Sabraw is half-Japanese; his Japanese mother met his father in 1954 when he was a United States Army soldier stationed in Japan during the Korean War.

[3] The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Sabraw "well qualified" for the judgeship.

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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.