The House Judiciary Committee fired off four letters Tuesday demanding records from police chiefs and sheriffs in San Francisco and San Diego, opening a formal congressional investigation into how both California cities handle, or refuse to handle, cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The letters, signed by Reps. Jim Jordan, Tom McClintock, and, for the San Diego letters, Darrell Issa, accuse local officials of shielding illegal immigrants with violent criminal records from deportation, the New York Post reported.
The targets: San Francisco Police Chief Derrick Lew, San Francisco Sheriff Miyamoto, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl, and San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez. Each received a separate letter laying out specific allegations and demanding documents, policies, and communications tied to their agencies' interactions with ICE. All four agencies face a June 16 deadline to respond.
The probe marks the latest escalation in the federal government's confrontation with sanctuary jurisdictions and lands squarely on two of California's most prominent cities, one that adopted its refuge ordinance back in 1989, and another that sits just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The sharpest language landed in the letters to San Francisco officials. Jordan and McClintock told Police Chief Lew that the city's policies produce a clear and dangerous result:
"In practice, San Francisco's pro-illegal alien policies ensure dangerous criminals are released from SFPD's custody, or never apprehended by SFPD at all, and are free to reoffend."
The letter to Lew demanded records dating back to the beginning of 2024. The committee wants to see the department's policies on interactions with ICE, communications about non-U.S. citizens, the number of ICE detainers received and declined, and any correspondence with the office of Mayor Daniel Lurie regarding immigration enforcement.
Sheriff Miyamoto drew even more pointed scrutiny. The committee cited his own past admission that "out of thousands of requests for detention" from ICE, his office had "only honored one." Lawmakers threw Miyamoto's own words back at him in the letter:
"Despite your claim that California's and San Francisco's pro-illegal alien laws 'were created to uphold justice, not to shield those who threaten public safety,' sanctuary policies endanger the communities you serve."
The committee demanded Miyamoto's office turn over all policies governing interactions with ICE, all policies and communications involving non-U.S. citizens, and full records on ICE detainer requests and arrests going back to 2020, a much longer window than the one applied to the police department. Both San Francisco officials were also told to hand over immigration-related correspondence with Mayor Lurie's office.
One detail in the Miyamoto letter stands out. The committee accused the sheriff's office of blocking federal officials from interviewing David DePape, the Canadian national who bludgeoned then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in an October 2022 hammer attack at the couple's home. If true, the city's sanctuary posture extended its protection even to a man convicted of a high-profile violent assault on a federal official's family member.
Congressional Republicans have been busy on multiple investigative fronts. Jim Jordan recently demanded documents from the SPLC after a federal indictment alleged millions were funneled to extremist groups, part of a broader pattern of GOP oversight that has accelerated since the party retook the House majority.
Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, told the Post that the office is reviewing the inquiry and will respond to the committee. Her statement leaned hard on the city's longstanding framing:
"San Francisco is one of the safest cities in the nation, and our longstanding policies build trust with law enforcement and improve public safety. San Francisco's policies have repeatedly been upheld in the courts."
That claim, that sanctuary policies make cities safer, is the core progressive argument. It rests on the theory that immigrant communities cooperate more with local police when they don't fear deportation. What it doesn't address is the specific accusation in the committee's letters: that known criminal offenders were released rather than turned over to ICE, and that those individuals then had the freedom to reoffend.
Honoring one detainer out of thousands is not a rounding error. It is a policy choice. And the committee clearly intends to force San Francisco to defend that choice with documents, not slogans.
The San Diego letters carry their own weight. The committee cited San Diego Police Department policy that explicitly bars officers from asking about immigration status, participating in immigration enforcement, or assisting with immigration arrests. The letter to Chief Wahl quoted the department's own language: officers are "not allowed to ask about immigration status, participate in immigration enforcement[,] or assist with immigration arrests."
About one-quarter of San Diego residents are foreign-born, census data shows. The city council doubled down on its posture in April, unanimously passing the Due Process and Safety Ordinance, which requires a judicial warrant before federal immigration agents can access non-public city property.
Meanwhile, San Diego County moved in the same direction. A late-2024 county ordinance sought to prohibit county law enforcement from helping ICE with deportations. Sheriff Kelly Martinez previously said her office would follow state law and that county supervisors "do not set policy for the Sheriff's Office."
That stance has real consequences. The committee letter to Martinez cited the case of 11-year-old Aiden Antonio Torres De Paz, who was struck and killed while chasing a soccer ball in November 2025. Lawmakers wrote that Martinez's office rejected an ICE detainer request in the case. The committee also cited ICE cases involving individuals arrested for "willful cruelty to [a] child and assault with deadly weapon using force causing possible great bodily injury" and "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery on an ex-spouse."
Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican representing San Diego, signed on to both San Diego letters alongside Jordan and McClintock. The investigation into immigration-adjacent organizations has been a growing priority for House Republicans; a House task force recently put immigration nonprofits on notice for potential federal investigations as well.
San Francisco and San Diego are not the only cities in the crosshairs. The House Judiciary Committee recently sent similar demands to officials in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Arlington County, Virginia. The pattern is unmistakable: Congress is building a documented record of how sanctuary jurisdictions interact, or refuse to interact, with federal immigration enforcement.
California's statewide numbers add context. The committee cited a figure that the state refused to honor detainers that "resulted in the release of 4,561 criminal illegal aliens." That is not a statistic about undocumented workers picking up day jobs. It describes individuals who were in custody, flagged by ICE, and released back into communities rather than transferred to federal authorities.
The political dynamics in San Francisco add another layer. Mayor Daniel Lurie had a call in late 2025 with President Trump that led Trump to call off deploying National Guard troops to the Bay Area, troops that had been deployed to Los Angeles months earlier. Lurie has avoided saying Trump's name in public remarks, a careful balancing act between his city's progressive base and the reality of federal leverage. The committee's demand that both San Francisco agencies turn over immigration-related correspondence with Lurie's office suggests lawmakers want to know exactly what the mayor has been saying behind closed doors.
This kind of congressional oversight, demanding documents, setting deadlines, naming names, is the mechanism the Constitution provides. It is also the mechanism that House Republicans have used to summon the ActBlue CEO over allegations the platform misled lawmakers on foreign donations, and the same tool being deployed across a range of accountability fights this session.
The June 16 deadline will test whether these cities comply, stonewall, or negotiate. San Francisco's city attorney office says it is reviewing the inquiry. None of the four law enforcement agencies have publicly responded to the letters. Sheriff Martinez's prior statement, that she follows state law and that county supervisors don't set her policy, suggests she may try to deflect responsibility upward to Sacramento.
But the committee's letters are addressed to specific officials, not to the state legislature. The demands are specific: hand over the policies, the communications, the detainer numbers, and the correspondence with elected leaders. Compliance will create a public record. Defiance will create a political confrontation.
The broader GOP investigative posture extends well beyond immigration. Republican demands for testimony from Democratic-aligned organizations have become a defining feature of this Congress, and the sanctuary city probes fit the same template: identify a policy failure, demand the paper trail, and force officials to answer for the gap between their rhetoric and the results their constituents live with.
For the families of people like Aiden Antonio Torres De Paz, the rhetoric about trust-building and due process rings hollow. An 11-year-old is dead. The committee says the sheriff's office rejected the ICE detainer in his case. Documents will either confirm that claim or complicate it. Either way, the public deserves to see them.
Sanctuary cities have long argued they answer to a higher principle. Congress is now asking them to answer to a subpoena deadline instead. The principle that should matter most here isn't ideological, it's the one that says elected officials don't get to decide which federal laws apply inside their borders.
