San Francisco Supervisors Look to Block ICE From City Property

San Francisco is looking to strengthen its sanctuary city status by prohibiting federal law enforcement agencies from using city-owned properties for immigration enforcement.

The new proposal from Supervisor Bilal Mahmood comes amid an uptick in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity both locally and around the country, and just weeks after San Francisco narrowly averted President Donald Trump’s call for a federal immigration surge in the city.

“We can’t blur the lines between local government and federal immigration enforcement,” Mahmood, who is the son of immigrants, said at a press conference on Tuesday. “It is our job to deliver services. It is our job to make residents feel they can trust us. And it is our job to make sure that this city works for everyone.”

The proposed legislation would block agencies like ICE from using city-owned buildings, parks and even parking lots for anything that could disrupt public services.

It would also amend San Francisco’s Administrative Code to clarify that federal immigration enforcement is not a city purpose, and allow the city attorney to take legal action for unauthorized use of city property.

Other cities with dense immigrant populations, like San José, have similarly sought to create so-called “ICE-free zones” in the wake of rising deportations and increased immigration raids across the country.

San Francisco would be among the first cities in the nation to codify what federal law enforcement can and cannot do on city properties, which Mahmood said gives the proposal stronger teeth than some approaches other cities are taking.

“Other actions that we’ve heard about across the country that we learned from were non-binding resolutions, or they were executive orders by the respective mayor,” Mahmood said. “Here, as a legislative body, we are taking action to make this into law.”

California also recently moved to bar law enforcement, including ICE agents, from wearing masks during operations; however, the Trump administration is fighting the ban in court.

“Our immigration unit sees the human costs of detention and deportation every single day. People are taken from their families with little warning, held in remote facilities, and forced to navigate a system where due process is far from assured,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju, who is supporting the legislation.

Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has refrained from mentioning Trump by name, recently helped the city navigate the president’s threats to send in the National Guard and other federal agencies to carry out a large-scale federal immigration crackdown.

Lurie, along with wealthy billionaires like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, managed to convince the president to hold off on sending troops directly to the city.

But federal immigration enforcement has increased overall this year. Arrests outside the city’s immigration court and high-profile incidents, like when a van drove through a group of anti-ICE protestors, have all led to rising tensions.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Mahmood and other immigrant advocates said many of the communities they serve are fearful of escalating ICE arrests and other demonstrations of force.

Mahmood, whose district includes the Tenderloin, where many immigrant families live, explained how undocumented families have stayed home from school, work, medical appointments or other public services to avoid encountering immigration officials.

“San Francisco works best when people can move through our city without fear,” Raju said. “The ICE-free zones ordinance reinforces that vision by making clear that city property cannot be repurposed in ways that create fear or that undermine the trust our communities place in public institutions.”

Nearly four in five Chinatown residents are also immigrants, according to Annie Lee, managing director for police at Chinese for Affirmative Action, which is based in the neighborhood.

“Immigrant safety must be paramount for San Francisco because immigrants are our neighbors, they are our friends, they are our students. They drive our buses, deliver mail, they open the shops and the restaurants that we love,” Lee said at the press conference. “They make up the very fabric of this city, which has long been a beacon around the world as a place of opportunity, freedom and inclusion.”

The proposal, which was co-sponsored by Supervisor Chyanne Chen and written by City Attorney David Chiu, is expected to go before the full Board of Supervisors for a vote in January.