New US Attorney for Sacramento aims to focus on immigration, Trump priorities
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Grant will prioritize prosecutions tied to immigration, cartels, drugs and trafficking.
- Office expects increased prosecutions for illegal re-entry and removals.
- Grant will support federal agencies with legal advice and coordinate cases.
Sacramento’s new top federal prosecutor took the helm of the sprawling district that stretches from Bakersfield to the Oregon border with a clear understanding of the role: to bring prosecutions and civil actions focused on Trump administration directives to fight gangs and cartels, drugs and human trafficking, and illegal immigration.
Eric Grant, a longtime Sacramento-area attorney who grew up in Modesto, served in the first Trump administration supervising work on environmental and energy-related cases as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, a post that grew out of his years working on such cases for the Houston law firm Hicks Thomas.
He was appointed by President Donald Trump as interim U.S. attorney for California’s Eastern District on Aug. 11, but must still be confirmed by the Senate before the post becomes permanent.
Grant has never been a frontline prosecutor personally litigating cases against criminal defendants. But in a wide-ranging interview with The Sacramento Bee, Grant pointed to his two stints with the Justice Department, one of them in the 1990s, and said he worked on criminal cases when he led a team of about 100 lawyers in the department’s environment and natural resources division.
“I looked at it as a new opportunity in my career to serve,” Grant said. “Also, I looked at it as an opportunity to learn.”
Heightened focus on immigration cases
The 45 criminal cases brought by prosecutors in the Central Valley region since Grant was sworn in mostly reflect the usual mix of allegations in federal court: bank fraud, threats against a federal officer, sales of illegal drugs, child pornography and weapons violations. There were three immigration cases, all of them involving people who had been previously deported. Such cases are typical of the U.S. attorney’s remit, and generally involve defendants who were deported after committing crimes in the United States.
But Grant said that under his direction, such cases and others involving immigration are likely to increase, and represent the sharpest contrast with types of cases emphasized during the prior Democratic administration of Joe Biden.
“In the immigration space, stopping illegal immigration, that’s obviously a priority of this department and this administration,” he said. “And I think everyone realizes that’s a contrast with the previous administration.”
“Those (cases) are part of the priority of stopping illegal immigration,” he said. Grant said he expected agencies such as the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol to bring his office cases, including those of people who re-entered the country after deportation, and that he intended to prosecute them vigorously.
In addition, he said, his attorneys would work to support the agencies conducting immigration arrests, including advising them on the law.
“We do our best to advise our clients to comply with the law and when, when they arrest individuals, we process those complaints and when appropriate, bring prosecutions,” he said.
It is a role that could become touchy for Grant. His predecessor, former acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith, was abruptly fired in July, hours after communicating her concerns about whether immigration sweeps in Sacramento would be conducted in accordance with the law, she told The Sacramento Bee.
Grant may also be called upon to advise the agencies on how to respond to policies and legislation enacted by California’s Democratic legislature and governor aimed at restricting some tactics the administration has been using to conduct immigration sweeps, including banning federal officials from wearing masks when conducting business, with some exceptions.
“He has a tough job being appointed by Trump these days in Gavin Newsom’s backyard,” said Mark Reichel, a Sacramento defense lawyer who frequently represents clients in federal court.
Reichel is currently representing defendants in two cases that Grant has said are of particular interest to him. One is Jose Manuel Castillo, a U.S. citizen arrested by border patrol agents during an immigration sweep at a south Sacramento Home Depot store and later charged with vandalism. The other is Anibal “Al” Hernandez Santana, who is accused of firing gunshots into the lobby of the ABC 10 television studios shortly after the network temporarily pulled comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air amid the furor of comments Kimmel made about the political response to the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Grant emphasized his role supporting the administration’s crackdown on immigration, saying it was a priority that would be seen in cases brought by his office. In situations where the federal government decided to sue the state, such as a recent lawsuit blaming California for the high price of eggs, Grant said his office might offer advice, but the case itself would likely be run out of Washington, D.C.
But Grant said he would not carry out any order that he felt was illegal or unethical.
“I treat this job the same way I would have treated any of the other jobs that I’ve had for 35 years in the legal profession,” he said. “I would try to reach an accommodation, state my views, and if it came down to a choice between obeying what I thought was an illegal order, I would resign. “
Child abuse, gang and cartel prosecutions
In addition to immigration cases, Grant says he hopes to bring cases emphasizing the administration’s priorities of combatting drug and human trafficking, cartels and gangs, and child sexual abuse.
“What has stood out to me is the cases that we call CSAM: child sexual abuse material,” he said.
“What I’ve learned is it’s not just people looking at pictures on their computers,” he said. “It’s essentially human trafficking, because there is a terrible pressure to create more material, and that necessarily requires abusing children.”
But much of what the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s work will be as it was in the past, Grant said, prosecuting people who commit federal crimes in the Valley.
Grant, 58, is “eminently well-qualified for the position,” said McGregor Scott, who served as U.S. Attorney in Sacramento for two Republican administrations, during Trump’s first term and under George W. Bush.
Scott, a Republican who was well-respected in capital legal circles, said he had known Grant for several years, and had spoken to him at length about the job.
“I am very confident he has the right combination of smarts, experience, judgment and humility to be a very good U.S. attorney,” Scott said.
Grant, who is married and has five grown children, is an avid bicyclist and mountain climber. He and his wife recently returned from a trip to the Midwest during which they participated in Iowa’s famous 406-mile “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.”
Last month, Grant and a group of friends climbed Mount Baker in Washington state, and in 2021 he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa.
Closer to home in Elk Grove, he heads south on his black and white Cannondale Lab71, taking in the scenery as he rides.
Grant earned both his bachelor’s degree and law degree from UC Berkeley. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1990, and clerked for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Warren Burger in 1994.
As a leader, he and colleagues say, he tends to delegate rather than micro-manage.
“I try to empower talented people to do their jobs and stay out of their way,” he said.
This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
