While Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested at least 38 U.S. citizens protesters in Los Angeles this year, last week’s arrest of two protesters in downtown San Francisco appears to be the first time the agency has detained citizens here, according to immigration lawyers from the Bay Area.
“I haven’t seen ICE arresting [U.S. citizen] protestors in the Bay since entering the legal field nearly 20 years ago,” wrote Aliya Karmali, an Oakland immigration attorney and member of the Demonstrations Legal Support Collaborative.
On Friday, ICE agents tackled and detained two protesters, both U.S. citizens, outside the San Francisco ICE field office at 630 Sansome St.
ICE has “been known to racially profile and detain people who may not have documentation of their citizenship,” wrote Karmali, referring to the detention — and sometimes deportation — of U.S. citizens. But now, she continued, they seem to be expanding their authority over all citizens, to arrest for federal crimes in L.A. and here.
But even if ICE detains someone, that federal crime still must be proven through a trial. According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, only seven of the 38 people charged by ICE in L.A. have been successfully indicted. Three others signed plea deals. The rest had their charges reduced significantly or even had their cases dismissed — in a number of instances because Department of Homeland Security officers made false statements about the arrests.
That seven out of 38 success record is dismal. For context, around 90 percent of general federal prosecutions result in the defendant pleading guilty, and most others are convicted during trial.
“Trump’s directive to ICE agents to arrest protesters — just like much of his administration’s immigration agenda — is unlawful,” wrote Jennifer Friedman, interim director of the Immigration Unit at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. “Arresting U.S. citizens,” Friedman continued, is “an extremely concerning overreach of civil immigration enforcement authority” and “completely unprecedented as far as I know.”
Is it legal for ICE to arrest citizens? The answer is, sometimes, yes. But ICE is held accountable to two seemingly dueling provisions.
One policy defines clearly that “ICE cannot assert its civil immigration enforcement authority to arrest and/or detain a U.S. citizen.”
Another authorizes immigration officers to arrest any person, regardless of immigration status, “for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States,” if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that a felony has been committed.
This second policy, however, is restricted to instances when ICE agents are already in the process of undergoing an “immigration-related” task. Angela Chan of the Public Defender’s Office argued that the ICE officers who arrested protesters were not conducting such a task. “Their authority to arrest US citizens is very limited and prescribed by federal statute and regulations.”
So while ICE officers don’t have the legal power to detain citizens for immigration violations (which they appear to violate every time they arrest U.S. citizens who they suspect are undocumented), ICE officers are legally allowed to detain citizens for federal crimes, so long as they have probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed while they are already undergoing immigration-related activities.
And an ICE officer can only conduct these arrests if they’ve been certified for “successfully completing a training course encompassing such arrests.” That’s impossible to check as most of the ICE officers seen in public cover their faces and don’t wear identifying information, making it impossible to identify the ICE officer to check his or her training record.
One such arrest happened last Friday, when ICE officers took U.S. citizen Amanda Trebach into federal custody, outside Terminal Island, a military base off the coast of Los Angeles that ICE has been using to prepare for raids. Trebach was released the following day with no charges, after hundreds of protesters expressed support for her freedom.
Hours after Trebach was detained, ICE made its first arrest of a protester in San Francisco.
In videos obtained by Mission Local, the San Francisco protesters, a short woman in her 50s and a taller teenage man, are tackled to the ground by ICE agents. One of the people detained, who asked for anonymity given their ongoing case, reported bruises on their ribs and wrists.
Other video footage shows that San Francisco police officers, who previously arrested over 200 anti-ICE protesters in June, and the Federal Protective Services (“Homeland Security’s Domestic Police Force”) were also at 630 Sansome St. earlier in the day. But agents wearing ICE uniforms were the ones to make the detentions.
The protesters were held for approximately two and half hours in separate holding cells inside the federal building, after being stripped of their personal belongings. When released, they were served a number of citations that the protesters deny — including interference with public duties, which ICE has leveraged against many of the people that agents detained in L.A.
