Sanctuary state California mandated to transfer HUNDREDS of criminal illegal aliens to federal custody

The US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California has effectively challenged the state's sanctuary policies, preventing hundreds of jailed criminal illegal aliens from being released into the community through Operation Guardian Angel. The program works by securing federal arrest warrants for incarcerated illegal aliens, which forces the state to hand over the subjects to federal authorities.

At least 362 criminal illegal aliens have been transferred from local custody to the federal government since its launch last year. This includes jails in the Los Angeles area, the Inland Empire, and the Central Coast, the US Attorney's Office said in a press release.

California's sanctuary statute, SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. The law forbids jails from honoring ICE detainers, which are official requests from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have illegal aliens transferred to their custody instead of being released into the public to potentially reoffend.

However, with Operation Guardian Angel the feds have been arresting illegal immigrant criminals by hitting them with federal charges to that ICE officers can take them into custody before sanctuary state policy allows them to be released from jail. Local jails, although they are prohibited from coordinating with ICE, are required to hand over the criminal illegal immigrants when presented with a federal warrant, per the New York Post.

Operation Guardian Angel, which began in May 2025, has led to the issuance of 769 arrest warrants and the actual transfer of 362 defendants. 347 are federally charged with illegally reentering the US following a removal or another federal offense. Additional federal offenses include serious crimes, such as murder, rape, unlawful possession of firearms, domestic violence, drug trafficking, stalking, hit-and-run, and possession of controlled substances with the intent to distribute, the office said.

"Broken California 'sanctuary state' policies endanger the public and cannot go unchallenged by the federal government," said First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli in a press release. "Operation Guardian Angel is an answer to these misguided policies. Through this task force we are forcing California to do the thing it hates most: handing hundreds of criminal illegal aliens into federal custody to face justice and deportation."

Thomas Giles, the Director of the ICE Los Angeles Field Office for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), welcomed the operation and blasted state politicians for harming American citizens.

"ICE ERO's mission is to identify, arrest, detain, and remove those who are in the United States illegally," said Giles. "Unfortunately, California's politicians are forcing local law enforcement agencies to release criminal illegal aliens back into our communities to create more American victims. Our partnership with the US Attorney's Office....through Operation Guardian Angel allows us to keep rapists, gang members, and murderers, who shouldn't be in the US at all, off the streets of California."

"We will not be deterred. We are not going away. We will continue to enforce the laws passed by the people's representatives in Congress here in California and everywhere in the United States," Giles concluded.

Operation Guardian Angel is part of Operation Take Back America, the US Attorney's Office said, which is a nationwide initiative that utilizes the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration.