Two members of the Orange County Sheriff's Department in California have been placed on administrative leave while the department investigates whether they helped federal immigration agents arrest a man who had come to the county jail on Halloween to visit his son, in a case that has put California's sanctuary law at the centre of a local political fight.

The two staff members — one deputy and one Sheriff's Special Officer — were placed on leave during an investigation into whether they violated department policy and a state law that limits how local and state law enforcement can assist federal immigration enforcement, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, NBC Los Angeles reported. Sheriff's Special Officers typically handle security duties at county buildings, courthouses and correctional facilities.

Source: NBC Los Angeles

The case turned public on Friday, November 13, when new surveillance video of the Halloween incident outside the Men's Central Jail was released. NBC Los Angeles obtained the video after filing a public records request. It shows ICE agents parked outside the jail in an unmarked black SUV, and two sheriff's department members on the sidewalk appearing to speak with someone inside the vehicle.

In its own account of the footage, the department said it identified a deputy and a Sheriff's Special Officer exiting the Intake Release Center, approaching the black SUV and appearing to have a five-second conversation with the people in the vehicle. The department said ICE agents then exited their vehicles, entered the public courtyard outside the visitor's entrance, and arrested a man who appeared to be hiding in the public courtyard.

The man taken into custody

Family members identified the man detained by the masked federal agents — whose protective vests were labelled “Police ICE” — as Jesús Esparza, 69. His daughter Adriana Esparza told Telemundo 52 earlier this month that her father works in construction, has no criminal record and has lived in the United States since 2000. She said he was taken into custody as he left the jail after visiting his son.

The family says Esparza is now being held by federal authorities at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County. Telemundo 52 has reached out to ICE for details about why Esparza was taken into custody. Whether the two staff members actually communicated with ICE about Esparza is the allegation under investigation — it has not been established, and neither staff member has been publicly identified or charged with anything.

A complaint, a supervisor's letter, then leave

The timeline, as the department laid it out in a statement on Friday, began before the video became public. Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento wrote to Sheriff Don Barnes on November 2 expressing concern about the detention and the presence of federal agents outside the jail, and asking whether the department had violated SB 54, the California Values Act. The department said it received a complaint on November 3 that sheriff's personnel may have communicated with ICE agents, and that it immediately began an internal investigation.

Sheriff Barnes said in the department's Friday statement that the Orange County Sheriff's Department does not enforce federal immigration law. Supervisor Sarmiento, for his part, has said the investigation must be thorough and swift — a sign that county elected leaders intend to keep public pressure on the department until the internal inquiry answers whether its own staff crossed the line drawn by state law.

Why SB 54 is at the centre of this case

SB 54, known as the California Values Act, is the state law that limits how California's local and state law enforcement agencies can assist federal immigration enforcement. The law does allow certain communication with ICE in connection with releasing criminal offenders from custody facilities — which is precisely why this investigation matters: the question is not whether any contact happened at all, but whether a brief conversation outside a jail, minutes before a visitor with — according to his family — no criminal record was arrested in the visitor courtyard, fell inside or outside what the law and department policy permit.

For immigrant families across Orange County and the wider Southern California Punjabi diaspora, the practical stakes are immediate. A county jail's visitor entrance is where families — including parents visiting sons, as Esparza was — maintain contact with loved ones in custody. If visitors come to fear that a routine jail visit can end in a federal arrest in the courtyard, advocates and county leaders warn, families may stop visiting altogether, and trust in local law enforcement's promise not to do ICE's work can erode with it. That wider fear, as much as the five seconds of video, is what the investigation now has to answer.