Gavin Newsom flouts sanctuary state laws to work with ICE to detain illegal immigrant who killed 2 teens while driving drunk

California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced California will be working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take an illegal immigrant convicted of vehicular manslaughter into custody after it was revealed that the criminal is set to be released from prison 6 years early. The move is contrary to the sanctuary state law positions he has taken before.  

In 2021, Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, 43, was driving drunk when he crashed into Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin, both 19 years old. The couple burned to death in the crash. The illegal immigrant had been deported two times from the US prior to the crash, but crossed the border again in the lead up to the crime. He was sentenced in 2022 and is set for release in early July. 

Newsom has now said that local law enforcement, despite California's status as a sanctuary state, will be working with ICE to detain the convict. When the decision to release the illegal immigrant was made public, it sparked fierce backlash against the California government, leading to the statement from Newsom that the state would work with ICE to take him into custody.

Newsom, although he said in 2019 that the state would keep its sanctuary status, has changed his tune for the arrest of Ortega-Anguiano. “After being deported in 2013, this individual unlawfully re-entered the US & committed heinous crimes,” Newsom’s office stated. "A GOP DA then gave him a plea deal instead of pursuing 2nd-degree murder.”

“CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] will again coordinate with ICE—as they have w/ 10,000+ inmates—to transfer him before release,” the statement added.

ICE issued a detainer against Ortega-Anguiano with the Orange County Jail at the time of the crash, per the Daily Mail. After spending just 3.5 years of his sentence, a court has granted him parole. He had been sentenced to serve 10 years in prison for the charge of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Ortega-Anguiano's prior convictions include burglary in 2005, vehicle theft in 2007, and battery on a spouse along with kidnapping in 2014.

The U-turn from Newsom comes after the governor made other comments that came to the surprise of some in the deep blue state, where he said that it would be unfair for trans-identified males to compete with female athletes in women’s sports when he spoke to Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in a recent podcast.