It’s unclear whether the protesters in San Francisco were simply detained, or formally arrested and booked. They won’t know for sure until the Northern District of California’s U.S. Attorney decides whether to press charges, which could take weeks or not happen at all.
Mission Local reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment, and has yet to receive a reply from either.
The ONLY thing that we as a city should be doing is DEMANDING that our mayor make it CRYSTAL CLEAR that SFPD is supposed protect people living in SF and NOT be another branch of ICE. When masked gunmen come in unmarked cars to kidnap people off the streets, SFPD should be there demanding they show warrents and exercise due process
you know…. enforce the LAW, not the political will of the day.
If you’re out there protesting and an SFPD officer lays a FINGER on you, get a badge and file a complaint. These people are supposed to PROTECT us, not ICE. If they want to join the damn ICE gestapo, then they should leave our police force and join them.
Immigration law is also the law.
It is illegal to be arrested for peacefully protesting. This is blatant intimidation.
Let’s build a class action lawsuit against them, and shut it down before it get’s out of control. Martial Law is next.
demand the identities of the ICE agents be released and sue for violation of constitutional rights. if no one will be identified, name the head of ICE and the president and whoever else signed off on these unconstitutional orders. they’re not going to arrest themselves so might as well hurt them in their wallets which seems to be the motivating factor for ICE agents. At least we know they have the budget to afford to pay million dollar awards.
Watch the video. Does that look peaceful to you? Because it looks like assault to me.
Watch the video. Attacking police with a hockey stick is not peaceful protesting.
Nobody was arrested fo protesting. ICE is trash. But so is this article. Watch the video.
Assuming the protests are peaceful.
But these protesters are trying to physically prevent the detention of aliens. And that crosses the line from “peaceful protesting” and free speech to interference with a federal officer performing his or her duties.
You cannot reasonably expect ICE officers to stand by and do nothing just because a protester disagrees with a federal policy.
But protesting is not a violation of immigration law, even if the protestor is undocumented.
Thank you for taking on this mission.
The second protester clearly strikes the officer. Whether or not it hurt the officer is not the point. You can’t strike law enforcement, ever. They were very gentle with her, both of them for that matter. I wish cops were that gentle when I was a kid. I got my ass kicked for far less and to be honest probably deserved it.
Watch the first 20 seconds of the video. At 17 seconds, the woman clearly hits the ICE officer in the chest while he’s standing there. You can’t do that! Doesn’t matter if you’re a U.S. citizen or otherwise. These articles always attempt to put ICE in a bad light without any consideration of the conduct of the “protesters”.
I see people punching police and attacking police with a hockey stick.
That’s not peaceful protesting. That’s assaulting an officer.
“The rest signed plea deals, had their charges reduced significantly, or even had their cases dismissed“
When folks sign a plea or get reduced charges, isn’t that an admission of guilt? They did commit some crime otherwise they wouldn’t need a plea or reduce charges. Would be good to know how many were dismissed. To lump those figures together is a little misleading.
Your assumption is incorrect. First, the arrestees do not have the power or the option to reduce the charges. Any reduction is a decision by the charging authority, often because it recognizes the higher charge was inappropriate in the first place. Second, plea deals are common even among those who are not guilty of anything. Sometimes it is easier, faster, and less expensive to accept a plea deal. A person might choose to accept a misdemeanor charge that has no potential prison time, as opposed to a felony charge that has the risk of prison time. Even if one is not guilty, there are valid reasons to prefer the *certainty* of staying out of prison to the possibility one can successfully fight the charge. This is especially true if one doesn’t have the money to hire a criminal defense attorney, and most ordinary people do not have that kind of money to spare.
it all depends on what the deal was. perhaps they were actually guilty of laying hands on or interfering with the agents or not dispersing when ordered to do so. could be very minor but they may have their own reasons for agreeing to a plea deal. perhaps they had other responsibilities they needed to attend to such as work or caretaker for someone else. they may have believed that ICE would not arrest citizens for protesting. you know, follow the law.
This is practically off-topic. Reread the headline and don’t normalize the militarization of US cities.