More than 150 people, including six juveniles, were arrested by San Francisco police officers on Sunday, after hundreds of protesters rallied against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and got into a standoff with dozens of police officers.
The San Francisco Police Department said Monday that 148 adults and six juveniles had been had been arrested. All but one of the adults were cited and released.
The arrests took place after a crowd assembled outside the ICE headquarters at 630 Sansome St. around 6 p.m. on Sunday. The mostly peaceful protest escalated once people noticed police vans full of officers in riot gear waiting the next block over.
The gathering crowd yelled, “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” and held signs that read “Fuck ICE.” A man shouted at the assembled officers: “You guys need to stand up, too!”
Dozens of San Francisco police officers trickled in from vans, and the crowd of hundreds stationed outside the ICE headquarters moved toward to the police at Jackson Street, formed a line, and began pushing towards the officers.
A couple people threw eggs and at least one glass bottle. The officers formed a cordon line, and a standoff ensued for some 40 minutes, until SFPD declared unlawful assembly at 7:33 p.m.
Crowd members brought metal barricades to form a barrier between them and officers, and the police used them to push back against the crowd. Officers rushed the crowd soon after. At that point, at least one person was tackled to the ground and arrested.
Spear Minteh, 35, said an officer reached out and hit him in the chest as police advanced toward protesters.
“It seemed like they were just angry,” said Minteh, who added that he hasn’t been to protests in years, since those with Occupy Wall Street. Today, hearing the news in Los Angeles, he felt compelled to come out. “I wasn’t expecting it to get violent.”
SFPD continued pushing the crowd block by block down Sansome Street, in San Francisco’s Financial District, and ushered dispersal orders throughout.
As of 8:30 p.m., the crowd had largely dissipated from near the ICE headquarters, but people spread around the downtown area, tagging buildings and pulling trash bins into the street. At one point, glass storefronts at Chase Bank and Fendi were smashed in.
A few blocks away, video showed several dozen protesters were barricaded by police and threatened with arrest after 9 p.m., and eventually officers began zip-tying and arresting members of the crowd one by one as of 11 p.m. Also around 9 p.m., BART had closed Embarcadero Station “due to civil disturbance on Market Street.” Trains resumed service as usual by 9:50 p.m.
A police spokesperson said that the department declared an unlawful assembly after some in the crowd “became violent” and committed crimes ranging from “assault to felony vandalism.”
While many dispersed, the statement said that “a small group” refused to leave the 200 block of Montgomery Street, and officers arrested some 60 people, including juveniles, and recovered one firearm.
Two officers suffered minor injuries, and one was transported to a hospital, the statement said. The one man who was held after arrest was charged with assault on a police officer, removing a weapon from a police officer, and resisting arrest.
Mayor Daniel Lurie defended the police, writing that “violent and destructive behavior” led to the arrests.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder arrived at the mass arrest a little before 11 p.m., asking to speak to Commander Derrick Lew. He told her the protest was “not straight First Amendment stuff,” as two officers had been injured. Fielder criticized the number of police officers on scene; many dozens, and at least a dozen vehicles.
A sergeant told Fielder that most of those arrested would be cited and released. The final protesters were loaded into vans at around 2 a.m., five hours after arrests began.
The protest was called by several groups, including NorCal Resist, to rally against deportation arrests that have ramped up this week across the country, including in San Francisco: At least 15 people were arrested during their check-ins with ICE in the city this week, including several children.
In another incident, a 39-year-old mother of two was arrested after being told to check in with her case officer in San Francisco. Within 36 hours, she had been put on a plane to an Arizona detention center, separated from her husband, 10-year-old daughter, and 5-year-old son.
The protest was also called in solidarity with actions in Los Angeles over the past three days: Thousands of people have taken over streets to push back against deportation raids there, especially in the Latinx-heavy city of Paramount.
“They’re kidnapping people, and they’re just taking them off the streets with no due process,” said Kathleen Dobson, who was in the crowd today and said she was disturbed by recent events. “It can happen to any of us. We need to fight for those who’s can’t.”
President Donald Trump, in response, has deployed some 2,000 National Guard troops over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objection. It’s the first time a president has done so since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson brought the National Guard to Alabama over the objections of Gov. George Wallace.
Then, the troops were meant to protect civil rights protesters marching from Selma to Montgomery. Trump, on Sunday, wrote that he was calling out troops to “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.”
Great reporting! Thank you for covering this protest in detail — LA got a lot of press but didn’t realize we had one here. And thanks to all who are speaking out against the unjust actions of our federal government.
“Waymo suspends car service in downtown Los Angeles”
Hey, protest works?
It is becoming clearer with each passing day that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants is just a preamble to a full-blown coup and crackdown on ALL opponents to it.
Today, the World Socialist Web Site, the world’s most-read socialist online publication, provides an authoritative perspective which should be read by everyone who wants defend immigrants in the United States:
Seven Days in June: Trump’s unfolding coup d’état
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/06/09/wuor-j09.html
Whether one is a socialist or not, the editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site has consistently described and predicted today’s dizzying events with an accuracy that puts all other major news outlets to shame.
Today it warns workers and immigrants against taking futile or spontaneous actions of resistance that could play into Trump’s hands.
