At least 30 people have been detained in San Francisco under Trump following immigration court hearings
by MARGARET KADIFA July 10, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
Immigration agents agents arrested four people Thursday morning outside of immigration courtrooms in downtown San Francisco.
Mission Local witnessed one of the arrests in the hallway outside of the courtrooms at 630 Sansome St., an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office that contains some of San Francisco’s immigration courtrooms and a short-term detention facility.
The man left the courtroom following his hearing. Mission Local saw him handcuffed in the hallway outside the courtroom, surrounded by ICE agents and the building’s security staff.
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More public arrests have prompted protests in San Francisco, including one this week in which an ICE agent brandished a gun at protesters outside of San Francisco’s main immigration court location at 100 Montgomery St. Video captured agents driving an SUV through a group of protesters trying to block it, throwing a woman off the hood.
The arrests at the ICE field office at 630 Sansome St. are less public. People arrested at the main courthouse at 100 Montgomery St. are typically taken to the ICE office for processing. Protesters then spot migrants being loaded into vans outside of the courthouse en route to the ICE office, and tip off others protesting and documenting there.
But if someone is arrested at the ICE field office, they can be taken for processing without leaving the building.
All four people arrested Thursday appeared to be in court for routine hearings related to their asylum claims. In all four cases, an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss the men’s cases, a new tactic the department is using to place asylum-seekers in a fast track to removal from the United States.
The federal attorney said “circumstances have changed” in the men’s cases “to such an extent” that continuing their asylum cases was no longer in the interest of the department. The attorney did not offer further details to the judge or the four migrants.
The judge at the court, Patrick O’Brien, gave the men a month to find lawyers and to respond to Homeland Security’s motion.
He did not immediately dismiss the cases, but the four men were arrested following the court hearing anyway, another novel tactic that Homeland Security is using to move people out of San Francisco courts to locations that may have judges more sympathetic to Trump administration policy.
O’Brien told the men during their court hearings he thought it was unlikely they would appear in his court again, though he did set another hearing, in case he was wrong.
“No matter what you decide today, it’s very likely you’re not going to come back to this court,” O’Brien told the men, in court. “I know this is confusing and complicated,” O’Brien later said.
When one man asked for more clarity, O’Brien said: “I’m not sure why they picked your case [to dismiss],” referring to the Department of Homeland Security.
All four of the men seemed confused by the motion to dismiss. They huddled in the back of the courtroom with a lawyer, made available through an attorney-of-the-day program organized by the Bar Association of San Francisco to provide free legal advice. None of the men had attorneys with them in court that day.
Three of the men had their hearings almost immediately as the court was called into session at 8:30 a.m. Yet they huddled in the back of the courtroom until after 10 a.m., as the attorney of the day explained to them in Spanish it was likely they would be detained.
People are often processed and detained for a few hours at 630 Sansome St. before being sent to a longer-term detention facility elsewhere in California or the United States.
It was not clear where the four men were ultimately headed. In addition to attending immigration court, migrants often go to 630 Sansome St. for routine check-ins with ICE. In recent months, ICE has arrested people at these check-ins, too.
