(The Center Square) – In less than two months of being in office, the new U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California has launched a new initiative he argues is a blueprint for other federal prosecutors to follow to combat sanctuary city policies.
U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli, the son of legal immigrants from Lebanon, was appointed to his position by Attorney General Pam Bondi and sworn into office on April 2. He oversees the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office outside of Washington, D.C.
The Central District of California’s counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura are “home to an estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens,” including violent gang members and dangerous felons, he says.
Essayli launched 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.”
It was launched with federal law enforcement partners, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, DEA, and ATF.
Within five days, they’d arrested 13 criminal foreign nationals. That number is “expected to grow,” he said, with an estimated several dozen arrests to be made every week.
The strategy involves filing complaints and arrest warrants with local jails to allow federal law enforcement officers to take into custody as many defendants as possible, he said.
“Even the worst criminal aliens in state custody are frequently released into the community because California’s sanctuary state policies block cooperation with federal law enforcement,” Essayli said. “These laws effectively render federal immigration detainers meaningless. The days of giving criminal illegal aliens a free pass are over. While California may be presently disregarding detainers, it cannot ignore federal arrest warrants.”
The goal is to find and arrest the most violent criminals being held in local jails, including those previously deported who illegally reentered, in line with the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan. U.S. attorneys nationwide are prosecuting illegal border crossers for illegal entry and illegal reentry, charging roughly 1,000 a week in the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, The Center Square reported.
The base sentence for illegal reentry is two years in federal prison. Those with felony convictions who were previously deported face up to 10 years in prison, and those convicted with aggravated felonies face up to 20 years in federal prison.
Once they identify a criminal foreign national being held in a local jail who was previously deported, a federal criminal warrant is issued for felony re-entry. These arrest warrants are not the same as the administrative warrants or detainer requests ICE issues. California’s 2017 sanctuary law and state policies cannot prevent local authorities from complying with federal criminal arrest warrants.
Under the Biden administration, California saw record numbers of illegal border crossers, more than half a million every year, with the CBP San Diego Sector becoming the epicenter of the border crisis, The Center Square reported.
“The danger to the community of state protection of criminal illegal aliens could not be starker,” Essayli said. He points to the murder of an Inglewood man in February, allegedly by Mexican national José Cristian Saravia-Sánchez as an example. Saravia-Sánchez allegedly shot and killed the Inglewood man for trying 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,” Essayli said. Not anymore under his new program, he said.
Essayli, 39, leads a team of 500 lawyers, special agents, and staff members enforcing federal criminal law, representing 20 million people in seven counties. Prior to taking office in April, he served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s Los Angeles and Riverside offices, prosecuting criminals charged with violent and organized crime, bank fraud, securities fraud and other crimes.
He has been involved in many high-profile cases, including responding to the December 2015 San Bernardino Islamic terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center.
Before serving as a federal prosecutor, he was deputy district attorney in the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. He was twice elected to the state Assembly, from December 2022 until he was sworn into office as U.S. attorney in April.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
