Sacramento police were barred by California’s sanctuary laws from notifying ICE about a violent stalker months before he allegedly murdered a waitress, federal prosecutors say.
Aarti Thakur, 38, was killed in Sacramento on Tuesday by Rohit Rohit, 22, a DoorDash delivery driver who had terrorized her for roughly a year. Thakur had obtained a restraining order against him in May, and Rohit violated that order in July, yet local officers still could not reach out to immigration authorities because of state restrictions adopted in 2017.
Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, confirmed the communication blockade. He said California’s policies prevent law enforcement from cooperating with immigration officials across all circumstances, not just minor cases.
“By preventing law enforcement from cooperating with the immigration officials in all contexts, it puts the entire community at danger,” Essayli said.
He added that removal proceedings should not require a conviction and sentence first.
“It should not be that they have to actually commit a crime and be sentenced before immigration proceedings can commence,” he continued.
Rohit had already drawn federal attention long before the killing. Border Patrol caught him sneaking across the Mexican border in August 2023, making him known to immigration authorities nearly two years prior to the homicide.
Essayli’s office now runs a workaround program called “Operation Guardian Angel,” launched in May 2025, that targets repeat immigration offenders picked up by police so they can be transferred to ICE custody. The initiative had generated 769 arrest warrants and moved 362 defendants to ICE custody by August, but it covers only Los Angeles and six other counties. The program also functions only in select cases, leaving gaps elsewhere in the state.
California sees dozens of instances weekly in which undocumented migrants with prior convictions or known criminal histories are arrested on fresh charges, according to federal officials.
Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for California governor, seized on the killing to attack the law and its Democratic defenders. He named Gov. Gavin Newsom and his own opponent in the race, Democrat Xavier Becerra, as backers of policies he said endanger residents.
“These Democrat politicians like Becerra are harboring violent criminals whose crimes are hurting Californians,” Hilton said.
He declared that Californians are “sick of” the sanctuary law and the politicians who support it.
Hilton also cited the case of David Antonio Aviles Perez, known as “the witch,” a convicted MS-13 murderer from El Salvador who was arrested in Monterey, California for attacking a homeless person with a machete. Perez was picked up on another charge and then released by a judge last month, according to Hilton’s account.
The 2017 California law at the center of the dispute sharply limits when local and state law enforcement may share information with federal immigration agents or detain individuals at ICE request. Supporters have argued it builds trust between immigrant communities and police, while critics including federal prosecutors say it shields dangerous individuals from deportation.
The Thakur case now stands as one of the most pointed examples invoked by opponents of the policy. A woman who had sought legal protection through the courts was killed, allegedly by a man whose immigration status and border crossing were already on file with federal authorities, yet no alert could legally pass from local police to ICE.
Becerra’s campaign and Newsom’s office have not issued statements responding to Hilton’s attacks.
Hilton faces Becerra in the gubernatorial election next year.