On Friday morning, District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood wanted to take a look inside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in San Francisco, where the bulk of the city’s ICE arrests have taken place. But the building’s security had other plans.
They promptly turned Mahmood away. Security told him that threats to ICE agents have spiked across the country, and they could not take unscheduled tours. Mahmood, a security guard said, had not made an appointment.
It’s the first time a city supervisor has been turned away at the 630 Sansome St. headquarters.
Since late September, three other city supervisors — Jackie Fielder, Matt Dorsey and Chyanne Chen — have toured the ICE facilities, all without an appointment. They’ve sat in on court hearings to better understand the system and the fears of the city’s immigrants.
Mahmood let out a sigh after he was turned away. “You can put that on record,” he said standing in an elevator to exit the building.
It wasn’t totally uneventful. Mahmood earlier that morning entered Judge Joseph Park’s courtroom to witness the immigration hearings where all cases have been placed into expedited removal proceedings by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning they are due to be deported. It is after those hearings that ICE agents detain people in the hallways.
But the courtroom was a ghost town. The empty benches reflected a growing trend of no-shows at the city’s immigration courts, which attorneys attribute to clients’ fears that ICE may be waiting outside the courtroom to make arrests.
None of the 10 asylum seekers scheduled on Friday showed up for their hearings. As a result, Judge Park granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss all cases in absentia, which triggers an automatic deportation and makes those cases difficult to reopen. The motion also comes with a new $5,000 fee, implemented by President Donald Trump, to be imposed on each person who is arrested after an absentia order.
Supervisor Mahmood called the scene “tragic” and “disturbing.” Outside the empty courtroom, he said, the current system “shows a breakdown of trust with how our federal government is putting residents into an impossible Catch 22.”
He explained the two options immigrants face: Either risk being detained and deported for following the law by attending court, or don’t show up at all, risk an “absentia” order, and face deportation anyway.
While arrests in the hallways outside immigration court have stopped since Oct. 3, there are a few recent cases where immigrants were arrested at 630 Sansome St. after completing routine processes, like fingerprinting.
Mahmood voiced concerns over those arrests, asking “How is ICE adapting their strategies?”
Mahmood has been quick to condemn ICE’s actions. He’s marched in immigration protests, and he other city supervisors jumped into action after Trump’s threats last week to send federal agents into the Bay Area: He is co-sponsoring an ordinance to allocate $3.5 million to immigration services, and spearheading another to establish ICE-free zones in the city.
“The principle of these zones is to rebuild trust, at least with the local government, so that if people are on these sites there will not be ICE or federal agents,” he said on Friday.
It is unclear how the zones would work, as city law cannot subvert federal law. Mahmood, for his part, said he is working with attorneys to create a legally viable plan “that has teeth.”