What is necessary (and I completely agree) is that workers prepare for mass resistance in every factory, workplace and neighborhood to prepare for a general strike!
SFBOS must reject the billionaire “gift” of $9 million for drones for a police force that’s taking ICE’s side over the people of San Francisco.
This isn’t ICE vs. San Francisco. This is just enforcing federal laws that are widely supported. Please don’t claim to speak for anyone other than yourself — you don’t represent the people of San Francisco.
What happens when you are trying to get legal status and going through proper steps and you report to the proper agency and are arrested while in the process? Full stop. What then? G?
This is exactly the point. If people are being arrested and processed outside of the usual norms to circumvent due process, that’s illegal. Full stop. If done because of political optics, that’s corrupt and illegal.
Thanks for reporting
The right to free speech , freedom to assemble is being challenged .
Everyone should have the right to protest as long as done in a nonviolent peaceful manner.
All
It take one to act up or one officer to do something incorrectly and then it escalates .
I didnt think troops are to be used in us except for an insurrection
I thought the national guard is called to come by the governor .
Even if people are here illegally they are entitled to due process .
America has lost its way
This situation solves nothing and only cause harm
Tragic
In your article you say that the small group of people “ refused to leave”, they were not allowed to leave. They were completely surrounded by officers and when attempting to leave the group they were individually arrested. They were forced to stay for hours on Montgomery street as police enforced their intimidation techniques.
They were kettled by SFPD. Peaceful demonstartors.
Burning Waymos in la, breaking windows and tagging stuff in sf. The “protestors” might as well be paid by trump.
This is trumps only “good” issue (where he has a majority support) and he is pushing it for distraction from having f-ed up everything else,
The “progressives” just love to fall into his traps…
With “friends’ like these protestors fascism will definitely come..
I guess it was all those who protested and fought against nazis that brought them to power and not the silence and compliance of those who feared to speak out against racism and fascism. Which side are you on? Peace at what cost? Who will be around to speak out when they come for you? Will you go silently when they target you and your community?
Waymos are garbage and we can afford to lose a few. Protesting is an American right and tradition. The vast majority weren’t setting fires or tagging anything.
Being stupid is also a right as you choose to observe.
Ah yes, the “vast majority” excuse. Unfortunately, the violence says much about the protester’s respect for the law.
Are you paying for the burned up stuff? You can blow,it off when you pick up the tab.
Unfortunately, what large parts of the country see is burning Waymos and combi-us/mexican flags.
If you want to elect republicans (or establish a fascist state) good images.
Only way to fix this is for the protesters who damaged stuff to be arrested, charged, convicted, and sent away quickly.
To Diana Neal: I have a friend who is from the Sioux nation: he is going to send the native american immigration services to your house; please start packing your bag.
Boy, throwing objects at cops, fighting cops, smashing storefront windows, setting cars on fire, and waving Mexican flags. Clearly MAGA moles and agitators were sent in to sabotage the LA and SF protests and turn public opinion against them because nobody else in their right mind would engage in such counterproductive activities. Peaceful protest works, so let’s keep the MAGA subterfuge out of them.
Why would someone bring eggs and glass bottles to a “peaceful protest” except to start trouble with police officers on duty to keep things peaceful?
When you march against ICE, you should not carry flags from other countries. It sort of makes Trump’s point. At least visually.
It is odd that the article implies that somehow it was the presence of police that caused the escalation. If the protesters had shown up with an intent that the protest be peaceful then the presence of police away from the protest would not have been a concern. But, they obviously never intended the protest to be peaceful and were eager to find an excuse for violence.
Seems Mission Local isn’t bias at all and still continues to misrepresent the truth. Of course it was the police fault things escalated. When the protesters noticed police nearby their “mostly peaceful protest” suddenly escalated. Right. What about the assaults and vandalism before the police got there?
So your actual violence is considered peaceful. But when people call you stupid its violence against you? Make up your mind. It can’t have it both ways. If you didn’t have double standards, you would have no standards at all.
Mission Local is the type of organization that would blame a victim whose home was broken into and say they shouldn’t own a home.
Nonsense is one word, in English. Maybe think twice before posting drunk?
What country doesn’t require citizens to be legal?
What country gives an entire set of laws called the Constitution such lavish praise and flag-waving fanfare, then chooses to ignore them when politically expedient?
A former country.
What country you ask? There’s an answer to that: Deep red farm country, it is. Where decades ago, farmers figured how filling out that paperwork to bring in seasonal workers from south of the border every year was becoming too tedious. So they rather sat the local Sheriffs departments down for a talk.
If you can’t prove legal status, sorry you have to leave the country. No matter how long you have been in the country. Full stop.
the entire POINT is that they aren’t giving them a chance to prove legal status. Do you not read any of this? They’re snatching people off the street and just dragging them off. One lady was literally there with her kids to go to a hearing to decide if her paperwork was approved and they just took her. THAT is the damn point. It’s literally in the constitution that they be giving the opportunity in court. Even if it’s a 10 minute hearing!
In my view, those who actively subvert our constitutional rights should pack their things and leave, no mater how long you have been in the country, FULL STOP
Maybe stop watching garbage news propaganda and read the document.