King Hall Immigration Experts Comment for Media on Sacramento Home Depot Arrests
Professors Gabriel “Jack” Chin, Raquel Aldana and Kevin R. Johnson spoke to media about the widely publicized July 17 arrests of 12 people by masked Border Patrol officers in a Sacramento Home Depot parking lot.
Those arrested included Jose Castillo, a U.S. citizen. Border Patrol later claimed that Castillo slashed tires on one of their vehicles and impeded their operation. Castillo, who was later released, is a Community Migra Watch Team volunteer for the advocacy organization NorCal Resist, the group told the Sacramento Bee on July 18.
Quoted in the same Bee story, Chin said that as sworn federal law enforcement officers, Border Patrol can arrest U.S. citizens if they suspect the person committed a federal crime. Vandalizing a federal vehicle would qualify, he said.
Aldana contributed to a July 18 Bee Reality Check feature that posed the question of whether Border Patrol can legally arrest anyone in Sacramento, which sits more than 500 miles from a border with another country. It can, the Bee concluded, thanks to a 1946 congressional statute and later federal revision that give Border Patrol enforcement powers within 100 miles of a coastline.
Aldana told The Bee that this expanded purview has not been meaningfully challenged in court, and that there could be a strong legal argument against it, since existing law is vague.
Johnson answered questions about the Border Patrol’s jurisdiction for ABC10 on July 19.
“I don’t think the Border Patrol in a Home Depot parking lot can assume that they have the full powers that they have directly at the geographic border,” he said. Johnson emphasized that people who are stopped by officers have rights, regardless of immigration status.
“If you are in the United States, you have a right to remain silent, under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. You have a right against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. … You have a right to due process before you are removed from the United States.”
Johnson spoke to The Bee for a July 19 story questioning whether the Home Depot arrests violated a federal judge’s ruling in April that barred authorities from making warrantless arrests in the Eastern District of California.
The Bee reported that the United Farm Workers labor union, which brought the April case against Border Patrol, was still considering the circumstances of the July 17 Sacramento arrests and deciding whether they violated the injunction.
Johnson told the Bee that in some instances, even courts have not been able to stop rogue law enforcement officers, pointing to former Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who famously violated court orders against racial profiling in immigration enforcement. Arpaio eventually was convicted of criminal contempt of court, but then was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Raquel E. Aldana joined UC Davis in 2017 to serve as the inaugural Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity and returned to full-time law teaching in 2020. Aldana’s research has focused on transitional justice, criminal justice reforms and sustainable development in Latin America, as well as immigrant rights. She has authored or edited five books and published over 30 law review articles or book chapters. She is a graduate of Arizona State University and Harvard Law School.
Jack Chin is a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law and holder of the Edward L. Barrett Jr. Endowed Chair at UC Davis School of Law. He is a prolific and much-cited criminal and immigration law scholar whose work has addressed many of the most pressing social issues of our time.
Kevin R. Johnson is a distinguished professor of law, Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law, and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law. Johnson also has an appointment as professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Davis. He served as dean of UC Davis Law from 2008 to 2024. Johnson is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.