by ELENI BALAKRISHNAN and JOE RIVANO BARROS
June 8, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
Hundreds of protesters who rallied against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Francisco on Sunday night got into a standoff with dozens of police officers, ending hours later with the arrest of about 60 people.
The crowd began assembling outside the ICE headquarters at 630 Sansome St. around 6 p.m. The mostly peaceful protest escalated once people noticed police vans full of officers in riot gear awaiting 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!”
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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, with one transported to a hospital, the statement said.
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 Latino-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 — 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.”
ELENI BALAKRISHNAN
Eleni reports on policing and criminal justice in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @miss_elenius.More by Eleni Balakrishnan
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
More demonstrations:
Today 6:00 PM, SF: https://occupyoakland.org/event/the-bay-area-demands-ice-out-of-our-communities/?instance_id=316572
Tomorrow 6:00 PM, Fruitvale BART: https://occupyoakland.org/event/the-bay-stands-with-la-interfaith-vigil/
