The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported on Monday that the authorities in Los Angeles County, California, released Cuban national Javier Balbuena Fernández, who was convicted of second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep him in custody.
According to an official DHS statement published on November 2, ICE issued a request for immigration detention against Balbuena Fernández on April 22, 2025, but local authorities did not respond to it and subsequently released him.
The Cuban is among ten cases highlighted by the federal government to challenge California's so-called sanctuary policies, which limit the cooperation of state and local authorities with federal immigration agents.
The judicial history of Balbuena Fernández dates back several decades. According to documents from the Federal Court for the Eastern District of California, in 2011 the Cuban filed a habeas corpus petition claiming that he was convicted in 1988 of second-degree murder and sentenced to a term of 16 years to life. He also noted that since 1989 he had been subject to a immigration hold related to his potential deportation to Cuba. In 2008, California's prison authorities had denied him parole, a decision he later challenged in federal court.
The DHS stated that, since January 20, 2025, California has released nearly 24,000 immigrants with criminal records without turning them over to ICE, despite the hold requests submitted by the agency. These figures were released by the federal government but were not accompanied in the statement by the individual records needed for independent verification.
According to records cited by the DHS, the unaddressed requests are linked to more than 81,000 charges or convictions, including 169 for homicide, 147 for sexual offenses, 1,088 for drug trafficking, and 3,295 for robbery. These figures correspond to criminal records and not to the number of individuals involved.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, blamed Governor Gavin Newsom and the leaders who support sanctuary policies for hindering the actions of immigration authorities.
The conflict is related to California’s Values Act (SB 54), in effect since 2018, which restricts the use of local law enforcement resources to enforce federal immigration laws, although it includes exceptions for certain serious crimes.
ICE hold requests, known as detainers, are not arrest warrants and do not automatically require local authorities to keep an individual in custody. Los Angeles County also has a policy that requires a court order to transfer individuals in its custody to ICE.
Este caso refleja las tensiones entre las políticas santuario estatales y las acciones federales de ICE. Sigue los últimos desarrollos en nuestra sección de
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