Despite the Trump administration’s demand for immigrant inmates’ data from Los Angeles County jails, Sheriff Robert Luna said Thursday his department cannot share personal information or comply with inmate transfer requests unless it is presented with a judicial warrant signed by a judge.
The sheriff reiterated the state and county’s sanctuary policies prohibit him from cooperating with federal immigration officials without a warrant, saying that his department has transferred 20 people under the specific, lawful circumstances to date.
“These warrants are an effective and peaceful vehicle in transferring individuals who have committed violent or serious crimes,” Luna explained during a news conference Thursday.
The sheriff said in the month of May, eight inmates from the LA County jail system were transferred to Immigration and Customers Enforcement custody while 12 were handed over to federal officials in June. All of them were convicted of serious crimes, such as attempted murder and rape, Luna added.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department also received 995 civil detainer requests from ICE in 2024, but Luna said his agency did not comply with any of them.
Luna’s remarks were shared just hours after the U.S. Department of Justice asked LA and other major California counties to provide detailed information on their immigrant inmates, especially on what kind of crimes the they have committed and when they would be released from jail.
“Far too many of those illegal aliens have gone on to commit crimes on American soil, including rapes, murders, and other violent crimes,” the Trump administration said in a statement Thursday. “Today’s data requests are designed to assist federal immigration authorities in prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens who committed crimes after illegally entering the United States.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she looks forward to working with California’s sheriffs with the department adding that it hopes the sheriffs will “voluntarily” produce the requested information.
The Justice Department added that it is willing to use subpoenas and other methods to obtain the data.
But Sheriff Luna, who said he has not seen the request letter from the federal government, said complying with the DOJ’s demand would require a reconstruction of the system.
“Because we don’t ask somebody if they are here legally or illegally, it would be impossible for us to provide a list like that unless we redo our systems one way or another,” Luna explained.
But when immigration officials do have a warrant for the transfer of an inmate, the process would be no different from any process of release, the sheriff’s department said. The inmate, who is granted a transfer whether to ICE custody or other jail, will be given a pass to the release area then picked up the law enforcement agency.
While the Trump administration had initially said immigration enforcement operations are targeting undocumented people with serious convictions, NBC News has reported, among 185,00 people arrested by federal agents between October 2024 and June 2025, 2.2% of them were were convicted or arrested for serious crimes like murder and sexual assaults. 42% had no criminal history in the U.S.
In the Los Angeles area, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants were detained by federal agents last month as an intense ICE offensive kicked off on June 6.
The Department of Homeland Security said 2,792 undocumented immigrants were arrested in the LA area with the most arrests happening between June 6 and June 22.
The first two weeks of the operations ended with 1,618 arrests while an additional 1,174 people were taken into federal custody in the last week of June and first week of July.
The figures were unprecedentedly high compared to the month of May when over 850 arrests were made according to federal data obtained by the University of California Berkeley.