ICE agents arrest another man outside SLO courthouse. What happened?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- ICE agents apprehended Omar Catalan Estrada outside SLO courthouse on July 31.
- Catalan Estrada had three convictions, including a felony sex crime in 2024.
- Attorneys cite concern over plainclothes, unidentified agents arresting clients.
As Omar Catalan Estrada exited San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Thursday after entering a plea to a probation violation, he was immediately apprehended by officers in plain clothes.
His pregnant girlfriend, who spoke to The Tribune on the condition of anonymity, wailed as she watched officers take the father of her child and push him into an SUV. Their baby is due in September.
“It’s going to be very difficult now,” his girlfriend told The Tribune in Spanish.
Catalan Estrada, 27, was in court after he violated his probation by giving officers a false name. He has been convicted three times, including for a felony sex crime. According to his attorney and girlfriend, he’d been in the country for around four years.
Catalan Estrada’s detention is the second known time someone has been taken by immigration agents after leaving their hearing at San Luis Obispo Superior Court. Ismael Garcia Cruz, a 30-year-old former DACA recipient, was taken by agents after being released on probation.
While Catalan Estrada, who is from Mexico, does not show up in the ICE online detainee database, his girlfriend said the agents showed a badge and said they were with immigration. Catalan Estrada also called his girlfriend from the ICE temporary holding center in Santa Maria, she said.
The arrest highlights growing concerns about ICE’s presence in San Luis Obispo County, leaving attorneys for undocumented immigrants trying to ensure their clients show up for court while risking detainment by ICE or having an arrest warrant issued if they fail to appear.
ICE agent was inside courtroom prior to detaining man, attorney says
Mary Tatum, Catalan Estrada’s attorney, told The Tribune she noticed a federal agent in plain clothes inside the courtroom on both July 30 and July 31, when her client was taken into custody.
She was worried about a different client on July 30 because she suspected that ICE may be looking for him, but that client did not show up to court. When the judge made a finding that her client failed to appear, the agent left the courtroom, she said.
On July 31, she was worried again, this time about Catalan Estrada. He was in court on a probation violation from a previous crime after he gave officers a false name. Tatum told The Tribune that Catalan Estrada gave a false name because he was worried the officers were ICE agents.
Tatum said she worked out a plea agreement that would allow Catalan Estrada to remain out of custody so he could be there for his pregnant girlfriend, but for the agreement to go through, he had to show up to court.
On July 31, the same immigration agent was inside the courtroom as the day before, Tatum said. He left the courtroom immediately after Catalan Estrada entered his plea, she said.
“I feel like its my fault that he’s in ICE custody,” Tatum told the Tribune. “They trusted me, and they came to court.”
Once Tatum, Catalan Estrada and his girlfriend parted ways, Tatum went to another courtroom to take care of another case.
Catalan Estrada’s girlfriend told The Tribune that two men in plain clothes with face coverings were waiting at the bottom of the steps of the Palm Street exit of the courthouse.
The agents confirmed Catalan Estrada’s name and told him they were with immigration enforcement and going to arrest him.
“They cornered him there,” his girlfriend said. “They attacked him. They took him away. He was hurt.”
Estrada lost his shoes. He was bleeding from his mouth. She said she tried to find help inside the courthouse, but security and police officers told her they couldn’t do anything.
Tatum said she rushed outside as soon as Catalan Estrada’s girlfriend called her, crying. She saw the agents pushing and grabbing her client.
When she attempted to speak with them, they ignored her.
Dillon Forsyth, a public defender who also witnessed the arrest, said Catalan Estrada was “audibly wailing, something between screaming and crying very loudly.” He said the agents had him in some kind of restraint hold that put his arm in an awkward position.
Forsyth said the agents did not have any clothing or markers that indicated what agency they were with, and their faces were completely covered except for their eyes. One agent was wearing sunglasses.
Once the situation calmed down, the agents walked Catalan Estrada across the street and placed him inside a black SUV with a normal California license plate. The SUV, which had tinted windows, had no markings or indication that it was with a government agency.
