US citizen detained in Sacramento immigration raid charged with vandalism
A U.S. citizen whose arrest by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers was captured on video during an immigration raid at a Home Depot store in south Sacramento was charged Monday with vandalism, federal prosecutors said.
Jose Manuel Castillo, 31, was charged with a misdemeanor count of depradation of government property, after the Border Patrol officers said he punctured a tire on a van they were using to transport undocumented immigrants arrested in the July 17 raid, a criminal complaint filed Monday in Sacramento federal court shows.
Castillo, a volunteer with the group NorCal Resist, which opposes the immigration raids, was at the Home Depot on Florin Road in south Sacramento to document the arrests of day laborers who were there seeking work, the group has said.
The dramatic video — taken by his wife, Andrea Castillo — shows Jose Castillo running from immigration agents through the store’s parking lot as she screams that he is a U.S. citizen.
On Monday, Acting U.S. Attorney Kimberly Sanchez said that Castillo refused orders from the CBP agents to move away from them, and shouted obscenities at them as they were placing the day laborers into a van.
“Castillo was seen walking towards the SUV from the rear passenger side, and agents near the vehicle’s driver’s side heard a pop and a loud hissing noise,” Sanchez said in a news release.
The agents then saw Castillo walking away from the vehicle. When they went to inspect the SUV, its rear passenger side tire “was punctured and completely flat,” the news release said.
Agents saw Castillo walking away from the vehicle and yelled at him to stop,” the complaint said. “Castillo took off running and agents chased him and detained him.”
The agents transported Castillo to a detention facility in Stockton, where they found a short knife in his pocket, the complaint said.
The knife was approximately the same width as the puncture in the tire, and had black residue on it, the complaint said.
Castillo will not be taken into custody while the misdemeanor charge plays out in court, Sanchez said. Rather, he will be required to appear in court when a hearing date is set, she said in the news release.
Sacramento defense attorney Mark Reichel, who is representing Castillo, said the case and the raid were part of a “targeted assault” by the Trump administration against brown-skin people, sweeping up people who appear to officers to be Latino.
At 31, Castillo has no criminal record, and is accused of a misdemeanor crime that usually draws little more than participation in a court-sponsored diversion program.
He said the U.S. Attorney’s Office issued its news release about Castillo before notifying him about the charges or the case.
“There are low-level vandalisms that take place in California daily and there’s normally not a press release about it,” Reichel said.
If convicted, Castillo faces a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM.