LOS ANGELES, CA - The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced Thursday that it is making significant progress toward “neutralizing” California’s sanctuary state policies by issuing federal arrest warrants for illegal aliens being held in county jails. The program, called “Operation Guardian Angel,” has thus far obtained 171 such warrants since the program’s launch on May 10, the Department of Justice announced on Sept. 25, according to the Desert Sun.
“A total of 73 criminal illegal aliens have been arrested at local jails,” the DOJ said in a written statement. “Law enforcement has arrested five criminal illegal aliens at county courthouses for a total of 78 arrests.”
According to Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District Bill Essayli, the operation is necessary due to California’s sanctuary laws and policies that interfere with local law enforcement efforts to cooperate with federal immigration efforts.
“This program’s initial results show that my office no longer stands idly by while criminal illegal aliens are released from city and county jails and onto our streets,” he said. “California’s misguided sanctuary state laws and policies only protect criminal illegal aliens, which can no longer be tolerated.”
The Central District of California covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. All told, those counties are home to an estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens, including gang members and dangerous felons.
The office wrote that the goal of Operation Guardian Angel “is to neutralize California’s sanctuary policies, which prevent local law enforcement from honoring administrative warrants from federal immigration authorities requesting that criminal illegal aliens be transferred into federal custody.”
The results of California’s policies “have been tragic.”
“In February 2025, Jose Cristian Saravia-Sanchez, 30, of Mexico, shot and killed an Inglewood man who tried to stop him from stealing a catalytic converter. Despite the fact that 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,” the DOJ wrote.
Gavin Newsom’s sanctuary policies have also victimized young children, including a 6-year-old boy.
“On May 10, 2025, a 6-year-old boy died after his father, Briant Reyes Estrada, 27, an illegal alien from Mexico, left him in a parked car in Paso Robles during a heat wave. Estrada had been arrested two weeks earlier on unrelated state charges, but was released from San Luis Obispo County jail and not turned over to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pursuant to SB 54, California's sanctuary state law,” the DOJ wrote. “The San Luis Obispo District Attorney’s Office has charged him with murder and willful harm to a child. Estrada is also charged via federal criminal complaint with visa fraud and would face up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.”
Programs such as Operation Guardian Angel are part of a promise made by President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign to crack down on illegal aliens, with over 10 million estimated to have invaded the United States unabated during the Biden administration.
The program “is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and the Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) initiative.
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