A new report released by the Justice Department revealed that Operation Guardian Angel, a program with the goal of neutralizing California’s sanctuary state policy, has made 362 arrests of criminal illegal aliens from county jails into federal custody in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and Central Coast. The Central District of California, which is made up of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, has a population of 1.5 million illegal aliens.
The report also stated that the ultimate goal for Operation Guardian Angel is to apprehend criminal illegal aliens that are incarcerated in county jails in locations where local law enforcement has been prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration officials. The California Values Act, which became a law in 2017, places limits on cooperation between state and local police officers.
It also restricts local resources from being used to remove illegal aliens, including those who have been convicted of violent crimes. The DOJ then explained how Operation Guardian Angel works. Federal arrest warrants are obtained for illegal aliens that have been taken into custody by local law enforcement departments.
According to the report, after the warrants are issued, local jails are legally required to honor them and therefore must hand over criminal illegal aliens to the federal government. The operation officially kicked off in spring 2025 and since then has led to arrest warrants issued for a whopping 769 individuals. Out of that number, 362 defendants have been transferred.
Out of that 362, a total of 347 have received federal charges for illegally reentering the U.S. following removal, or some other federal offense. Some of the other federal charges the defendants could face include unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, using a firearm in drug trafficking or a crime of violence, and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.
“Broken California ‘sanctuary state’ policies endanger the public and cannot go unchallenged by the federal government,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli went on to say about the operation. “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.”
“ICE ERO’s mission is to identify, arrest, detain, and remove those who are in the United States illegally,” Thomas Giles, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Los Angeles Field Office for Enforcement and Removal Operation, explained. “Unfortunately, California’s politicians are forcing local law enforcement agencies to release criminal illegal aliens back into our communities to create more American victims.”
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“Our partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s Office here in the Central District of California through Operation Guardian Angel allows us to keep rapists, gang members, and murderers, who shouldn’t be in the U.S. 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.”