{"id":342921,"date":"2026-06-02T13:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/342921\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:19:18","slug":"congress-probes-san-francisco-san-diegos-sanctuary-city-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/342921\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress probes San Francisco, San Diego’s ‘sanctuary city’ policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco and San Diego, two of California\u2019s largest sanctuary cities<\/a>, are under federal investigation for the alleged actions of local officials who stonewalled ICE and let criminal migrants walk free, The California Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Four bombshell letters \u2014 sent out Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee \u2014 demanded records from police and sheriff\u2019s departments in San Francisco and San Diego as President Trump\u2019s second administration escalates its crackdown on deep-blue sanctuary cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is launching a probe of San Francisco and San Diego. AP<\/p>\n

Rep. Darrell Issa, a longtime congressman from San Diego, also supports the investigations. Nathan Posner\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The harshest spotlight could fall on San Francisco, the famously liberal Bay Area city that has been at the center of the national sanctuary city fight for decades after adopting a refuge ordinance in 1989.<\/p>\n

In a letter to San Francisco Police Chief Chief Derrick Lew, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Tom McClintock (R-CA) accused San Francisco law enforcement of failing to notify federal immigration officials of detainers involving \u201ccriminal aliens,\u201d and they demanded records going back to the beginning of 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco Police Chief Chief Derrick Lew was ordered to hand over records by June 16. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practice, San Francisco\u2019s pro-illegal alien policies ensure dangerous criminals are released from SFPD\u2019s custody \u2014 or never apprehended by SFPD at all \u2014 and are free to reoffend,\u201d the lawmakers wrote.<\/p>\n

The letter to Miyamoto was even more pointed, accusing San Francisco\u2019s sheriff of defending the city\u2019s sanctuary policies \u201ceven when confronted by the dangerous effects\u201d of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto faces pressure after bragging about refusing to cooperate with ICE detainers. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The committee cited Miyamoto\u2019s past statement that \u201cout of thousands of requests for detention\u201d from ICE, his office had \u201conly honored one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter even went so far as to accuse Miyamoto\u2019s office of blocking the feds from interviewing David DePape, a Canadian national who bludgeoned then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s husband in a October 2022 hammer attack at the couple\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Brian DePape nearly killed Paul Pelosi by hitting him in the head with a hammer in October 2022. San Francisco Police Department\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

DePape was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his home invasion attack. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite your claim that California\u2019s and San Francisco\u2019s pro-illegal alien laws \u2018were created to uphold justice, not to shield those who threaten public safety,\u2019 sanctuary policies endanger the communities you serve,\u201d lawmakers wrote.<\/p>\n

The letter to Miyamoto demanded all policies on the sheriff\u2019s offices interactions with ICE, all policies and communications on non-US citizens, and any info on ICE detainer requests and arrests going back to 2020.<\/p>\n

Both the police chief and sheriff in San Francisco were told to include any immigration-related correspondence with the office of Mayor Daniel Lurie, who had a call in late 2025 with Trump that led the president to call off deploying National Guard troops to the Bay Area, just months after troops were deployed to Los Angeles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lurie has steadfastly avoided saying Trump\u2019s name in public remarks<\/a> to avoid provoking the president\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n

Communications between law enforcement and the office of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie was requested. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The committee also sent letters to San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl and San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez, putting new pressure on California\u2019s second largest city, which also has deep ties to immigrant communities and a long history of limiting local involvement in federal immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

About one-quarter of San Diego residents are foreign-born, according to census data, and the city sits just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

The letter to Wahl cited San Diego Police Department policy saying officers are \u201cnot allowed to ask about immigration status, participate in immigration enforcement[,] or assist with immigration arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department of San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl is being scrutinized. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The lawmakers also pointed to the San Diego City Council\u2019s unanimous passage in April of the Due Process and Safety Ordinance, which requires a judicial warrant before federal immigration agents can access non-public city property.<\/p>\n

The letter to Martinez cited a late-2024 San Diego County ordinance that sought to prohibit county law enforcement from helping ICE with deportations. Martinez previously said her office would follow state law and that county supervisors \u201cdo not set policy for the Sheriff\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez is also being ordered to turn over records to Congress. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The committee also highlighted several cases cited by ICE, including the death of 11-year-old Aiden Antonio Torres De Paz, who was chasing a soccer ball when he was struck and killed in November 2025 by a Mexican national who immigration officials said had previously been removed from the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s office rejected the ICE detainer request, lawmakers wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter also noted that detainers were rejected for an undocumented immigrant arrested for \u201cwillful cruelty to [a] child and assault with deadly weapon using force causing possible great bodily injury,\u201d as well as another individual arrested for \u201caggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery on an ex-spouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In just one year, California reportedly refused to honor detainers that \u201cresulted in the release of 4,561 criminal illegal aliens,\u201d with alleged crimes ranging from homicide and robbery to assault.<\/p>\n

The California letters are part of a broader Republican offensive against sanctuary cities during Trump\u2019s second term. The committee recently sent similar demands to officials in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Arlington County, Virginia.<\/p>\n

The committee demanded documents and communications about each agency\u2019s interactions with ICE, policies involving non-U.S. citizens, the number of ICE detainers received and declined, and communications with local officials about immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

The agencies were given until June 16 to respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco and San Diego, two of California\u2019s largest sanctuary cities, are under federal investigation for the alleged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,108892,2871,14,141143,236,13,74,101,103,102,10483,104,106,105,3586],"class_list":["post-342921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-house-judiciary-committee","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-jim-jordan","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sanctuary-cities","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}