California leads the nation by leaps by bounds as the state that most often declined requests to detain illegal migrants arrested for criminal charges, according to newly released data.
More than half of all ignored detainers since fiscal year 2023 were refused by prisons and jails in California, according to data obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington, D.C.,-based group that advocates for more stricter border enforcement. CIS analyzed data from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on detention facilities across the country that refused to honor ICE detainer requests.
Of the 22,283 declined detainers documented across the United States from fiscal year 2023 to Feb. 6, 2025, more than 13,000 came from California alone, according to the data. Illinois came in a distant second place with 2,946 declined detainers and Virginia rounded up the top three with 1,601 declined detainers for this time period.
Detainers are requests by federal immigration authorities that ask local and state law enforcement officials to hold onto a non-citizen suspect in their custody long enough for an ICE agent to arrive and assume custody of that individual, or at least give advance notice of the suspect’s impending release. ICE has long argued that allowing agents to assume custody of foreign nationals at jails and prisons is safer for both agents and the community at large.
While California’s population — the largest in the country — is likely a contributing factor to this figure, the Golden State also boasts some of the most strict sanctuary laws statewide and within its major cities.
The California Values Act, signed into law in 2017 by former Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown, dramatically restricts how local and state law enforcement can cooperate with ICE agents. This law largely doubled down on the Trust Act that Brown signed in 2014, which kept local law enforcement officials from honoring detainers on non-citizens arrested for misdemeanors.
Major localities in California have taken these sanctuary laws even further. Los Angeles passed its own ordinance following President Donald Trump’s re-election, and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors recently voted in favor of what critics have dubbed a “super sanctuary” law, which eliminates statewide exceptions to sanctuary policy for extreme cases such as rape, child abuse, burglary or gang violence.
Brown, the architect of California’s sanctuary policy, recently suggested the sanctuary cities in his state have gone too far.
“The bill that I signed had a number of exceptions,” Brown said in December, referring to the Values Act. “There were people who were convicted of violent crimes, or even serious crimes who were not getting any benefit of any so-called sanctuary.”
“Subsequent legislation has taken it broader, and some of the cities, like San Francisco, have gone way, way beyond in their effort to create a wall, almost a separation of state and federal government,” Brown continued. “I think that is going to prove difficult.”
The ICE data released by CIS are a reflection of these strict sanctuary policies. Of the top 30 jails across the country with the most declined detainers and insufficient notices to ICE, 18 of them are in California.
Jails and prisons during this time period released a total of 72 non-citizens charged or convicted of homicide, according to CIS. California jails and prisons accounted for 29 of them.
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