Will LA protect those arrested in the riots?

There is more. It turns out Garduno-Galvez had been deported earlier, after arrests in 2024 for grand theft in Anaheim and DUI in Long Beach. So when he allegedly threw the Molotov cocktail, on top of everything, he was in the country illegally.

“Emiliano Garduno-Galvez is a criminal illegal alien from Mexico who threatened the lives of federal law enforcement officers by attacking them with a Molotov cocktail during the violent riots in Los Angeles,” Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “These are the types of criminal illegal aliens that rioters are fighting to protect. The Los Angeles rioters will not stop us or slow us down. And if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Garduno-Galvez case brings up the question. What will happen to suspects who are arrested who, in addition to whatever riot-related charges they face, are also in the United States illegally?

It depends on who arrested them. Garduno-Galvez was arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Because he was charged federally, he faces jail or deportation or, more likely, jail followed by deportation. It is safe to say that in the long run he is not going to stay in the U.S.

But remember that Los Angeles is a sanctuary city, and California is a sanctuary state. What will happen if local authorities arrest a suspect who is in the country illegally? Although there have been no official announcements, it seems likely that has happened many times already. For example, the Los Angeles Police Department announced on Wednesday that during the previous night officers arrested one person for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, three people for possession of firearms, and one person for pointing a laser at an LAPD helicopter. All are serious offenses. On the less serious side, LAPD said that after the 8 p.m. curfew Tuesday night, it arrested 203 people for failure to disperse.

All can of course be prosecuted on whatever charges, serious or not serious, that local authorities decide to file. Or they might not face any prosecution at all. But if they are in the U.S. unlawfully, might they also face possible deportation for taking part in a riot?

Not if the state of California has anything to do with it. “I fully anticipate the state will fall back on SB 54, the California Values Act,” said Art Arthur, a former immigration judge who now studies the subject for the Center for Immigration Studies. “[Local and state authorities] will assert that they are not going to cooperate with ICE on the custody of any of these people, and if they do not prosecute them, they will simply go back to the streets.” If that happens, it will be up to ICE to do the time-consuming work of finding them.

The California Values Act, SB 54, was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2017. Here is how the ACLU of Southern California, which of course pushed hard for the law, describes it: “The California Values act ensures that no state and local resources are used to assist federal immigration enforcement and that our schools, our hospitals, and our courthouses are safe spaces for everyone in our community.” 

That means safe for illegal immigrants. Based on the law, the ACLU advises potential defendants: If you are arrested, police and sheriffs “cannot ask about your immigration status … cannot arrest you only for having a deportation order or for most other immigration violations … cannot share your personal information, like your home address, with ICE or Border Patrol, unless it’s publicly available … [and] cannot tell immigration agents when you will be released, or transfer you to their custody, with some exceptions.” Officers cannot even let federal immigration agents interview a suspect without the suspect’s written consent.

And so on. It’s no secret that California officials have done everything they can do to undermine the enforcement of federal immigration law in the nation’s largest state. And now, when there are large-scale riots against the enforcement of federal immigration law, it is entirely possible that local police will arrest illegal immigrants for rioting and then protect them from the immigration consequences of their rioting. That’s life in the sanctuary state of California.