Since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025, California has released 4,561 illegal aliens from its jails and prisons rather than hand them over to ICE — all because of the state's sanctuary law. Among them: convicted murderers, child sex offenders, gang members, and drug traffickers.

ICE officials disclosed the figure on Friday, alongside detailed case profiles that read like a catalog of preventable horrors. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin did not mince words:

"Governor Newsom and his fellow California sanctuary politicians are releasing murderers, pedophiles, and drug traffickers back into our neighborhoods and putting American lives at risk."

The number is staggering on its own. But the individual cases behind it are what should keep Californians up at night.

The names Sacramento doesn't want you to see

Carmelo Corado Hurtado, an illegal alien from Guatemala, was convicted of first-degree murder, drunk driving, and second-degree robbery. ICE lodged a detainer. California released him anyway. ICE agents had to track him down in the community before finally deporting him.

Hector Grijalba-Sernas, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14. ICE lodged a detainer on September 24, 2024. Not honored. Released. ICE didn't catch up with him until May 8, 2025 — more than seven months later. Seven months after a man accused of molesting a child was walking free because California's government decided federal immigration law was optional. Breitbart shares.

Xujin An, from China — arrested for sexual penetration with force and sexual battery in Westminster, California. Detainer lodged November 9, 2024. Ignored. Released. ICE arrested him the following April.

The list goes on:

• Angel Navarro Camarillo, an illegal alien from Mexico and La Familia street gang member, was arrested for a sex offender violation. Detainer ignored. Eventually removed from the United States in July 2025.
• Raphael Arturovich Gevorgyan — an illegal alien from Armenia and Armenian Power gang member, convicted of voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, and grand theft. Arrested in Burbank for obstructing police in November 2025. Detainer not honored. Released. ICE picked him up the very next day.
• Victor Hernandez-Jiron — an illegal alien from El Salvador, arrested for attempted murder, corporal injury on a spouse, assault likely to produce great bodily injury, false imprisonment, and threats to commit a crime resulting in death. Detainer ignored. Released. ICE apprehended him on November 17, 2025.
• Vicente Centeno-Lugo — an illegal alien from Mexico whose criminal conviction history spans 28 years, including willful cruelty to a child, possession of controlled substances, evasion of a peace officer, and taking a vehicle without consent. Santa Clara County Jail refused to honor multiple ICE detainers over recent years and kept releasing him.

These are not edge cases cherry-picked from a vast, otherwise benign population. These are the faces of a policy choice — a deliberate decision by California officials to shield violent criminals from federal law enforcement.

The detainer is the story.

In every single profiled case, ICE did exactly what it was supposed to do. Agents identified the illegal alien in custody, lodged a detainer — a formal request to hold the individual for transfer — and waited. In every single case, California said no.

Not because of a procedural error. Not because of a resource shortage. Because of policy.

California's sanctuary law transforms the state's jails into revolving doors for criminal illegal aliens. The mechanism is simple: an illegal alien gets arrested, booked, and processed. ICE finds out and lodges a detainer. The local authority looks at the detainer, looks at the sanctuary law, and opens the door. The illegal alien walks back into the same community where the crime was committed.

Monica Gonzalez-Riedel, an illegal alien from Mexico arrested for willful cruelty to a child and assault with a deadly weapon, was booked into the San Diego Sheriff's Office on March 1, 2025. ICE lodged a detainer. The San Diego Sheriff's Office rejected it and released her. Sara Hassanzadeh, an illegal alien from Iran arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery on an ex-spouse, got the same treatment from the same office in September 2025. Detainer rejected. Released.

This is not a bureaucratic failure. It is a bureaucratic feature.

33,000 and counting

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons has urged California Attorney General Rob Bonta to honor ICE detainers on more than 33,000 illegal aliens currently sitting in California's local and state custody. Bonta has offered no public response referenced in the available record.

McLaughlin framed the stakes plainly:

"We are calling on Governor Newsom and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 33,000 criminal illegal aliens in California's custody. It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released from jails back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans. If we work together, we can make America safe again. 7 of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE law enforcement."

That last statistic deserves attention. Seven of the ten safest cities in the country cooperate with ICE. California's largest jurisdictions do not. The correlation is not complicated.

The political math behind sanctuary

California's sanctuary posture has never been about public safety. If it were, the policy would have been abandoned the first time a released illegal alien reoffended. It wasn't. It hasn't been. Because the purpose was never protection — it was defiance.

Sanctuary laws exist as political theater. They allow blue-state politicians to signal opposition to federal immigration enforcement without bearing any visible cost — because the cost is distributed across communities that never voted for the policy. The victims of crimes committed by released illegal aliens don't hold press conferences in Sacramento. They hold funerals. They sit in courtrooms. They fill out police reports that go nowhere.

Governor Newsom has built a national brand on resisting federal authority. Attorney General Bonta has made a career of it. But resistance to immigration enforcement is not a victimless abstraction. It has names: the child under 14 that Grijalba-Sernas allegedly assaulted, the spouse Hernandez-Jiron allegedly tried to kill, and the victims of Hurtado's drunk driving and murder conviction.

Every detainer California ignores is a bet — a bet that the released individual won't offend again, or that if they do, nobody will connect the dots back to the sanctuary policy that put them on the street. ICE is now connecting those dots publicly, with names and case numbers attached.

The pattern is the policy.

Elvin Joel Centeno Verde, an illegal alien from Honduras convicted of obstruction of police and arrested multiple times within five years for drug trafficking and drug sales, had a detainer lodged. Not honored. Released. ICE eventually apprehended him on October 27, 2025, and removed him from the United States.

How many drug sales happened between the release and the removal? How many communities absorbed that cost? California's sanctuary architects will never answer those questions, because the questions themselves expose the fraud at the heart of the policy.

The left frames sanctuary laws as compassionate — a shield for vulnerable immigrant communities. But the people being shielded in these cases are convicted killers, accused child molesters, gang members, and repeat drug traffickers. The communities absorbing the consequences of their release are often the very immigrant neighborhoodsthat sanctuary proponents claim to champion. A child predator released into a Latino neighborhood is not compassion. It is abandonment dressed in moral language.

ICE has done the work. Agents lodge detainers, track released individuals through communities, and make arrests that local authorities could have avoided entirely by holding someone for a few extra hours. Every one of those operations costs resources, creates risk for officers, and leaves a window — sometimes months long — where a dangerous individual roams free.

California has 33,000 more chances to get this right. Sacramento's silence suggests it won't.