Californias refusal to cooperate with ICE. One of the most chilling cases involves Herbert Nixon Flores, an immigrant from El Salvador who had been deported 10 times before his latest encounter with law enforcement.
In September 2020, Los Angeles police arrested Nixon Flores on a domestic violence charge, and ICE promptly issued a detainer asking that he be held for federal custody. Instead, he was released back into the community.
Four months later, he was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend in front of their young child, a crime Republicans argue could have been averted had local officials honored ICEs request.
Another case cited in the report is the February 2022 massacre at a Sacramento church, where Mexican national David Mora Rojas murdered his three daughters and another man before killing himself. Mora Rojas had overstayed his visa and was arrested just five days earlier on charges that included battery on a police officer and driving under the influence.
ICE had requested notification of his release, but he was freed on bail without being transferred to federal custody. For conservatives, the Mora Rojas case encapsulates the lethal consequences of a system that treats immigration enforcement as optional, even when public safety is clearly at stake.
The committee also drew attention to the November 2021 deaths of 19-year-old Anya Varfolomeev and her friend, Nikolay Kolya Osokin, who were killed when a previously deported Mexican national slammed into their vehicle at nearly 100 mph. The driver, Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiana, had been deported in 2016 and 2018 before illegally reentering the United States.
During a September congressional hearing, Anyas father, Anatoly Varfolomeev, delivered searing testimony that laid blame squarely on Californias political leadership. Our tragedy is the direct result of a crazy, incomprehensibly anti-American open border policy, he testified, blasting ignorant, arrogant and self-righteous politicians like Newsom and his minions.
He did not mince words about what he believes those policies cost his family. He added, If not for them Anya and Kolya would still be alive.
Varfolomeev, a naturalized American citizen, urged lawmakers to dismantle the sanctuary framework that he believes enabled his daughters killer to remain in the country. He called on Congress to end what he described as the disgusting sanctuary madness.
The report notes that it does not identify a specific ICE detainer rejected by California authorities involving Ortega-Anguiana before the fatal crash. Still, Republicans argue that the broader pattern of non-cooperation created an environment in which repeat border violators and criminal aliens could operate with impunity.
For families like the Varfolomeevs, the distinction between a single detainer and a systemic refusal to enforce immigration law is academic.
Californias sanctuary architecture did not emerge overnight, but the report traces its modern form to a pair of landmark state laws passed under Democratic governors. In 2013, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Trust Act, which limited when local jails could honor ICE detainers, followed in 2017 by the California Values Act, which further restricted cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
These measures, celebrated by progressives as protections for immigrant communities, generally bar state and local authorities from using their resources to assist ICE, except in narrowly defined cases involving certain serious or violent convictions. Republican investigators contend that these exceptions are too narrow and that, in practice, many jurisdictions interpret them in the most restrictive way possible.
At the heart of the dispute is the legal and practical status of ICE detainers themselves. Detainers are not formal arrest warrants but administrative requests, and California officials have long argued that honoring them without a judicial warrant can expose local agencies to legal liability.
Republican lawmakers counter that Congress clearly authorized ICE to issue detainers and that state and local resistance amounts to a de facto nullification of federal law. They are particularly critical of jurisdictions that insist on a judicial warrant before cooperating, a standard they say is not required under federal statute.
In their view, Californias approach effectively guts immigration enforcement by ensuring that many criminal aliens are released before ICE can act.
San Diego County offers a case study in how these policies have hardened over time. In December 2024, county leaders moved to strengthen sanctuary protections, further limiting when the Sheriffs Office could work with ICE.
Sheriff Kelly Martinez objected to the changes but ultimately affirmed that her department would follow state law, underscoring how deeply Sacramentos directives now shape local practice. The report is especially harsh toward San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, whose department, according to records provided to Congress, has refused every ICE detainer since 2020.
For conservatives, San Francisco has become the poster child for a radical experiment in non-enforcement that other progressive jurisdictions are eager to emulate.
Gov. Newsom and his allies, however, insist that the Republican narrative is misleading and politically motivated. Newsoms office has previously rejected accusations that Californias sanctuary policies protect violent criminals or obstruct legitimate federal enforcement.
As The Post reported in February, the governors office said the state had coordinated the transfer of more than 12,000 people from state prisons into ICE custody since 2019, including convicted murderers and rapists. The administration also accused federal immigration officials of failing to pick up roughly one in eight state prisoners with outstanding ICE detainers, suggesting that Washington bears part of the blame for any enforcement gaps.
Claims that California blocks cooperation with ICE are simply false, the governors office said in a Feb. 6 statement.
State officials and progressive advocates further argue that sanctuary protections are essential to maintaining trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities. They contend that if local police are seen as an arm of federal immigration authorities, victims and witnesses will be less likely to report crimes or cooperate with investigations, ultimately making neighborhoods less safe.
Conservatives respond that this argument has become a blanket justification for ignoring federal law, even in cases involving serious offenders who pose an obvious danger to the public. They also note that nothing in federal policy requires local officers to act as immigration agents in routine encounters; the dispute centers on what happens after an individual has already been arrested and booked for a crime.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans are moving to translate their findings into federal legislation aimed at reining in sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide. They are rallying behind a measure known as the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, which would prohibit state and local governments from adopting policies that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced the bill in March, signaling that GOP leaders intend to make sanctuary cities a central flashpoint in the broader debate over border security and illegal immigration. Supporters of the bill argue that Washington has both the authority and the obligation to ensure that local jurisdictions do not undermine national sovereignty for ideological reasons.
The reports authors frame Californias approach not merely as misguided policy but as part of a broader ideological project on the left. They conclude that the states sanctuary regime reflects a radical, socialist Democrat Party that seeks to erase national borders and warn that similar policies are spreading to other blue states and cities.
For conservatives, the stakes are nothing less than the integrity of American citizenship and the basic expectation that criminals who violate both immigration and criminal laws will face real consequences. The committee vows continued scrutiny of sanctuary jurisdictions and signals that more hearings, subpoenas and legislative proposals are likely in the months ahead.
As the political battle intensifies, the underlying question remains whether Californias experiment in sanctuary governance can be squared with the federal governments duty to control the border and remove criminal aliens. Families like the Varfolomeevs, and the victims of killers such as Herbert Nixon Flores and David Mora Rojas, stand as grim reminders of what happens when that duty is treated as optional.
Supporters of sanctuary laws insist they are defending vulnerable communities and civil liberties, but critics see a state government that has elevated ideological posturing over the safety of its own citizens. With Congress now focused on the issue and the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act gaining traction, the clash between Californias progressive model and a more traditional, law-and-order vision of immigration enforcement is only likely to deepen.
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