Federal agents arrested a protester outside the San Francisco immigration court on Wednesday and charged the protester with two federal misdemeanors: Destruction of property and assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer.
Bay Area attorneys say this is the first time they can remember Department of Homeland Security authorities filing such charges filed against a citizen in San Francisco. While protesters have been charged by federal agents in Los Angeles, moving the practice north is a sign of “escalation,” said Angela Chan, the city’s assistant chief public defender.
The protester, a U.S. citizen who asked to be identified by her first name, Angélica, was arrested around 10 a.m. yesterday during a chaotic street scene: Video showed ICE agents tackling several protesters to the ground after a crowd tried to stop ICE from transporting an asylum-seeker whom agents had arrested that morning.
Angélica allegedly had a knife, slashed the front left tire of an ICE van, and threatened an agent, according to prosecutors’ complaint.
She was one of those filmed being zip-tied and led away, her head wrapped in a keffiyeh and held down by officers. Angélica, a trans woman from an immigrant family, was brought into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters at 630 Sansome St. without a cellphone, her partner, Renee, said.
A day passed before her family heard from Angélica again.
Holding a citizen at an ICE building is “unheard of,” Chan said. Earlier this month, ICE agents detained two protesters in downtown San Francisco for the first time in recent memory.
Supporters spent the rest of Wednesday checking the inmate logs of every jail in the area, Renee said, trying to find Angélica. The gym Angélica works at in Oakland closed to let her co-workers join the search. One supporter reached out to Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Around midnight, Renee said, Angélica’s name finally appeared on a list of people held at Santa Rita jail in Alameda County. Angélica told family members that there was no access to a phone or an attorney in the holding cell.
Angélica said the sheriff’s deputies appeared confused: They did not seem to know what to do with someone brought over by federal agents.
At 7 a.m. on Thursday, Angélica’s name disappeared from the Santa Rita logs, Renee said. Two hours later, Angélica’s supporters learned that she was scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. at 10:30 a.m.
Unlike most defendants who are arrested on federal charges, Angélica was never in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, and was brought to Santa Rita instead by officers with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE. ICE officers also took Angélica to federal court.
Angélica, a born and raised San Franciscan, was represented by federal public defender Samantha Jaffe, who declined to comment. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ordered Angélica be released until a pending court date in September.
ICE agents can make arrests only in “extremely specific circumstances,” Chan said. “They must witness a federal felony offense in front of them while engaging in immigration-related enforcement and have completed requisite training.”
Angélica has been ordered to stay away from the immigration courts at 100 Montgomery St. and 630 Sansome St. Federal prosecutors had requested an order to keep Angélica from all federal buildings and officers, Renee said, but Judge Kim noted that this would be impractical — Angélica has to attend her own hearings, after all, and federal agents aren’t always visible.
Her case has caused an outcry among labor, immigrant, queer and trans community groups.
“SEIU 1021 members were outraged to learn that Angélica, a U.S. citizen and the child of one of our own members, was violently arrested by ICE in San Francisco while exercising her First Amendment rights,” wrote Theresa Rutherford, the president of the service employees’ union.
Renee said that Angélica was “standing up for all the things the mayor says he supports, but has been silent on.”
Thanks for the reporting on this.
I will repeat: Waffen SS at work, traitors to the constitution, traitors to this country and on top of it, cowards..masked like our local thugs, violent like our locals thugs..and qbove their masks, you can see Asian goons eyes, Black goons eyes, Hispanic goons eyes, eyes working for the white goons who don’t give a damn about them..get it goons? the white goons don’t like people like you,even you do their dirty jobs…I hope they don’t have any kids, especially boys, because they will turn Incels or join a cult, i mean the republican party. Yes dudes you are now officially a cult, it seems you left your brains in the fridge too long.
What happened, did Angélica throw a sandwich at the po widdle ICE snow flakes?
No…”Angelica” had a knife, slashed the front left tire of an ICE van, and Threatened an agent, according to prosecutors’ complaint. THAT is a Federal Crime …Read the Article again ,,,
Grateful for your reporting on ICE and the protests against it. Beyond the inhumanity of it, I appreciate you citing specific behaviors that appear lawless:
> ICE agents can make arrests only in “extremely specific circumstances,” Chan said. “They must witness a federal felony offense
…
> charged the protester with two federal misdemeanors
Hmm…
> Angélica’s name finally appeared on a list of people held at Santa Rita jail in Alameda County
…
> At 7 a.m. on Thursday, Angélica’s name disappeared from the Santa Rita logs
Hmm…
Great work Law Enforcement! We love you!!! Keep it up!!!!!
What does the fact that she’s trans have anything to do with this story? Does that make her more of a hero? Maybe next time they’ll book a room at the Fairmont for her
Trump and his base get off on using ICE to repress immigrants and leftists and it helps them to consolidate their political power. I’d question the motives of those who continue to give Trump the foil he so desperately needs, given that these protests appear to have shown no indication of achieving their goals.
We walked from the Wendi Norris Gallery and the gallery’s open air exhibition of Max Ernst sculpture at the Redwood Park of the Transamerica pyramid to Henry’s Hunan in SOMA this week. As we passed the 100 Montgomery protest, it carried the political whiff of the sectarian Marxist Leninist parties, Gloria la Riva, etc.