ICE agents keep snatching asylum seekers immediately after their court hearings

This story was originally published by Mission Local, a nonprofit newsroom covering San Francisco. You can donate to them here.

Three asylum-seekers were arrested Friday directly after court hearings at San Francisco immigration court, continuing a weeks-long pattern of federal agents waiting just outside courtrooms and arresting people as they step into the halls. 

Mission Local saw all three arrests, which took place at 630 Sansome Street, which houses an ICE field office and several courtrooms. The first was at about 8:40 a.m., when a woman, surrounded by people who appeared to be ICE agents, was handcuffed in the hallway outside of the courtroom.

The second and third arrests were later that morning, before noon. In both cases, asylum-seekers had barely stepped outside the courtroom when about five federal agents, some of whom clearly wore Immigration and Customs Enforcement badges, arrested them. They were swarmed and directed through a nearby door.

In all three cases, a Department of Homeland Security attorney had moved to dismiss the asylum-seekers’ petition, a novel tactic the Trump administration is using to arrest immigrants and put them on a fast-track to deportations. In at least two of the three cases, the judge did not accept the attorney’s motion. 

Instead, the judge gave the asylum-seeker time to respond in writing, which should have given them protections from deportation. But, as has happened routinely in San Francisco, ICE agents arrested them anyway.

They are likely to be taken to detention centers in California or even outside the state. There are no centers near San Francisco, so for most people arrested at court, it means travel to far-flung parts of the state like the Golden State Annex in McFarland or Mesa Verde in Bakersfield.

Friday’s arrests are the latest at increasingly-tense courtrooms in San Francisco: ICE has made more than 30 arrests after court hearings since May 27, and on Friday agents, at least one of whom was armed, walked up and down the hallways outside the courtrooms, waiting to make arrests. 

Those inside the courtroom are more fearful than ever: One woman, who arrived at court with a young child, started crying in the back of the courtroom. When the judge asked her how she was, she told him in Spanish through an interpreter, “Nervous.” 

While immigration attorneys giving free legal advice have typically conferred with asylum-seekers in a private room, on Friday and, at a different courtroom at 630 Sansome Street on July 10, they huddled in the back of the courtrooms instead. The attorneys knew that if they stepped out into the halls even en route to give legal advice, the asylum-seekers would be detained immediately. 

These attorneys, dispatched to court by the Bar Association of San Francisco under the “Attorney of the Day Program,” also collect contact information of relatives, so they can be told that their family member may be detained.

But even that simple communication is facing increasing scrutiny from court security. 

On Friday, a security guard came into the courtroom and tried to get an asylum-seeker—whose case DHS had moved to dismiss and who was about to be arrested—to put away his phone while in court as he spoke with the immigration attorney. The attorney pushed back and stood between the guard and the asylum-seeker.

“He’s about to be arrested outside,” she said. He would not be able to contact his attorney out in the hall, he said, “because he’s about to be arrested.” 

The security guard relented. But he stood just a few feet from the asylum-seeker, occasionally looking over his shoulder, as the man whispered to his lawyer and continued to text.

Electronics are not allowed in court, though the rule has not always been strictly enforced. Mission Local has observed security guards cracking down, and on Friday a guard told two court observers to put their phones away.

In a different courtroom at 630 Sansome Street on July 10, Mission Local saw a security guard raise his voice at a member of the public who was observing court for having her phone out. The judge in that courtroom, Patrick O’Brien, told the security guard to let him handle it.