§ Alien Crime · Inglewood, CA · February 25, 2025

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He Was Doing the Right Thing.
The Man Who Shot Him Dead Had Already Been Deported Once.

February 25, 2025. Juan Sanchez stepped outside on a residential street in Inglewood, Californiaand confronted two men who were stealing a catalytic converter from a neighbor's car. It was the act of a neighbor — a husband, a father, a grandfather — who saw something wrong and did something about it.

According to federal investigators, one of those two men was Jose Cristian Saravia-Sanchez, 30, a Salvadoran national who had been removed from the United States to El Salvador by U.S. Border Patrol in 2013 and had illegally re-entered and remained in the country ever since. Saravia-Sanchez allegedly shot Juan Sanchez dead.

In March 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California charged Saravia-Sanchez as part of a broader DOJ enforcement action charging 16 previously-removed illegal aliens with illegally re-entering the United States. California — a sanctuary state — had never flagged him to federal authorities in the years between his 2013 deportation and the night he allegedly pulled the trigger.

• 2013deportedSaravia-Sanchez removed to El Salvador by U.S. Border Patrol — prior to the murder by more than a decade
• 16aliens chargedDOJ / USAO-CDCA March 2025 enforcement action — 16 previously-removed illegal aliens charged with illegal reentry
• Feb 25murder date2025 — Juan Sanchez killed in Inglewood, CA while confronting a catalytic converter theft
• 8 U.S.C.§ 1326Illegal reentry after removal — federal felony; carries up to 20 years if prior aggravated felony applies

Juan Sanchez was a husband, a father, and a grandfather. He lived in Inglewood, California — a city in Los Angeles County where working families share streets with catalytic converter theft rings that treat the neighborhood as a supply depot. On the night of February 25, 2025, Sanchez heard or saw two men stealing from his neighbor's vehicle and chose to intervene.

That decision — an act of civic courage that most people talk about but few take — cost him his life. Per federal investigators, Saravia-Sanchez drew a firearm and shot Juan Sanchez. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Federal investigators also found that as an illegal alien subject to a prior removal order, Saravia-Sanchez was illegally in possession of the firearm — a separate federal offense on top of the murder charge.

Juan Sanchez is not an abstraction. He is the man this story is actually about. His name belongs in print. The facts that led to his death belong in the public record.

Per the DOJ / USAO-CDCA charging document, Jose Cristian Saravia-Sanchez was removed from the United States to El Salvador by U.S. Border Patrol in 2013. That removal generated a formal removal order — a federal record that should, by law, make any subsequent re-entry a criminal offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (illegal reentry after removal).

Between 2013 and the night of the murder, Saravia-Sanchez lived and moved in California — a state whose California Values Act (SB 54, 2017) prohibits state and local law enforcement from using public resources to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with civil immigration enforcement, including the honoring of ICE detainers in most circumstances. California authorities had no obligation under state policy to report, flag, or turn him over to federal immigration authorities — and there is no public record that they did.

The removal order that should have been a barrier to his presence in Inglewood on February 25, 2025 was, in the sanctuary-state framework, a paperwork fact that local authorities were structurally prevented from acting on.

“Federal prosecutors charge 16 previously removed illegal aliens, including convicted criminals, with illegally reentering the United States.”

U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California · DOJ press release · March 2025

In March 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced a coordinated enforcement action charging 16 previously-removed illegal aliens with illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Saravia-Sanchez was among those 16. The action was framed as a targeted effort to hold previously deported individuals accountable for their unlawful return — and to demonstrate that prior removal orders are enforceable, including retroactively.

In Saravia-Sanchez's case, investigators had additional grounds: the alleged murder of Juan Sanchez and the illegal possession of a firearm by a person in the country illegally with an active removal order. The illegal-reentry charge alone, with the prior removal and the nexus to violent crime, creates the statutory predicate for enhanced penalties under federal law.

California's Senate Bill 54 — the California Values Act — was signed by then-Governor Jerry Brown (D) in October 2017. It prohibits California law enforcement agencies from using their resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, or arrest individuals for immigration enforcement purposes, and restricts agencies from honoring ICE civil immigration detainers except in narrow circumstances involving specified violent felonies where the individual has already been convicted.

The practical effect: a man with a formal removal order on file with the federal government could live in an Inglewood neighborhood for years. He could interact with California police in the context of minor offenses. He could be encountered, arrested, and released without the county jail notifying ICE. Unless he had a disqualifying prior violent conviction on his California criminal record, SB 54 shielded him from the local-federal handoff that might have resulted in a second federal removal.

The DOJ charging document does not detail any prior California criminal record for Saravia-Sanchez. What it does document is the 2013 removal order — the federal record that existed from the moment he first returned. That record was not acted on in California.

Three facts define this case:

One. The federal record existed in 2013. Saravia-Sanchez had a removal order on file with the U.S. government from the moment he re-entered the country. The record was not acted on because California state policy made local referral to ICE the exception, not the rule.

Two.Juan Sanchez's death was not random urban crime in the generic sense. It was the consequence of two intersecting policy choices: a man who should not have been in the country was there because of sanctuary state policy; he was in possession of a firearm he was legally prohibited from having as an illegal alien with a removal order; and a Good Samaritan who did what citizens are supposed to do — intervene when they see theft — was killed for it.

Three.The DOJ's March 2025 enforcement action is the record on which this story stands. Fifteen other defendants in that same action also had prior removal orders — which means Saravia-Sanchez was not an anomaly. He was case number one of sixteen. The policy failure documented here is systemic, not incidental.