By admin 
U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detained a California state employee working as a field representative for Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, D-San Francisco, on Thursday as he traveled through Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
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The field representative, Ho Yin Mo, was a young member of Stefani’s team who previously worked as a TV reporter in the Bay Area before entering politics.
Stefani called on the federal government to release Mo in a statement, calling him a “selfless public servant and a valued, legal employee of the California State Legislature serving our San Francisco and Bay Area communities.”
In their own statement, a representative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who did not give their name said Mo had overstayed a visa beginning in 2020 and was arrested “during a targeted enforcement operation” at the Nevada airport. The DHS statement said Mo “lawfully entered the U.S. on a temporary basis,” in January 2020, but “illegally overstayed his welcome by failing to depart by May 15, 2020.”
That year, Mo was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had been studying at California higher education institutions since 2016, according to his profile, which would seem to contradict DHS’s claim.
“Work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the statement read, adding that DHS was focused on people with expired visas or other issues with their legal status who try to pass through airports.
Federal immigration agents have increasingly targeted travelers in U.S. airports in recent months, pulling people aside as they go through security check points or board and disembark planes. Many of those arrests have focused on people with expired visas, including many in legal gray areas — like those who have visa extensions or asylum claims pending with the federal government, according to reporting by news outlets like The New York Times and the States Newsroom. Under past administrations, the federal government has not targeted people with pending applications for legal status unless they committed crimes, but that’s changed during the second Trump administration.
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli, a conservative firebrand and former state lawmaker himself, seized on Mo’s case on the social media site X.
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“No one is above the law, not even the California Legislature and its staff,” he wrote in a statement.
According to ICE’s detainee tracker, Mo is currently being held in the agency’s Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, a desert town in the state’s southernmost tip.
The increase in airport arrests have dovetailed with stepped up efforts by ICE agents to detain people this summer, including increasing numbers of people who have not committed crimes unrelated to their immigration status. The uptick in detentions coincides with reports Trump administration officials have told DHS staff they want up to 2,000 arrests a day.
July and August saw some of the highest numbers of ICE arrests of Trump’s presidency, with both months near around 50,000 arrests, according to national media reports. Alongside increased arrests have come reports of worsening conditions in detention centers around the country.
Stefani asked for Mo’s quick return in her statement, and called him a valued member of her staff in a San Francisco Assembly district marked by its diversity.
“When Ho Yin (Mo) and I meet our Chinese American constituents, he brings a unique sense of belonging to so many who watched him as a TV reporter,” she said. “And his work goes far beyond presence. Ho Yin helps people access affordable healthcare coverage, childcare and food support. Our whole community eagerly awaits Ho Yin’s return to his home and his job where he is loved and adored.”
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