Operation Guardian Angel’s Initial Results Reported

LOS ANGELES - The United States Attorney's Office along with its federal law enforcement partners today announced the initial results of Operation Guardian Angel, a program that seeks to neutralize California's sanctuary state policy and protect Americans from criminal illegal aliens incarcerated in county jails by issuing federal arrest warrants for them.

Since Operation Guardian Angel was launched in May 2025, 171 federal arrest warrants have been issued because of this program. A total of 73 criminal illegal aliens have been arrested at local jails. Law enforcement has arrested five criminal illegal aliens at county courthouses for a total of 78 arrests.

"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," said Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli. "California's misguided sanctuary state laws and policies only protect criminal illegal aliens, which can no longer be tolerated."

The Central District of California - comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura - is home to an estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens. Among this population are gang members and other dangerous felons.

The goal of Operation Guardian Angel is to neutralize California's sanctuary state law and 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 that misguided policy have been tragic. In February 2025, José Cristian Saravia-Sánchez, 30, of Mexico, shot and killed an Inglewood man who tried to stop him from stealing a catalytic converter. Despite the fact 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.

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 sanctuary state law. The San Luis Obispo District Attorney's Office has charged him with murder and willful harm to a child. Estrada also is charged via federal criminal complaint with visa fraud and would face up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.

Operation Guardian Angel is but one step in the government's continuing efforts to make America safe again. This program also 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 Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).