A bystander who witnessed federal immigration agents arresting a woman at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday has filed a complaint with the California Department of Justice, copying the San Francisco city attorney on her email.
Those agencies are responsible for enforcing violations of San Francisco’s sanctuary city law.
On Sunday evening, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested two Guatemalan immigrants at the airport. According to ICE, the two had a 2019 final order of removal from an immigration judge.
Footage caught on multiple bystanders’ cameras shows plainclothes ICE officers restraining a woman who was kneeling on a bench as her young daughter cried nearby.
During the incident, around 20 San Francisco police officers were seen standing in a circle around the ICE agents as the ICE agents conducted enforcement.
A crowd of bystanders formed and several filmed the incident, asking the ICE officers to identify themselves. The agents did not provide any identification, nor did SFPD answer bystanders’ questions about who the agents were.
Attorneys familiar with sanctuary city policy allege that the San Francisco Police Department’s actions at the airport during the federal arrests may present a violation of the city’s sanctuary ordinance and the police department’s own policy directives.
Officer Robert Rueca, an SFPD spokesperson, said in a statement that SFPD officers do not assist in the enforcement of civil federal immigration laws. The SFPD states that its officers arrived in response to a 911 call, and remained at the scene to “maintain public safety.”
Its office did not respond to specific questions regarding whether police presence during the arrest violates departmental policy directives or the city’s ordinance. Instead, a department spokesperson referred to the earlier statement released Monday morning.
“A dozen officers stand in a circle to help officials to take or keep someone in custody. That seems to fit the definition of ‘assisting,'” said Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco public defender’s office. She called the incident “alarming and horrifying.”
“The crowd was furious, but was giving them their distance and was only asking reasonable questions about the identification, and documenting what was happening,” said Nicole Killian, the bystander who filed a complaint.
Killian said she believes that if the SFPD was not present during the arrest, the ICE agents would have been unable to conduct their enforcement operations.
“I was like, you’re not supposed to be helping, but if you’re allowed to crowd control; how is that not helping them?” Killian told Mission Local.
Jordan Wells, a senior staff attorney at the Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights, said that the SFPD’s actions do not seem to fit into the listed exceptions in the state sanctuary law, and likely amount to a violation.
Bill Ong Hing, a longtime immigration attorney, professor of law at University of San Francisco and former police commissioner, said that if there was not an emergency to the public or possible harm coming to the ICE agents, then the SFPD would have violated both the city sanctuary ordinance and the police department’s own policy directives.
But, he said, depending upon the circumstances, “SFPD may argue [the woman being arrested] created a situation where there was a danger to the public.”
What happened
There are, at present, no claims that federal immigration officials overstepped their authority or violated any policies in enacting this arrest.
The San Francisco Police Department, however, is bound to state sanctuary law, San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance and also San Francisco Police Department general orders, which are policy directives.
Immigration attorneys say that by surrounding the ICE officers as they made the arrest, police violated these policies, which bar assisting in immigration enforcement.
“Creating a perimeter around an ICE arrest to keep the public at a distance so that ICE can conduct an arrest appears to be the SFPD using its resources to support an ICE arrest,” sums up Grisel Ruiz, the senior managing attorney of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
“This type of behavior could certainly be construed to violate local and state laws, because the SFPD is using its resources to facilitate an immigration arrest. In other words, the dispatch of local law enforcement to an ICE arrest can be a violation of state and local laws when that assistance supports an immigration arrest.”
There are exceptions to the above referenced laws, Ruiz adds, “but, to my knowledge, they do not apply here.”
Alleged policy violations
San Francisco Police Department policy states that local law enforcement agents “shall not cooperate with or assist ICE/CBP in any investigation, detention, or arrest procedures, public or clandestine, where in any such instance the express or implied purpose is the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
It also bars local police from helping ICE or Customs and Border Protection transport individuals.
Chan says that, aside from assisting ICE, there is no other reason as to why local police were present. “It does not appear there is any crime being committed by any members of the public.”
Local law enforcement is allowed to assist in the case of an emergency, but Chan says of the recorded arrest that it “does not appear a member of the public is threatening safety and it does not appear any violence is occurring.”
