ICE Arrests at Bay Area Immigration Courts Are Meant to Stoke Fear, Advocates Say

Four of the arrests, which took place Tuesday in the halls of San Francisco’s immigration court on Montgomery Street, came after attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security asked judges to reject the individuals’ requests for asylum.

Last week, a man was arrested in Concord’s immigration courthouse after his case was thrown out by a judge, but Knox said that on Tuesday, some of those arrested still had active cases after judges rejected the attorneys’ motions to dismiss them.

Immigration advocates speaking to a crowd of at least 100 people gathered outside the downtown San Francisco immigration court facility Wednesday said the arrests and deportations are designed to stoke fear and undermine immigrants’ rights.

“The rights of immigrant children, of our immigrant communities here in San Francisco and Sacramento and Concord, are constantly shifting. They’re trying to keep us on our back foot,” said Fernando Antunez, a social worker with the nonprofit Legal Services for Children.

Immigration enforcement officials were seen at San Francisco’s downtown immigration court every day last week, and on at least one day at similar facilities in Concord and Sacramento.

Similar ICE presence and enforcement actions have been reported at immigration courts across the country, including in Phoenix and New York.

But on Wednesday, with the crowd gathered outside, ICE officials were not in the San Francisco court building, said Sanika Mahajan, the director of community engagement and organizing at Mission Action.

“There are dozens of us here in the streets, there are dozens more upstairs accompanying our immigrants to their court appointments, and ICE is nowhere to be found,” she told the crowd at the press conference. “That is what happens when we show our people power.”

The ICE enforcement efforts are part of a DHS campaign to increase deportations under President Trump, who has pledged to deport at least 1 million undocumented immigrants during the first year of his term.

DHS said in a statement that it is “implementing the rule of law,” which allows for the expedited deportation of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally less than two years ago.