David Valadao Immigration California

David Valadao Told the Central Valley That ICE Is Only Going After People With Criminal Records. ICE Leadership Told Officers to Arrest Everyone.

As a new ICE surge emptied streets in the San Joaquin Valley, David Valadao passed along DHS's word that the operation targets people with warrants and criminal histories. Reporting says officers were told to arrest all undocumented immigrants they encounter, criminal record or not.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 10, 2026

David Valadao Told the Central Valley That ICE Is Only Going After People With Criminal Records. ICE Leadership Told Officers to Arrest Everyone. — Photo: Larry Valenzuela / CalMatters

A new immigration crackdown hit California's Central Valley this month, and David Valadao's response was to repeat what the Trump administration told him.

On October 8, 2026, Valadao put out a statement on the ICE activity in the Central Valley. The Department of Homeland Security, he said, had told his office that "these operations are focused on individuals with active warrants and known criminal histories."

The reporting says otherwise.

What ICE officers were actually told

The day before Valadao's statement, the Washington Examiner — a conservative outlet — reported that a major ICE operation was underway across California. According to sources familiar with the plan, ICE leadership told officers to arrest all undocumented immigrants they encounter, "regardless of whether an individual has a criminal history." The paper's headline summed it up: "Go after anybody." The operation started around San Diego and is expected to last at least 45 days — right through the November election.

That is the opposite of what Valadao told his constituents.

What it looks like on the ground

CalMatters reported on October 9 that a sudden surge in arrests had emptied streets across the San Joaquin Valley. Advocates counted at least 100 people detained in three days. An activist who watches the Fresno ICE office said the vans bringing in detained people jumped from a couple a day to 10 to 15 a day.

Unconfirmed social media videos appeared to show agents at construction sites in Madera and in Dollar General parking lots in Chowchilla. In Mendota, a farm town west of Fresno, a legal permanent resident who harvests cantaloupe and watermelons said agents stopped him and asked for his papers. "The whole community is terrified," he said.

One man, 54-year-old Luis Arreguin, was arrested on October 1 on his way to work. His family says he's been moved around the detention system and nobody has told them where, when or why. "Up until now we felt very safe here in the Valley," his daughter said.

A DHS spokesperson told CalMatters that ICE "will not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations," and didn't answer its questions about whether the operation was targeted. So DHS won't tell reporters what Valadao says it told him.

Local Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria was blunter about the federal government's "targeted enforcement" line: "It's a flat lie."

Sympathy in the statement, votes in the record

Valadao's statement says farmworkers "should not have to live in fear," and calls on Congress to fix the immigration system. He represents a district that runs on farm labor.

But when it came time to vote, he paid for the crackdown. As we've reported, after Border Patrol swept his valley in January 2025, Valadao asked for better communication — and then cast a deciding vote for the $70 billion Secure America Act — including $31 billion for ICE.

What the record shows

As an ICE surge swept the Central Valley, David Valadao told constituents that DHS assured him the operations target people with active warrants and criminal histories. The Washington Examiner reported that ICE leadership told officers to arrest every undocumented immigrant they encounter, criminal record or not, and DHS didn't answer CalMatters' questions about whether the operation was targeted at all. Valadao cast a deciding vote for the $70 billion enforcement bill that pays for it.