Immigration officials claim that a San Francisco man who was arrested Monday, as seen in a viral video, was a gang affiliate with a violent record, but his sister said the allegations are untrue. The arrested man also faces charges in two open domestic violence cases in San Francisco.
San Francisco officials and members of the public rallied Tuesday at City Hall in opposition to his arrest and in support of emergency funding for immigration lawyers. Ramos-Rodriguez was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Monday in SoMa. Video shows a plainclothes agent in a red flannel shirt brandishing a gun while confronting him.
“I burst out crying,” Ramos-Rodriguez’s sister Claudia Melgar said, adding that she learned her brother had been detained from social media posts. “We’re human beings, not animals.”
ICE said Ramos-Rodriguez, 51, is a citizen of El Salvador who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in California and has ties to the Sureños gang. He has previously been deported and is charged with one count of reentering the country illegally, a government lawyer said at his initial federal court appearance Tuesday. ICE referred questions about the manslaughter conviction to the U.S. attorney’s office, which declined to comment.
ICE agents arrested Ramos-Rodriguez on 6th Street in SoMa on Monday. | Source: Courtesy Juan Carlos
Ramos-Rodriguez has two open domestic violence cases. In one, he is charged with inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, cohabitant, dating partner, or co-parent; assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm; and criminal threats. In the other, he’s charged with violating a domestic violence protective or stay-away order. His next court date for both cases is Oct. 29.
Ramos-Rodriguez was charged in 2023 in San Francisco Superior Court with false imprisonment and possession of a firearm and was sentenced the following year, court records show.
“Mr. Ramos-Rodriguez has been on probation since 2023,” said deputy public defender Sylvia Cediel, who has represented Ramos-Rodriguez in his San Francisco cases. “He has diligently attended every court date, has dedicated much of his time to a faith-based program, and has been earnestly working on his rehabilitation from alcohol and trauma that he’s endured. He has been equally dedicated to meeting his legal requirements after separate allegations arose in 2025, which he has not yet had a chance to defend at trial.”
Cediel added that Ramos-Rodriguez’s ICE arrest may prevent him from appearing in state court next week, likely prompting the issuance of a warrant.
“Some of us have dark pasts, and we’ve gone through them, and we’re different now,” Melgar said, adding that her brother’s history does not justify ICE’s violent arrest. “You just cannot treat people like that.”
Milton Ramos-Rodriguez, 51, after being detained by immigration officials on Monday. | Source: Courtesy Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Visiting him Monday at ICE’s detention center on Sansome Street, Melgar said her brother had bruises sustained during his arrest and felt like he had a concussion. He will need to postpone an eye surgery that had been scheduled for next week due to the arrest, she said.
“I’m devastated. My mom is more devastated. She didn’t sleep for two days,” Melgar said. But she added that seeing the turnout at Tuesday’s rally, which she attended with her mother and son, was a bright spot. “They have a heart,” she said of the demonstrators.
Melgar denied that her brother was ever affiliated with a gang. She did not comment on the domestic violence charges.
She said they grew up in the Mission and attended John Muir Elementary School and McAteer High (now closed). She added that Ramos-Rodriguez works with the Victory Outreach church on Howard Street in SoMa, which did not respond to a request for comment. Her mother, speaking at the rally Tuesday, said he came to the U.S. when he was 6, according to ABC7 (opens in new tab).
District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder leads a rally to protest Monday’s ICE detention of a man in SoMa and to demand an increase in city funding for immigrant services, outside of City Hall. | Source: Manuel Orbegozo for The Standard
Supervisor Jackie Fielder said at the rally that Ramos-Rodriguez was kidnapped by the immigration officers.
“We are here today because a demagogue in the White House is deploying ICE agents to terrorize and intimidate vulnerable communities ahead of an election,” Fielder told the crowd. “Yesterday, we saw a video that ICE violently arrested a community member in SoMa. It was just one of many hundreds of examples from around the country of masked and unidentified federal agents kidnapping everyday people from their homes and communities.”
Hours after the rally, Fielder and La Raza Centro Legal announced (opens in new tab) on Instagram that all 11 supervisors and Mayor Daniel Lurie support legislation that will provide $1.8 million in emergency funding to immigration defense lawyers in the city. Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman waived the 30-day waiting period for the legislation, meaning supervisors can vote on it within weeks.
Despite Lurie’s support for the legislation, protesters Tuesday repeatedly yelled, “Where’s the mayor?” A representative of the Party for Socialism and Liberation who took the mic toward the end of the event followed a chant of “Trump, escucha, estamos en la lucha” (“Trump, listen, we are in the struggle”) with an identical chant naming Lurie instead of the president, to cheers from the crowd.
Lurie said Monday on Instagram that his office had been in close contact with the Rapid Response Network, which verifies ICE sightings in SF, and that local law enforcement does not aid federal immigration enforcement. “Our city stands with our immigrant communities,” the post said.
Meanwhile, Ramos-Rodriguez remains in ICE custody. He is represented by a federal public defender, with legal assistance from the San Francisco public defender’s office. Ramos-Rodriguez will appear in immigration court again Thursday.