Advocates warn Afghan community of ICE immigration arrests in Sacramento
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- Sacramento-area community groups said ICE arrested at least 10 Afghan residents.
- The immigrants from Afghanistan were arrested during routine ICE appointments.
- The community groups warn the arrest are part of a nationwide immigration crackdown.
Likely more than a dozen members of the Afghan community living in the Sacramento area have been detained by federal immigration agents as part of a nationwide crackdown on refugees from Afghanistan, according to community advocacy groups.
At least 12 immigrants from Afghanistan have been arrested since Monday during routine appointments at the downtown Sacramento field office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as ICE. Many of the refugees live in the eastern suburbs of Sacramento, including Carmichael and Arden Arcade.
These arrests were reported by community groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Sacramento Valley/Central California said in a statement Wednesday. The community groups said they are worried the number of ICE arrests could be higher, because many families are afraid to tell others what happened to their loved ones.
“ICE is conducting a targeted, systematic campaign against our Afghan community using deceptive tactics,” Reshad Noorzay, executive director of CAIR-SV/CC, said in the news release “Community members are being called into ICE’s Sacramento office at 650 Capitol Mall for what they believe are routine appointments — and they’re being arrested the moment they walk through the door. This is entrapment. This is cruel. And this is happening right now in our community.”
Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, organized a news conference Friday morning just outside the entrance of the John E. Moss federal building downtown, where immigration agents took Afghan residents into custody earlier this week. Matsui, joined by members of the CAIR and NorCal Resist community advocacy groups, called this week’s arrests “a serious escalation” by the Trump administration to target immigrant families.
“They have singled out entire communities with rhetoric that is reckless, dangerous and blatantly racist,” Matsui told reporters. “This is about people, human beings, our neighbors, families who came to this country seeking safety, many of whom were Afghan allies who stood with us at great personal risk and were promised safety in this country.”
The Sacramento Bee contacted ICE officials, who did not answer questions about the reported immigration arrests made in Sacramento this week or whether the federal agency is conducting other immigration enforcement of Afghan residents in the area.
Instead, ICE officials referred The Bee to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security news release issued Thursday that claimed the previous administration of President Joe Biden “created one of the worst and most complex national security crises in American history.”
“Under Secretary (Kristi) Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and criminal illegal aliens that came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “When Joe Biden let 190,000 Afghan nationals in, they didn’t do criminal background checks or vet social media, someone just vouched for them and they took the words as truth.”
Former U.S. officials familiar with the Special Immigrant Visa process told The New York Times that the CIA had an intense vetting process for its partners during the war in Afghanistan, which included a requirement for Afghans to get current force members to vouch for them that put the reputation of their tribe or family on the line. The agency also kept extensive identifying biometric data, including retinal scans, on Afghans who served in its units.
Nationwide crackdown after shooting
CAIR said the ICE arrests in Sacramento were part of a nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown on immigrants from Afghanistan, a response from President Donald Trump after a shooting last week that killed one National Guard member and critically wounded another.
The New York Times obtained and reviewed internal documents that show the Trump administration is prioritizing the deportation of Afghan nationals, more than 1,800 of them throughout the country, previously ordered to leave the United States. The Times reported that the federal deportation efforts are part of a broader crackdown on refugees from Afghanistan after an Afghan national was accused of shooting the two National Guard troops in Washington.
“It has become vital to review the population of Afghanistan citizens,” an ICE official wrote to agency field offices in a Nov. 29 email.
Noorzay urged Afghan community members to consult attorneys before attending any ICE appointments. He advised residents not to attend ICE meetings without legal representation, and called on others in the Sacramento area to demand accountability from federal authorities.
“When ICE can detain 10 people in three days using deceptive tactics, and we don’t even know the real number — that creates a ripple effect of terror throughout our entire community,” Noorzay said in the news release. “Children are asking if their parents will come home. Families are afraid to answer the phone. People are too scared to go to their ICE check-ins, even when they’re required to do so by law.”
At Friday’s news conference, Noorzay said the issue at hand is not an abstract concept. He said the people targeted for removal are your neighbors, real families who work in the community who are now afraid to answer their phones
“They risked their lives working alongside U.S. forces, translators, interpreters, drivers, even journalists, and they fled under hardship, trusting that the United States would protect them,” Noorzay told reporters. “Today, that trust is being shattered.
He said what federal officials are doing to Afghan residents is profiling, targeting people based on national origin and faith. Noorzay said it echoes “some of the darkest chapters” in this country, such as the Japanese American internment camps during World War II and the painful history of targeting Latin American immigrants and refugees through raids and intimidation.
“This sends a wave of fear amongst this Afghan community and amongst every household,” Noorzay said.
Capital response and detentions
Members of the NorCal Resist community advocacy group have been taking calls to its hotline reporting federal immigration agents taking Afghan residents into custody. They’re urging residents to know their rights.
“The Afghan residents are a part of our community. We will be defending them,” Giselle Garcia of NorCal Resist told The Bee on Thursday.
Garcia told reporters on Friday that she escorted one Afghan family to the downtown federal building earlier this week after they received a call from ICE officials instructing them to appear for an impromptu appointment. She said the family who arrived in Sacramento earlier this year had fled Afghanistan to escape persecution from the Taliban, because the family had supported U.S. military.
“We knew what that meant,” Garcia said. “We had to prepare this family that he (the father and husband) would likely be detained, and that they would be separated.”
She said the father tried to be strong for his wife and children, while his wife held back tears as best as she could. Garcia said she can still hear the couple’s young daughter trying to console her mother, telling her mother it would be OK when her father comes back. As recent arrivals, the family and others is required to comply with immigration officials.
“I could not reconcile that our government was forcing this beautiful family to walk into a trap and that we were driving them to their demise,” Garcia told reporters.
On Thursday, Afghan residents in Arden Arcade reported immigration officials knocking on the doors of their homes, questioning them and promising to return. Garcia said these tactics are “terrorizing the community.”
The community groups have reported that ICE officials have been calling Afghan residents, many of whom are recent arrivals, some who are already under ICE supervision and others who are scheduled for expedited removal proceedings.
The ICE officials instructed these Afghan residents to go to the downtown Sacramento field office for “same-day appointments,” but they were immediately detained. CAIR officials said the majority of those arrested in Sacramento were being held at the California City Detention Facility, a former prison in Kern County converted to an ICE detention center.
The facility is facing a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other civil rights groups, which alleges serious operational failures—including raw sewage leaks, insect infestations, insufficient medical care, and inadequate food and clothing for cold weather. One detainee reportedly went without heart medication for days, resulting in two hospitalizations.
The lawsuit claims ICE and its private contractor, CoreCivic, have failed to provide for the basic needs of those in custody, citing delayed surgeries and inhumane treatment.
ICE and CoreCivic have denied the allegations, and DHS officials have called the complaints “false.”
“ICE’s mass detention strategy is rooted in anti-Muslim bigotry and discriminatory profiling,” Layli Shirani, civil rights managing attorney for CAIR’s Sacramento chapter, said in the news release. “The federal government is criminalizing the very people who risked their lives to help America. Using fake appointments to lure people into detention is a deceptive, inhumane tactic that violates basic principles of due process.”
The Sacramento area is home to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Afghan residents, the largest concentration in the United States. CAIR said many of them assisted U.S. military forces as translators, interpreters and CIA assets before fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
The congresswoman said Trump and Noem have exploited the heartbreaking shooting of two National Guard members to justify going after immigrant families in Sacramento and throughout the country.
“Sacramento knows how to respond when fear is weaponized,” Matsui said at Friday’s news conference. “We don’t scatter. We lock arms, and we stand together.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
