Sabraw was in private practice for six years[2] at the Santa Barbara law firm of Price, Postel & Parma[4] before joining the San Diego office of the international law firm Baker McKenzie in 1992.[2][4]
In 2016 Sabraw presided over a case brought against the State of California by a group of anti-vaccine parents who challenged S.B. 277, a California law that required all schoolchildren in public and private schools to be fully vaccinated against a number of diseases.[7] Sabraw rejected the activists' claim that the law was a violation of the constitutional rights to free exercise of religion or to equal public education, writing that "the fundamental rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution do not overcome the State's interest in protecting a child's health" and that the Constitution "does not require the provision of a religious exemption to vaccination requirements, much less a personal belief exemption."[7] After Sabraw rejected the plaintiffs' application for an injunction, the group dropped the lawsuit.[8]
In February 2018, Sabraw was assigned a case in which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Donald Trump administration on behalf of a Congolese woman who had been separated from her 7-year-old daughter in November when she presented herself at the San Ysidro Port of Entry seeking asylum. The case later became a class-action suit challenging the administration's policy of separating families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border.[9][10] In June 2018, Sabraw denied the government's motion to dismiss the case, finding that plaintiffs alleged sufficient grounds to proceed with their claim that the policy violates plaintiffs' constitutional right to due process.[11] Later that month, Sabraw entered a nationwide injunction ordering an end to most family separations at the border and requiring the immediate reunification of all children separated from their family members under the policy.[12][13] He continued to oversee the process of family reunification, requiring regular reports from the administration. In July 2018, Sabraw suspended family deportations for one week, until family unifications could be completed.[14] In August 2018, Sabraw ruled that it is the government's burden to reunite separated migrant families.[15]
However, in January 2020, he ruled in support of the Trump administration's separation of 900 children from their parents on the grounds that the parents were unfit or dangerous, given doubts about paternity, criminal history, or having communicable diseases. He distinguished these cases from those where he had earlier ruled against the Trump administration because their purpose had been to deter immigration across the southern border altogether. In so ruling, he rejected the ACLU's claim that the administration had reverted to previous abusive family separations, although he did also grant the ACLU position that the government would have to administer DNA tests to remove paternity doubts, something the Trump administration had fought.[16]
In April 2018, he presided over the case of a U.S. Border Patrol agent who pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs across the border, sentencing him to 70 months in federal prison.[17]
On March 31, 2023, he granted a preliminary injunction against major portions of California's handgun roster in a case called Renna v. Bonta.
Recognition
The San Diego Union-Tribune named Sabraw its 2018 "San Diego Person of the Year" for his order ending the Trump administration's family separation policy, stating that Sabraw's ruling "ended a shameful chapter in our country's history" and adding: "His honest, thoughtful oversight of a complex case shouldn't be forgotten."[18]