Witness video shows one of the agents ignoring a bystander, who asked whether they spoke with Catalan Estrada’s attorney.
Man detained by ICE was convicted of a felony sex crime, records show
According to court records, Catalan Estrada has had three convictions in San Luis Obispo County, one of them for a felony sex crime.
The first incident occurred in February 2023 at a San Luis Obispo bar. San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow told The Tribune that the police report said Estrada was trying to convince a woman to go home with him and grabbed her breast, which left bruising. He was convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery in relation to the incident.
Catalan Estrada was then pulled over by the Grover Beach Police Department in November 2023 for driving under the influence of alcohol and was convicted of a misdemeanor, Dow said.
Then, in February 2024, a woman woke up after being intoxicated and saw Catalan Estrada in her room and believed she had just been sexually assaulted, Dow said. Catalan Estrada was convicted of assault with the intent to commit rape in relation to the incident.
He pleaded guilty in all three cases on June 26, 2024, court records show. He was sentenced to time served in jail for the first two offenses, and one year in jail and five years of probation in the felony case, which was also a strike offense under California’s Three Strikes law. He was also required to register as a sex offender for life, Dow said. Court records show he was released on probation in January.
Tatum told The Tribune she did not believe Catalan Estrada was a bad person and said that despite the charges, there was more to the story.
“After hearing his story, I thought, ‘I’ve got to help this man,’ and so I accepted the case,” she said. “He just seemed like a good person. They just seemed like good people, just hard-working people trying to live the American dream.”
Tatum declined to comment on Catalan Estrada’s previous charges because she was not his attorney at that time. Paul Phillips, who represented Catalan Estrada at the time of his three convictions, did not return the Tribune’s multiple phone calls.
Catalan Estrada’s girlfriend told The Tribune she did not know the details of his previous charges.
Attorney in ‘awful position’ between ICE targeting clients and making sure they show up to court
Catalan Estrada, who was a farmworker, was the main provider for him and his girlfriend, his girlfriend said.
She worked in a restaurant but recently was told by her doctor that he had to stop working because of her pregnancy.
His girlfriend, who is also from Mexico, said she has been in contact with the Mexican consulate in Oxnard but is afraid of traveling there since ICE agents have been active in Ventura County. Most recently, agents raided a Carpinteria cannabis farm.
She doesn’t want to give birth in ICE custody.
“It was fine when he was here because he helped me with expenses,” his girlfriend said. “Now everything will depend on me.”
She said some advocacy groups have reached out to her and offered help, and she is also looking for an immigration attorney. Catalan Estrada told her on his last phone call that he expected to be transferred to a detention center in Los Angeles.
Forsyth said as an attorney, the arresting agents having no identification of what agency they were with was a major concern. It was impossible to tell if they were even with a law enforcement agency, he said.
“That’s the part I find the most disturbing,” he said.
He said encounters with federal agents like this make attorneys “powerless” in the moment.
Tatum said watching her client be taken by agents in such a traumatizing way — and watching his pregnant girlfriend be so visibly upset — has changed her.
“You could not be human and not feel the pain that person was feeling,” Tatum said. “It was so visible, it hurt.”
Tatum said the situation is difficult, because she can’t advise her clients to not show up to court. That would break the law, and it’s also not in their best interest.
If Catalan Estrada didn’t show up to court that day, he would have had a warrant issued for his arrest and the plea agreement that had been negotiated would have been off the table.
She had a feeling ICE could be targeting Catalan Estrada that day, but she also wanted to make sure he had the best outcome possible for his probation violation so that he could continue to provide for his family.
“I was in this awful position,” Tatum said.
Tatum said Estrada was working two jobs — one during the day and the other at night — to provide for his girlfriend and future child. He wasn’t taking any government subsidies. As a farmworker, he was harvesting the food the country depends on, she said.
“This is horrible,” she said. “This is not making America great.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 2:43 PM.
