Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have parked their vehicles in a downtown garage owned by the city, and allegedly staged enforcement operations out of the structure — a possible violation of San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency confirmed Friday that the immigration agency is assigned parking spaces inside the Golden Gateway Garage at 250 Clay St.
“We are aware that the [General Services Administration] has assigned parking spaces to the Federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency in the SFMTA’s Golden Gateway garage, as it is located on Clay Street in very close proximity to the ICE field office,” wrote spokesperson Parisa Safarzadeh, director of communications for SFMTA.
The city contracts out garage management to a private entity, IMCO Parking, that in turn subcontracts it to the federal General Services Administration, which supports logistics for other federal agencies.
The city said it is investigating the issue. “We are working with our City Attorney’s Office to explore all options related to our contractual agreement at this time,” Safarzadeh wrote.
“Any use of city garages to stage ICE enforcement activity is not in line with the SFMTA and city values. We are working with IMCO Parking, our parking garage management vendor, to understand and ensure any use of our city garage adheres to our local laws.”
The ICE agents have been working out of the garage for at least a year, said activists who have tracked ICE activity in and around the federal building at 630 Sansome St. This site was the epicenter of immigration arrests — and heated protests against them — last year. Immigrants are still arrested at that building.
During those protests, ICE agents and activists clashed repeatedly and violently on downtown streets. Several ICE vehicles were involved. In a July 2025 confrontation, an ICE SUV drove through a crowd of protesters, and a woman holding onto its hood was thrown off onto the street.
The use of a city-owned parking lot for immigration enforcement purposes may violate city and state sanctuary laws, which prohibit collaboration between local municipalities and federal immigration agencies, said Angela Chan, the assistant chief attorney in the San Francisco public defender’s office. She helped to draft some of those laws.
“SFMTA is responsible for overseeing city-owned garages and ensuring they are not used to facilitate ICE operations, directly or through private contractors,” Chan said.
The arrangement involves at least three layers. The city contracts a private firm, IMCO, to operate the garage. IMCO then subcontracts a portion of the lot to the General Services Administration. And that agency in turn assigns parking spaces to ICE.
Safarzadeh said that the SFMTA was aware of its operators’ subcontract with the federal government when it was signed, but said that contract “does not specify which federal agency the GSA assigns to the property.”
It is unclear if the SFMTA knew about ICE’s use of the parking lot before Mission Local’s inquiries on Friday.
Mission Local visited the garage Friday afternoon and observed a barricaded section filled with unmarked cars with federal government license plates, including a row of white vans. No ICE officers or other federal officials could be seen.
But video footage of a violent arrest of an immigrant outside the Concord Immigration Court in October of last year, reviewed by Mission Local, shows a blue Nissan SUV used by ICE with the same license plate as one parked inside the garage.
Activists say they have seen agents inside the lot standing in uniform. They also said a vehicle involved in a recent violent Oakland arrest that left an immigrant hospitalized was observed leaving the lot.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who authored legislation that prevents immigration enforcement on city property, was not aware of ICE’s presence at the city-owned garage until Mission Local raised the issue.
Mahmood said he is “working with city officials to determine exactly what happened, how this space was used, and whether our laws were violated.”