5 days ago
Protests held over ICE arrests at San Francisco, Sacramento immigration courthouses
Immigrant rights advocates rallied at immigration courthouses in San Francisco and Sacramento on Wednesday morning to show their outrage over the Trump administration's arrests of people seeking asylum.
The organizations said at the dual protests that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents' arrests at immigration courts are an attempt to bypass the legal system and an attack on due process rights.
Last week, rights groups were at immigration courts on Montgomery Street in San Francisco's downtown, at the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, and in Concord, warning immigrants that authorities were dismissing their cases to have ICE agents arrest them outside the courthouses.
Immigration rights advocates rally at San Francisco Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery Street, May 28, 2025.
KPIX
The operation by ICE to place certain immigrants into an expedited removal process after their arrest began last week at immigration courthouses across the country. The process fast-tracks their deportation without a court hearing, bypassing the huge backlog of pending cases.
Rights advocates said multiple people at the San Francisco and Concord immigration courts as recently as Tuesday. In addition, posters have been placed at courthouses encouraging people to "self-deport" with misleading information that can jeopardize people's legal situation.
"I've been an immigration attorney for 10 years, and I have never seen an ICE arrest in immigration court," said Luis Angel Reyes Savalza from the San Francisco Public Defender's Office. "It is seen as something that is looked down upon by immigration judges who know that this chills the attendance of clients in court, witnesses who are then afraid to come to court. These are rights that people have under the law, under the constitution that this administration and ICE agents are trying to trample upon."
Last week, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said in a statement that the Trump administration was acting because of Biden administration policies to release migrants with notices to appear in immigration court, instead of trying to deport them quickly through expedited removal.
