A former Bay Area television news anchor who now works for a California lawmaker has been held in a Nevada immigration detention center since federal agents arrested him at the Las Vegas airport on Thursday, September 17, 2026, and he faces deportation to Hong Kong.
Ho-Yin Mo, a field representative for California Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, was taken into custody during an enforcement operation at Harry Reid International Airport, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said. Federal authorities are holding him at an immigration detention center in Nevada’s Pahrump Valley, close to the California line. Mo, who is from Hong Kong, typically goes by his last name.
Stefani, a San Francisco Democrat who represents the 19th Assembly District, went public with an appeal for her aide on Tuesday, September 22. “My message today is simple: I am respectfully calling for Ho Yin Mo’s release as soon as possible,” Stefani said in a statement. She has insisted Mo is a legal employee of the California Legislature and is authorized to work in the United States.
What Homeland Security Says
Federal officials tell a different story. DHS said Mo entered the country lawfully on a temporary basis on January 13, 2020, and was required to depart by May 15 of that year but did not. The department characterized his arrest as a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Asked about Stefani’s assertion that Mo works legally in the state, the department drew a sharp line between employment papers and immigration status. “Work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the department said. A spokesperson added that DHS had reversed a Biden-era policy permitting immigrants in the country illegally to fly domestically, and said the administration is working to ensure such travelers can board planes only to leave the country and self-deport.
According to Mo’s LinkedIn profile, he attended UC Berkeley in 2018 and graduated in 2020.
From the Anchor Desk to Politics
Before he became a legislative staffer, Mo was a familiar presence in Bay Area living rooms as an anchor and reporter at KTSF, the Chinese-language television station based in San Francisco. He left Channel 26 in 2024 and joined then-Mayor London Breed’s reelection campaign as a field organizer focused on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Breed lost that race.
Mo joined Stefani’s district office in January 2025. The assemblymember, who spent 2018 through 2024 as a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, represents a district covering western San Francisco and northern San Mateo County — home to one of the largest electorates of Chinese-speaking voters in the country.
Joe Arellano, a political strategist who worked alongside Mo on the Breed campaign and served as a spokesperson for it, vouched for his character and said everyone who knows him is hoping for his safe release. The campaign moved quickly to hire Mo once it learned he was available, Arellano said, pointing to the audience Mo had built at KTSF and to his professional background.
Stefani has described similar value in his outreach work, saying constituents who watched him on television recognize him when the two meet, and that he helps residents sign up for affordable health coverage, child care and food assistance.
Bay Area Officials Press for Release
The detention has rattled San Francisco’s political class, and the calls for Mo’s release now extend well beyond his boss. Rep. Kevin Mullin, who represents part of the Bay Area, has joined David Canepa, a San Mateo County supervisor, and Daniel Lurie, San Francisco’s mayor, in pressing federal authorities to let him go. Lurie’s request amounted to a rare challenge to President Donald Trump from the mayor.
Mo’s case fits a pattern that has taken shape at American airports. Plainclothes ICE agents have regularly swept San Francisco International Airport and arrested immigrants, according to reporting in August, and similar arrests have unfolded at airports around the country. Immigration lawyers say the people caught in these operations are usually held over expired visas, even when they have pending asylum claims, federally issued work permits and clean criminal records.
Under President Trump, ICE has gone after a wider range of deportation cases, including those involving immigrants who hold legal work authorization or have pending asylum claims. That shift has pulled in people like Mo — a state employee with a public-facing job whom Arellano described as a local celebrity in Chinatown and on San Francisco’s west side.
Friends have organized an effort to help fund his legal defense as he fights removal. As of September 24, Mo remained in ICE custody at the Nevada detention center, where he faces deportation to Hong Kong.