San Diego Central Jail released Julio Cesar Vazquez Hernandez after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had lodged a detainer for him on November 5, and he remains at large, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on November 13, 2026 — a release Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin condemned as a sanctuary-policy decision that endangered the community.

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

According to DHS, Vazquez Hernandez, a Mexican national, had been arrested by the San Diego County Sheriff's Office for domestic violence — violation of a restraining order. ICE lodged the detainer asking that he not be released, DHS said. Despite that detainer, DHS said, the jail released him back onto the streets, and he currently remains at large. Those are DHS's statements about the release; no response from San Diego County or California officials was included in the sources reporting the announcement.

Source: The Right Ledger

The record DHS attributes to him

DHS said his criminal history includes a conviction for driving under the influence and prior arrests for participating in a criminal street gang, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and theft. DHS also said he has admitted to being an active member of the Logan Heights Gang, a San Diego-area street gang, and that he illegally entered the United States at an unknown date and location. Prior arrests are not convictions, and each element of that history is presented here as DHS stated it — it has not been independently verified in the reporting available for this story, a caveat The Right Ledger also noted in its coverage.

What Secretary Mullin said

“Time and time again, sanctuary politicians openly and recklessly choose to endanger their constituents by releasing illegal aliens into their communities,” Secretary Mullin said in the DHS statement. “Despite ICE lodging a detainer, San Diego sanctuary politicians released this illegal alien gang member from Mexico whose criminal history includes domestic violence, driving under the influence, and assault with a deadly weapon. If sanctuary politicians put an end to these heartless policies and started working with us, we could make their communities safe again. It's no coincidence that 7 out of the top 10 safest cities in the country cooperate with ICE.” That safest-cities claim is Mullin's, as quoted by DHS.

Background: the wider California list DHS published with this case

DHS did not present the San Diego release as an isolated case. Its statement listed other recent California cases it ties to sanctuary policies and state licensing, including, in September, a detainer for Chamkaur Singh, whom DHS described as a man from India arrested after a semi-truck crash that killed two people in Ontario, California, after he had been granted a commercial driver's licence by California's DMV; in May, a detainer for Manvir Singh, also from India, after a semi-truck crash that killed two people near Lodi; and in May, the arrest of Aman Kumar, from India, whom DHS said California had released after a hit-and-run that injured a 4-year-old boy in Fresno. Those cases are DHS's list, reported here with that attribution, and they are the reason this story reaches directly into California's Punjabi trucking community: several of the state's most contested detainer and CDL cases involve Indian truck drivers.

The same DHS statement listed cases outside California that it blames on California licensing, including a detainer in January for Gunpreet Singh and Jasveer Singh, whom DHS described as men from India arrested for smuggling more than 300 pounds of cocaine in a semi-truck in Putnam County, Indiana, with CDLs DHS said were issued in California, and the August 2025 detainer for Harjinder Singh after a semi-truck U-turn crash that killed three people in St. Lucie County, Florida. Again, those are DHS's characterisations, not findings reported independently here.

Impact and what happens next

For readers in San Diego County and across California — home to one of the largest Punjabi diaspora communities in the United States, concentrated in the Central Valley, the Bay Area and Southern California — the immediate fact is the one DHS stated plainly: a man ICE wanted held is, by DHS's account, at large, and anyone encountering the case should treat the underlying domestic-violence and prior-arrest allegations as allegations unless a court establishes them. DHS has not announced an arrest, a court date or a new operation tied specifically to Vazquez Hernandez in the statement.

What happens next, on the record available, is a search and a political argument running in parallel: ICE can arrest him at large, as it did in a separate Illinois case it announced the same week, while the detainer fight between Washington and California continues in public statements like this one. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if San Diego County or California officials respond, or if DHS announces that he has been taken into custody.