Chaos erupted after ICE arrested an asylum-seeker at the courthouse
by MARGARET KADIFA and JOE RIVANO BARROS
August 20, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
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Federal immigration agents pepper-sprayed protesters and a reporter in San Francisco on Wednesday after arresting an asylum-seeker in immigration court that morning.
In a chaotic street scene caught on video, the agents pulled out batons and tasers and tackled several protesters to the ground, detaining at least one.
As has become routine, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an asylum-seeker after a hearing at San Francisco’s immigration court, and were transporting them to their headquarters a half-mile away when protesters intervened.
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ICE officers encountered about 20 people who had gathered outside the court at 100 Montgomery St. Immigrants legally seeking asylum have been routinely arrested after their court hearings and flown to far-flung detention centers, and protesters often congregate outside court.
https://videopress.com/embed/yo4w44hk?cover=1&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=1&hd=0Protesters captured chaotic scenes outside San Francisco immigration court on Wednesday, as ICE agents tackled several people to the ground.
Witnesses said the two sides squared off — protesters trying to stop the vehicles, and ICE agents trying to get through.
“This car has ICE in it!” one protester yelled. “ICE is not welcome in San Francisco!” said another through a bullhorn as protesters stood in front of a silver minivan holding signs reading, “Stop your car to block ICE.”
Video shows masked ICE agents disembarking from the minivan and wielding batons to push the protesters aside.
“The protesters and the ICE agents were facing off … and there were probably like 30-40 passers by, stopped, staring, filming,” said Zenobia Pellissier Lloyd, a freelance photographer and former Mission Local intern.
Pellissier Lloyd said traffic and a Muni bus had effectively blocked the ICE vehicles in. The ICE vehicles then turned around and sped down a one-way street, she said.
Video shows the protesters then chasing the van down the street.
About a dozen ICE agents headed toward 630 Sansome St., the ICE headquarters about a half mile away, followed by protesters. Pellissier Lloyd said the crowd shouted after them.
“It was just, ‘Shame! Shame! Shame!’ Someone had a megaphone saying, ‘These are ICE agents kidnapping our neighbors,” she said. “It was just a lot of, ‘What are you so afraid of? … How do you sleep at night? What will your children think of you?’”
The ICE agents were “holding each other’s arms, hands on each other’s shoulders, saying “Stay close, stay close,” Pellissier Lloyd said. “They were blocking cameras, they were randomly lashing out at people … They all had their weapons out, tasers ready.”
Several videos show ICE agents tussling with protesters, tackling at least four to the ground, zip-tying several, and pointing their tasers. At one point, an ICE agent “decides to turn and pepper-spray four people” about a block from the ICE headquarters, Pellissier Lloyd said.
One of them was a reporter with the online news site Gazetteer, who wrote that he was hit directly and “fell to the ground.”
“In a literal second, the agent pulled out his pepper gel, sprayed the protester next to me, and then shot a stream straight into my eyes,” the reporter, Eddie Kim, wrote.
Once the ICE agents arrived at HQ, “I turned and saw one protester on the ground, two ICE agents on top of them, and then dragging them into 630 Sansome,” Pellissier Lloyd said.
Mission Local has reached out to ICE for comment.
Wednesday’s detention marks the second time the Department of Homeland Security has detained a protester in San Francisco recently. On Aug. 8, ICE detained two protesters outside of the field office on Sansome.
Both of the people detained earlier this month were U.S. citizens. It was unclear if the protester detained on Wednesday was.
On Wednesday afternoon, the chaos outside could be felt inside the courtrooms as well.
Mission Local did not see any arrests at afternoon hearings. But one family was visibly shaken.
An asylum-seeker who appeared with two family members — including a child — asked the judge hearing his case, Arwen Swink, if he could appear by video for his next hearing.
“This is very tense for us,” he told Swink in Spanish through an interpreter. “This is the first day I feel afraid.”
A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security objected, citing department policy.
In recent months, asylum-seekers have been increasingly trying to appear remotely because of the arrests at San Francisco’s courtrooms.
Swink pushed back on the Homeland Security attorney.
There is “value” to in-person hearings, Swink said. But, the judge added, “many, many” immigrants have said they are afraid.
“The court does not condone using these facilities for any purposes that would generate fear,” Swink said, quickly adding the attorney himself may not be intending to do so.
Swink granted the man’s request to appear remotely in the future.
“Amen,” he said.
Immigrants like the man who was arrested this morning who are able to quickly connect with an attorney are sometimes released on habeas corpus petitions. Such petitions argue, often successfully in California, that their detention is a violation of their due process rights.
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MARGARET KADIFA
I’m covering immigration. My background includes stints at The Economist in print and podcasting as well as reporting from The Houston Chronicle and elsewhere.More by Margaret Kadifa
JOE RIVANO BARROSSENIOR EDITOR
joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com
Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and then spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time at YIMBY Action and as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023. You can reach him on Signal @jrivanob.99.More by Joe Rivano Barros