Since no crime was being committed by any member of the public, local law enforcement would be in violation of its policy, she said.
At one point during the detention, the older Guatemalan immigrant was put into a wheelchair and wheeled away, and SFPD officers formed a phalanx around the ICE agents.
Chan says the SFPD was essentially escorting the ICE agents as they transported the woman, which would mean the local officers are “assisting” ICE in transportation, an act directly contravened in the SFPD’s policy directives.
The city also has its own sanctuary city ordinance that “prohibits city employees and law enforcement from using city funds or resources to assist federal immigration enforcement (ICE).”
In 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first administration, Chan worked on writing the San Francisco Police Department policy.
“I was alarmed and horrified seeing these videos,” she said. “Because it does show a dozen or more SFPD officers acting as security for ICE and doing precisely what we spent many months creating a policy to prohibit.”
Where’s the rest of the article?
It says someone called 911 and that’s what got sfpd out there to begin with. So . . . WHO called 911 and WHY seems kind of important here. And that should be a public record.
That might even help answer some of the many questions you ask in this article.
I actually can’t believe this is an article. It is there really a need to justify police keeping as stated, an irate crowd away from a Leo situation?
The legality of the situation is ultimately irrelevant. The optics of it are what are going to shape public reactions.
The entire situation puts the SFPD squarely in the position of robustly backing ICE’s operations in a community that they are tasked with protecting.
It’s very clear that none of the people present – the actual residents of SF – feel protected by their own police in this instance. They feel betrayed and even threatened.
The SFPD will have to deal with the fallout of that fact in terms of the loss of trust and cooperation that they now have with their own residents, and their leadership will ultimately have to answer for that.
To be clear, I’m very much not making a legal argument here, just stating some obvious facts regarding the fault this opens between the SFPD and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect.
If all SFPD did was prevent the accumulated crowd of bystanders from getting too close to ICE officers, and thereby potentially causing a confrontation or altercation, then I think that is a reasonable approach.
SFPD are not there to take sides. They are there to preserve public order and safety. Assuming that the detained couple were validly subject to deportation, then I feel comfortable with the neutral stance of SFPD here.
I assume someone called because people in plain clothes who would not give names or badge numbers were harassing a woman and child. It could have been just any person doing that. So, that’s probably why someone called police. The crowd was asking for identification.
Lol, it’s being reported by other news outlets that it was people in the crowd opposing ICE that called the police.
The comment by Nicole Killian seems apt here:
“Killian said she believes that if the SFPD was not present during the arrest, the ICE agents would have been unable to conduct their enforcement operations. ”
What does Killian think would have happened without SFPD? If she is suggesting that the ICE detention would have failed, then that implies s that the crowd were intent on physically impeding federal officers in the legal execution of their duties.
How does Killian think that would have gone down without SFPD to keep them at a safe distance?
They were there has a deterrent so that was not an issue that would have required more than just there presence did not happen either by actions of ice or the public
What part of Judge ordered removal in 2019 and obeying the law do these people not understand? Ask any immigrant who went through proper process to become a U.S. citizen … they will tell you there is a reason to follow the process. Are they you trying to allow terrorists in the U.S. or something?
That lady specifically said without police officers there ICE would not have been able to retain the illegal immigrant. So she knows that the onlookers would get violent without the officers there, as words would not interfere with detaining her. Also she doesn’t seem to mention that it was a member of the public that called 911. Two very specific reasons for the police to stand by as a deterent.
Crowds filming, forming human walls and asking questions to ensure the law is followed are not the ones getting violent. The caller probably suspected the ICE officers were breaking the law or weren’t federal officers at all. That has happened since they are not identifying themselves.
“Killian said she believes that if the SFPD was not present during the arrest, the ICE agents would have been unable to conduct their enforcement operations.”
Actually, no. It just means ICE will have to bring in many more officers to conduct their lawful enforcement operations. This, in turn, makes confrontation and injuries, etc. much more likely. Like it or not, ICE isn’t going to just give up.
How is ICE conducting “lawful” operations when they refused to state their names or badge numbers. These comments supporting the SFPD’s actions in this situation are quite disappointing.