September 24, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
Mission Local has been covering immigration enforcement in San Francisco for months, attending asylum hearings, reporting on protests and diving deep into the data on how many people Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested.
A lot has happened in that time. Readers could be forgiven for tuning out the news. The MAGA approach to PR, as articulated by Steve Bannon, is to focus on “muzzle velocity” and flood the zone with news.
To bring you up to speed, here’s what’s happened in San Francisco over the past nine months.
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Jan. 20, 2025
The same day President Donald Trump took office, he issued dozens of orders, including one to expand a process known as “expedited removal,” which U.S. immigration officials had used along the border to quickly return immigrants to their home countries.
Instead of limiting it to the border area, it could now be used across the country to remove any undocumented immigrant “physically present in the country for less than two years.”
It quickly became clear in San Francisco and other large cities that ICE agents found it most convenient to arrest immigrants attending regularly scheduled hearings at federal immigration courts.
Mission Local was among the first to cover these arrests, and often continues to be the only local media that goes daily to the courtrooms at 100 Montgomery St. and 630 Sansome St.
June 5: ICE makes 15 arrests at field office
ICE agents begin rounding up immigrants, including children, and using expedited removal. June 5 is the first day of mass arrests in San Francisco.
June 6: ICE keeps arresting asylum-seekers at court
The first case of expedited removal comes in late May, but by June 6, the immigration courts at 630 Sansome St. and 100 Montgomery St. become the focus for ICE arrests. Immigrants attending regularly scheduled asylum hearings are arrested as they leave the courtroom.
June 10: Protests erupt
Arrests from regular check-ins provoke protests that shut down immigration court for a day.
June 11: Federal attorneys try to dismiss asylum cases
San Francisco lawyers say there is no question that the Trump tactic of expedited removal is being used at the courthouse. Immigrants seeking asylum who once had protection while their cases were decided no longer have that protection.
“The tactic is unlawful,” said Milli Atkinson, the Immigrant Legal Defense Program Director for the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco.
June 11: Conservative judges weigh in
One of the first asylum-seekers arrested in San Francisco has his case transferred to a more conservative judge elsewhere in the state, and the new judge sides with the Department of Homeland Security.
June 13: Colombian detained
Friends talk about a Colombian immigrant in detention.
“He was following the rules that were in place at that moment,” said one friend. “He didn’t break the law. He showed up.”
Jafet Santiago Diaz had studied economics and graphic design at a university in Colombia, the friend said, but had to flee before he could get his degree.
July 8: More protests prompt backlash
ICE agents drive a van through protestors gathered outside of immigration court.
Video of the incident captured by Mission Local makes it to the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and more.
July 15: Asylum-seeker asks to be deported
In a development that would be repeated, Mission Local witnesses an immigrant give up his asylum case and ask for voluntary removal. He feared being detained by ICE.
The judge granted his request for voluntary departure.
“Thank you for the opportunity to be in this country,” the man told the judge.
July 18: Trump fires sympathetic judges
In a tactic that would become increasingly common, Trump fires another San Francisco immigration judge, bringing the total to four fired since April.
Three of them granted asylum cases at a rate higher than the national average.
July 29 & 30: Immigrants sent to detention centers in Arizona and Hawaii
One of those arrested was a man whose courtroom demeanor — he was mumbling to himself through the morning — led the immigration-court judge to say he appeared to be mentally impaired.
“It’s obvious to me that there are competency issues,” the judge, Patrick O’Brien, said at the time. ICE arrested the man moments later, anyway.
July 30: More than 2,000 immigrants have been arrested by ICE in Northern California and the Pacific
“Look, we’re going to deport you no matter what,” one immigrant was told. “You sign, or you don’t sign. I have to deport you. So it’s better that you sign your removal now. It’ll be quicker.”
Aug. 1: He hardly knows Mexico
In California, one man used to wake at 4 a.m. to head to Wente Vineyards, where, for nine years, he’d weld, or maneuver hulking mechanical harvesters to pull grapes from the vines. Now, he’s been deported to a Mexican town he hardly knows — and there is no work.
Aug. 6: Habeas corpus petitions
The arrests continue, but lawyers begin to have some luck in getting defendants released by filing habeas corpus petitions.
After his release, a 20-year-old asylum-seeker headed home immediately. Within 30 minutes, he was walking into his family’s kitchen, to cries of joy from his mother, who immediately flung her arms around him.
Aug. 14: 80 years of immigration history at 630 Sansome St.
Detainees who have stayed overnight at the ICE field office recently said that the cells are cold, and they sometimes have to sleep on the floor with just a Mylar blanket.
Aug. 22: Trump fires a fifth judge
Again, the judge had a high asylum clearance rate: 96.5 percent.
Aug. 29: Judge rejects Trump’s expansion of expedited removal
Sept. 3: Trump fires a sixth judge
Some of the fired judges were relatively new to their positions and still in their two-year probationary period, which makes it easier to terminate their employment.
But Judge Shira Levine, who was hired in 2021, had surpassed this window. Judge Chloe S. Dillon had also surpassed her two-year probationary period.
Sept. 4: ICE continues arresting, despite judge’s order
ICE officers arrest five people in immigration court — the first known arrests in court since a federal judge blocked Trump’s expansion of expedited removal.
Sept. 7: Immigration court illustrated
Mission Local sends illustrator Neil Ballard to draw up a morning of asylum hearings.
Sept. 18: ACLU sues ICE over San Francisco conditions
The plaintiffs allege that conditions inside 630 Sansome are unconstitutional.
The holding cells on the sixth floor of the building have “no beds,” and asylum seekers are “forced to sleep on metal benches or directly on the floor … with nothing more than a thin plastic or foil blanket or a thin mat.”
Sept. 19: Hundreds of Filipinx activists march against ICE in San Francisco
Help us cover ICE in San Francisco
Mission Local has been covering immigration enforcement in San Francisco day in and day out — on the streets and in the courts.
As the Trump administration invests $170 billion in ICE, we want to make an investment of our own: $300,000 — $100,000 a year for Trump’s remaining three years — to hire a full-time immigration reporter.
MORE ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
How can you prepare if you or a loved one are detained by ICE?
Hundreds of Filipinx activists march against ICE in San Francisco
Man with 10-by-12-inch tumor escapes ICE detention in S.F., for now
NEIL G. BALLARD
Neil G. Ballard is a cartoonist and muralist living and working in San Francisco, California.More by Neil G. Ballard
