Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, discusses a lawsuit demanding federal compliance with two Freedom of Information Act requests she filed regarding federal immigration enforcement activity at Sacramento’s John Moss Federal Building. With Krell at a news conference on Thursday are Sacramento Councilman Eric Guerra and Jessie Mabrey, CEO of the refugee and immigrant rights group Opening Doors.
Sharon Bernstein
sbernstein@sacbee.com
As the Trump administration prepares to draw down the presence of armed immigration agents in Minnesota, a lawsuit filed in federal court in Sacramento this week reveals ongoing tensions between state and federal officials months after similar enforcement sweeps in California.
The lawsuit, filed by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, demands information on arrests that took place at the immigration court downtown, when for several months last year armed agents waited in the halls of the John Moss Federal Building to detain people as they emerged from hearings on their cases.
Krell is also asking for information about the administration’s practice of arresting people at scheduled meetings with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and a decision by the Executive Office for Immigration Review to keep attorneys, activists and members of the media out of the building last June.
“These are people coming to their routine check-ins,” Krell said at a news conference Thursday. “These are people playing by the rules.”
Krell said she had filed two requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act for information related to the closing of the courthouse to observers and the arrests of people coming to hearings and meetings on June 13. Other than a series of emails that was largely redacted and contained little useful information, the requests were mostly ignored, she said, prompting the lawsuit.
The emails, shared with The Sacramento Bee, show conversations among staff members with the immigration review office discussing what to tell reporters and others who asked about being denied access to the building.
“We have non-media inquiries about Sacramento today, and another Sacramento Bee reporter wrote, Sharon Bernstein,” an email from one immigration review staff member to another reads.
Another message gives staff direction on what to say if asked about the situation, saying media should be directed to a public information officer and non-media calls should be directed to speak to the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service (FPS).
An individual is walked in handcuffs by federal authorities into a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office in the John E. Moss federal building in downtown Sacramento on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. DANIEL HEUER Sacramento Bee file Pounding on the doors and windows
An earlier email describes a volatile situation outside the building the day before the attorneys and journalists were briefly kept out.
Addressed to Kevin Riley, identified as acting regional deputy chief immigration judge, and dated June 12 at 2:03 p.m., it reads: “At about 1 pm, groups started to show up at the federal building. FPS closed entry to those with appointments only. Protesters surrounded the building and began to pound on doors and windows. FPS has now closed the building and is escorting employees away. Sacramento PD is also now on the scene.”
In her lawsuit, Krell said that the response to her request was insufficient.
“These heavily redacted documents left more questions than answers,” the complaint reads.
Sacramento Councilmember Eric Guerra said he expected the city to ultimately join Krell’s lawsuit.
“They create fear, and that creates an economic loss for the city,” Guerra said. If immigrants are afraid to go to work or take their children to school, that hurts the city, both economically and as a place to live, he said. The city has joined several lawsuits filed against the Trump administration, Guerra said.
Immigration officials in Northern California have not arrested people at their court hearings since a judge in San Jose ordered them to stop late last year. But activists say that immigrants are still being asked to come to meetings at the ICE offices at the John Moss building, where they are frequently either detained or forced to wear ankle monitors.
In lieu of the courthouse arrests, Trump administration lawyers are asking that many asylum cases be ended before hearings are held, arguing that if applicants are afraid of returning to their home countries, they can be sent to other places. On a recent visit by The Bee to immigration court, the government’s lawyer requested that a woman from Mexico be sent to Guatemala, Ecuador or Honduras.
California was proving ground for immigration sweeps
The militarized immigration sweeps that led to two deaths in Minneapolis began in California last year, with series of raids in Los Angeles in June that kicked of months of protests and legal wrangling. In Sacramento in July, agents descended on a Home Depot store on Florin Road, arresting 11 immigrants and one U.S. citizen and sowing fear in immigrant communities.
In an image from video, Andrea Castillo yells at a U.S. Border Patrol officer as her husband Jose is detained after he was pepper sprayed at the Florin Road Home Depot in south Sacramento on Thursday, July 17, 2025. Courtesy of Christine Salas
After protests in Los Angeles turned violent, President Donald Trump activated the California National Guard, pouring troops into Los Angeles in a pattern that would be repeated in Oregon, Illinois and other states with Democrats as governor. The decision to send thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota roughly corresponded to several courtroom setbacks for the administration’s efforts to use Guard troops over the objections of state leaders, including the Supreme Court’s unsigned order declining to intervene in an Illinois case.
White House border Czar Tom Homan said Thursday that the administration would end its militarized operation in Minnesota, claiming it was a success despite nationwide protests, the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of immigration agents and condemnation from members of both U.S. political parties.
He said that the operation had netted criminals who were in the country illegally and that local officials were cooperating with federal efforts to detain and deport individuals as they are being released from jails and prisons.
Homan said ICE would still arrest people who were in the country illegally, suggesting officials would not limit their targets to convicted criminals. But he defended the agency and said that Border Patrol agents involved in immigration sweeps would in future be supervised by the same chain of command that regulated ICE
“Ice is a legitimate federal law enforcement agency, we’re not out scouring the streets to disappear people or deny people their civil rights of due process,” he said.
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 4:13 PM.
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Sharon Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Sacramento Bee. She has reported and edited for news organizations across California, including the Los Angeles Times, Reuters and Cityside Journalism Initiative. She grew up in Dallas and earned her master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.