Chaos struck like lightning on Tuesday afternoon as masked ICE agents and a squad of federal officers clashed with protesters outside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services facility at 630 Sansome St.
When I arrived a little after 1 p.m., there were only about a dozen people assembled on the sidewalks, with half of them chanting along the Washington Street entrance and the other half observing the garage doors on Jackson Street, where federal vehicles with detained people enter and exit.
All seemed calm, but nerves among the observers grew as more and more law enforcement vehicles started prowling the perimeter. At one point, a man in plainclothes exited a Dodge Charger marked on the dashboard as “ICE Official Business”; when I approached him with questions about his identity and his purpose there, he said nothing, entered the car, and drove away from the Jackson Street entrance.
Just a minute later, I ran into the same man and the same car on Sansome Street. He again avoided my questions, and slipped into the guarded USCIS facility.
A Department of Homeland Security officer also pulled up to the Jackson Street entrance, and then refused to identify himself or his purpose at the facility.
Clips from today’s confrontation between activists and ICE agents at the USCIS facility at 630 Sansome. 1/4
— eddie kim (@eddiekimx.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T23:04:27.992Z
Then, just before 2 p.m., a surge of vehicles and officers surrounded the Jackson Street garage doors. Numerous ICE agents, nearly all of them masked, pushed back protesters and snapped open their steel batons in a coordinated show of force in order to make space for a white van to exit with a detained person inside.
The action got violent in seconds, with protesters linking arms to attempt to block the federal convoy of ICE and DHS vehicles. The group, which had been pushed into the intersection of Jackson and Battery streets, were then ripped apart by agents who shoved bodies to the ground and waved their batons as a threat.
Only one person responded to my repeated requests for identification: An unmasked ICE agent who said he was “Officer Garcia, 3177,” and had been giving commands to other officers.
Eventually, the convoy departed. The remaining federal officers huddled and began retreating to the USCIS facility. Angry protesters and passersby followed them, screaming obscenities and threats as DHS officers walked backward, holding their batons. Behind them, a number of ICE agents fled down the sidewalk and disappeared into their unmarked vehicles.
Once again, the streets grew quiet. None of the protesters had been arrested, but they gathered to debrief the ambush that had unfolded. All of it went down in under 10 minutes.
What happened on Tuesday is not unique — the USCIS office has been the site of weekly conflicts between federal agents and citizens attempting to block detainments by ICE. With only a dozen or so people on the ground, the blockade’s effort wasn’t enough.
As one protester (who asked to remain anonymous for their own safety) told me, these “abductions” are not outliers in SF and that resistance will continue.
“It’s becoming the norm. The only power we have right now is to show up, speak up, document everything, and stand in the way,” they said. “It has to keep happening consistently, otherwise ICE will know that they’ve won. We need more people standing in the way.”
The city’s response to conflicts at immigration facilities, at least on Tuesday, was muted. At one point, an SFPD patrol vehicle circled the 630 Sansome St. building, and I watched as an officer took photos or video of observers on the sidewalk, even waving at them with a grin.
This was an odd moment given SF’s status as a “sanctuary city,” with city policy prohibiting city employees, including police, from assisting ICE in its operations.
Before I got to 630 Sansome St., Mayor Daniel Lurie made a brief appearance, stepping out of his car across the street from the USCIS entrance. He was then confronted by an advocate: In a video posted to Instagram, they ask whether the mayor will walk across the street to address and support those assembled to protest ICE.
In the video, Lurie claims that his office coordinates with the SF Rapid Response Network and that he is “always there,” but does not elaborate on what else his office is doing. He was not able to answer my questions regarding ICE and SFPD surveillance by press time.
