San Francisco police officers face off with protesters during an anti-ICE protest on June 8, 2025. (Aryk Copley for KQED)
Updated 11:00 a.m. Monday
A night of protest in downtown San Francisco prompted by recent immigrant arrests and the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles ended late Sunday with over twice as many arrests as police initially reported.
Police officials said Monday that about 155 people, including six children, were arrested. One person was arrested on suspicion of a felony, while everyone else was cited and released, interim Police Chief Paul Yep said.
Earlier statements from the department had reported about 60 arrests.
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Police said they moved to make the arrests shortly after 9:30 p.m. when a remnant of the original group of protesters “became violent and committed crimes ranging from assault to felony vandalism.”
City officials said the group damaged Muni buses and broke windows of some downtown businesses, but did not immediately give details of the extent of damage. The Police Department said three officers were injured during the demonstration.
Mayor Daniel Lurie issued a statement saying that while the city is committed to protecting the right to protest, “We will never tolerate violent and destructive behavior.”
Lurie plans to hold a briefing Monday morning with public safety leaders and city department heads about the protest, a spokesperson for the mayor said.
Protestors link arms during an anti-ICE protest on June 8, 2025. (Aryk Copley for KQED)
The evening had begun peacefully as activists rallied outside the local field office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sansome Street. The demonstrators called for ICE to cease the arrests of immigrants in the Bay Area and for withdrawal of National Guard troops, 2,000 of whom arrived in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from the Trump administration.
Graffiti sprayed on the side of the building read “ABOLISH ICE” “ICE OUT OF CALIFORNIA” and “ICE=IOF=KKK” comparing the immigration agency to the Ku Klux Klan and the Israeli Defense Forces, which anti-Zionist protesters often refer to as the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Within a half hour of the start of the event, the protest grew tense, with the crowd facing off against a line of police officers that had formed on the next block, with several police vehicles positioned behind them.
“Whose streets? Our streets!” the crowd chanted as it moved to meet the police line.
On the front line, talking to police, stood 72-year-old Janet Militello.
“I saw all of the cops lined up with all of their trucks and I told them, ‘Move away, you’re going to incite the crowd, nobody’s even noticed you down here yet,’ and that’s exactly what happened,” Militello said. “This is a shame. The police are so afraid of something happening, and they’re going to make it happen.”
The two sides stood just a few feet apart and around 7:30 p.m. the police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.
Many did leave at that time, but others chose to stay and lock arms, chanting “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?”
One person standing among the protesters’ front line shouted, “Show no fear! Show no fear!” over and over.
San Francisco police officers scuffle with protesters during an anti-ICE protest on June 8, 2025. (Aryk Copley for KQED)
The police began advancing, in some cases shoving people backward or prodding them with batons. At least one bottle and the metal base of a barricade were hurled toward officers.
Protesters continued moving backward and police periodically stopped, only to advance again.
After being pushed back two blocks, protesters turned away from police just after 8 p.m. and moved south toward Market Street to reunite with a group that had split off earlier in the evening.
The crowd walked down Market toward the Ferry Building, then back up.
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Milo Ramirez, 23, said he came out to the protest because he thinks the ICE arrests and the government’s deployment of the National Guard are clear signs of authoritarianism.
“It’s a power play. The people of LA are obviously not having it, and we shouldn’t let it happen either,” Ramirez said.
The president’s decision to deploy the National Guard marked the first time since 1965 that a president has done so without a governor’s request.
Elected Democrats across the state condemned the action. They included Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, Rep. Sam Liccardo of San Jose and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, all of whom accused the president of intentionally sowing chaos in the area.
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the Newsom administration requested the Trump administration to rescind its National Guard order and return the guard contingent to state control.
“There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation,” wrote Legal Affairs Secretary David Sapp.
Newsom said in a Sunday night interview on MSNBC that the state will file suit against the Trump administration over the troop deployment, which the governor called “an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.”
The United States Appraisers Building in San Francisco, which houses the ICE offices, is covered in graffiti following an anti-ICE protest on June 8, 2025. (Aryk Copley for KQED)
Sunday’s protest followed several immigration arrest actions across the Bay Area in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the San Francisco Rapid Response Network reported that ICE officers arrested at least 15 people at the same field office where protesters rallied Sunday.
Officials with the California Collaborative for Immigrant justice said those arrested – which included multiple families and children as young as 3 years old – were at the ICE office for scheduled check-ins with immigration officials.
By the next day, immigration officials had sent one 25-year-old mother and her two children to a Texas detention center, said Priya Patel, a supervising attorney with the collaborative.
