Bay Area attorneys could not remember similar charges filed against an ICE protester before
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Federal agents arrested a protester outside the San Francisco immigration court on Wednesday and charged the protester with two federal misdemeanors: Destruction of property and assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer.
Bay Area attorneys say this is the first time they can remember Department of Homeland Security authorities filing such charges filed against a citizen in San Francisco. While protesters have been charged by federal agents in Los Angeles, moving the practice north is a sign of “escalation,” said Angela Chan, the city’s assistant chief public defender.
The protester, a U.S. citizen who asked to be identified by her first name, Angélica, was arrested around 10 a.m. yesterday during a chaotic street scene: Video showed ICE agents tackling several protesters to the ground after a crowd tried to stop ICE from transporting an asylum-seeker whom agents had arrested that morning.
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Angélica allegedly had a knife, slashed the front left tire of an ICE van, and threatened an agent, according to prosecutors’ complaint.
She was one of those filmed being zip-tied and led away, her head wrapped in a keffiyeh and held down by officers. Angélica, a trans woman from an immigrant family, was brought into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters at 630 Sansome St. without a cellphone, her partner, Renee, said.
A day passed before her family heard from Angélica again.
Holding a citizen at an ICE building is “unheard of,” Chan said. Earlier this month, ICE agents detained two protesters in downtown San Francisco for the first time in recent memory.
Supporters spent the rest of Wednesday checking the inmate logs of every jail in the area, Renee said, trying to find Angélica. The gym Angélica works at in Oakland closed to let her co-workers join the search. One supporter reached out to Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Around midnight, Renee said, Angélica’s name finally appeared on a list of people held at Santa Rita jail in Alameda County. Angélica told family members that there was no access to a phone or an attorney in the holding cell.
Angélica said the sheriff’s deputies appeared confused: They did not seem to know what to do with someone brought over by federal agents.
At 7 a.m. on Thursday, Angélica’s name disappeared from the Santa Rita logs, Renee said. Two hours later, Angélica’s supporters learned that she was scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. at 10:30 a.m.
Unlike most defendants who are arrested on federal charges, Angélica was never in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, and was brought to Santa Rita instead by officers with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE. ICE officers also took Angélica to federal court.
Angélica, a born and raised San Franciscan, was represented by federal public defender Samantha Jaffe, who declined to comment. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ordered Angélica be released until a pending court date in September.
ICE agents can make arrests only in “extremely specific circumstances,” Chan said. “They must witness a federal felony offense in front of them while engaging in immigration-related enforcement and have completed requisite training.”
Angélica has been ordered to stay away from the immigration courts at 100 Montgomery St. and 630 Sansome St. Federal prosecutors had requested an order to keep Angélica from all federal buildings and officers, Renee said, but Judge Kim noted that this would be impractical — Angélica has to attend her own hearings, after all, and federal agents aren’t always visible.
Her case has caused an outcry among labor, immigrant, queer and trans community groups.
“SEIU 1021 members were outraged to learn that Angélica, a U.S. citizen and the child of one of our own members, was violently arrested by ICE in San Francisco while exercising her First Amendment rights,” wrote Theresa Rutherford, the president of the service employees’ union.
Renee said that Angélica was “standing up for all the things the mayor says he supports, but has been silent on.”
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ABIGAIL VÂN NEELY
Abigail covers criminal justice, accountability, and behavioral health. She’s originally from New York City, where she was a youth advocate and watched hundreds of arraignments. Now, she enjoys foggy San Francisco mornings with her cat, Sally Carrera. (Yes, the shelter did in fact name the cat after the Porsche from the animated movie Cars.)More by Abigail Vân Neely
