Immigration agents agents arrested four people Thursday morning outside of immigration courtrooms in downtown San Francisco.
Mission Local witnessed one of the arrests in the hallway outside of the courtrooms at 630 Sansome St., an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office that contains some of San Francisco’s immigration courtrooms and a short-term detention facility.
The man left the courtroom following his hearing. Mission Local saw him handcuffed in the hallway outside the courtroom, surrounded by ICE agents and the building’s security staff.
More public arrests have prompted protests in San Francisco, including one this week in which an ICE agent brandished a gun at protesters outside of San Francisco’s main immigration court location at 100 Montgomery St. Video captured agents driving an SUV through a group of protesters trying to block it, throwing a woman off the hood.
The arrests at the ICE field office at 630 Sansome St. are less public. People arrested at the main courthouse at 100 Montgomery St. are typically taken to the ICE office for processing. Protesters then spot migrants being loaded into vans outside of the courthouse en route to the ICE office, and tip off others protesting and documenting there.
But if someone is arrested at the ICE field office, they can be taken for processing without leaving the building.
All four people arrested Thursday appeared to be in court for routine hearings related to their asylum claims. In all four cases, an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss the men’s cases, a new tactic the department is using to place asylum-seekers in a fast track to removal from the United States.
The federal attorney said “circumstances have changed” in the men’s cases “to such an extent” that continuing their asylum cases was no longer in the interest of the department. The attorney did not offer further details to the judge or the four migrants.
The judge at the court, Patrick O’Brien, gave the men a month to find lawyers and to respond to Homeland Security’s motion.
He did not immediately dismiss the cases, but the four men were arrested following the court hearing anyway, another novel tactic that Homeland Security is using to move people out of San Francisco courts to locations that may have judges more sympathetic to Trump administration policy.
O’Brien told the men during their court hearings he thought it was unlikely they would appear in his court again, though he did set another hearing, in case he was wrong.
“No matter what you decide today, it’s very likely you’re not going to come back to this court,” O’Brien told the men, in court. “I know this is confusing and complicated,” O’Brien later said.
When one man asked for more clarity, O’Brien said: “I’m not sure why they picked your case [to dismiss],” referring to the Department of Homeland Security.
All four of the men seemed confused by the motion to dismiss. They huddled in the back of the courtroom with a lawyer, made available through an attorney-of-the-day program organized by the Bar Association of San Francisco to provide free legal advice. None of the men had attorneys with them in court that day.
Three of the men had their hearings almost immediately as the court was called into session at 8:30 a.m. Yet they huddled in the back of the courtroom until after 10 a.m., as the attorney of the day explained to them in Spanish it was likely they would be detained.
People are often processed and detained for a few hours at 630 Sansome St. before being sent to a longer-term detention facility elsewhere in California or the United States.
It was not clear where the four men were ultimately headed. In addition to attending immigration court, migrants often go to 630 Sansome St. for routine check-ins with ICE. In recent months, ICE has arrested people at these check-ins, too.
It may be of use to start to identify (just their appearance, not their name) and track the ICE staff that are performing the arrests and chronicling their behavior (pushing, shoving, tackling, brandishing guns, or trying to calm other ICE staff) to start to identify and develop behavioral profiles of these people. That is, this one is violent, that one is neutral.
I am starting to recognize ICE staff from the coverage. Thanks for the excellent coverage!
Kind of like Jane Godall
Other countries will take notice of what is happening in this country..I would not like to be in the shoes of the next american citizen arrested in a foreign country. Expecting the rule of laws and due process to apply for them? dream about it, this administration just handed them the play book, rules and laws are obsolete.
You probably will not fin another country in which there have been some 10 million foreigners, without legal permission, crossed in their borders and paid an average of $8,000 to terrorist groups, assisting them in their effort
If americans from the get go, would have filled those jobs, they would not be that many “illegals” here. Joe please check the price of your veggies next time at the grocery store, take a photo and frame it above your bed because in the future, it will remind you of the good old times when veggies and other products were kind of cheap. And by the way, the terrorists groups you are mentioning are getting all their weapons from here. Someone is making money in Texas! And for the other countries with fewer illegals people, well when they arrest them, not kidnap them, those people still have due process and laws are being followed,.And Joe as a reminder, the Immigration services from the Cherokee nation, think that you are also an illegal foreigner here..pack your bags.
Joe might want to brush up on how the U.S. got the land he’s sitting on.
I will vote for anyone who states that they will prosecute these deputized bounty hunters that ICE now uses to kidnap people. “following orders” is not acceptable.
Thanks for reporting on this. I’m disappointed to see y’all using the word “arrest” for these kidnappings. I expected better from this news organization — you have held a very high standard of true journalism up to this point. Please consider your editorial role; even that micro agreement with their facistic tactics harms us. These are not arrests, or even detentions. They are kidnapping non-citizens *_who are documented._* This is 100% illegal. Please don’t enable this madness by giving these illegal acts any kind of legitimacy.
I wish you would get clear on what is a detention and what is an arrest. There are different standards for each of those actions – which are different actions. And different rights are implicated when someone is detained versus arrested. It’s dangerous and irresponsible to conflate the two and leads to situations where people are less clear about what rights they have, which makes interactions with law enforcement more dangerous for everyone involved. You should do better.
My earlier comments should have been 18 USC 371 not 271
“Novel tactic” is a very New York Times way of putting it …
I’m glad to hear the federal government is doing the job that voters asked them to do in November. Unlike many Mission Local commenters, I believe in democracy.
I wonder if those who support ILLEGAL immigration realize that it is not just their breaking immigration law but the fact that they pay thousands of dollars to terrorists organizations (formerly drug cartels) and human trafficking groups to assist them to break the criminal laws of the US. This constitutes two serious felonies, conspiracy 18 USC 271 and aiding and abetting. This – even prior to setting foot in the US. They are quite lucky that they are only being deported, not charged with these two felonies. Those who have been in the US for a while and are working, most all need to steal SS numbers to get a job, a felony. Most do not file state or federal tax returns, a felony. All commit perjury on the DOJ I 9 form when submitting an employment application. Being deported is much better than being charged with these felonies – which most all illegal aliens commit