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Uniformed immigration agents, with their faces masked, violently arrested a man Monday outside a residential building in SoMa. Still frame from video courtesy of a neighbor<\/p>\nUniformed immigration agents, with their faces masked, violently arrested a man Monday outside a residential building in SoMa. Still frame from video courtesy of a neighbor<\/p>\n
Editors\u2019 note: This story first appeared<\/a> on Mission Local.<\/p>\n When masked immigration agents arrested Luz\u2019s son in San Francisco on Monday, they slammed him against a window.<\/p>\n One plainclothes agent ran across the street with his gun drawn, according to an eyewitness and widely viewed surveillance footage<\/a>. The agents pushed him to the concrete, breaking his glasses, Luz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Luz\u2019s son has lived in the United States since he was 6, working on farms in Monterey County. He has a son of his own.<\/p>\n His arrest, five immigration attorneys say, is the latest of several across the Bay Area that reflect increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Bay Area \u201crapid response\u201d hotlines monitoring immigration arrests have seen an uptick in reports since this weekend, said Lisa Knox, co-executive director at California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Knox is in contact with eight regional hotlines<\/a> that field calls of reported arrests.\u00a0<\/p>\n The increased activity has extended to the San Francisco jail, where public defenders on Tuesday spotted two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the lobby, said Deputy Public Defender Francisco Ugarte. But their presence raises questions about potential violations of city and state Sanctuary City policies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Ugarte called the recent enforcement a \u201csurge,\u201d and compared it to ICE operations in 2007 and 2008, when agents from around the country came to the Bay Area, identified targets, and then \u201csnatched people up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Not everyone agrees there is a surge but, over the past couple of weeks, Bay Area immigration attorneys say they\u2019ve not only seen more arrests but also ICE agents using more violence during arrests, and arrests without valid warrants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are definitely seeing an increase in violence used in ICE arrests, and also an increase in ICE,\u201d said Nikolas De Bremaeker, an attorney with Centro Legal de La Raza in Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n We verified six immigration arrests across the Bay Area in the past week. Four involved violent tactics like physically forcing individuals out of their cars, slamming them on the ground, and handcuffing them so tightly they experienced pain.<\/p>\n Two arrests led to immigrants being hospitalized, according to De Bremaeker and court filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a response to inquiries shared after publication, the Department of Homeland Security said, in part, \u201cICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers.\u201d<\/p>\n Regional uptick in arrests<\/p>\n Immigration arrests across major Bay Area cities rose 81% between July 2025 and July 2026, according to a Mission Local analysis of federal data released by the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n Attorneys expect those arrests have continued to climb since, though the latest available federal data ends in July, making it difficult to determine exactly how the recent arrests compare with previous weeks.<\/p>\n Most arrests in the region have occurred at immigration courthouses and ICE appointments \u2014 controlled locations where immigrants showing up for check-ins come to the officers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But attorney Jonathan Abel, who directs the Habeas Institute at University of California Law, San Francisco, said that in the past week, \u201cIt appears that ICE is going out more into the communities and arresting people at their homes, car stops, or place of work.\u201d<\/p>\n There, he said, ICE is more likely to \u201cbring more agents,\u201d and there is \u201cmore potential for violent tactics than ICE check-ins or asylum office interviews.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n