A witness at SFO Sunday filed a complaint that SFPD officers violated sanctuary laws by shielding ICE agents in plainclothes from bystanders who were asking them to identify themselves, as the ICE agents attempted to restrain a woman being deported with her young daughter.

Witness Nicole Killian filed a complaint with the California Department of Justice and the SF City Attorney, as Mission Local reports, alleging that SFPD officers assisted ICE agents who were restraining a mother and her daughter at San Francisco International Airport Sunday as they were being deported to Guatemala.

Attorneys knowledgeable about local sanctuary policies told Mission Local the actions of SFPD officers may have violated SF’s sanctuary ordinance as well as SFPD’s policy directives.

As SFist reported Monday, the arrest was not related to President Donald Trump’s recent directive to send ICE agents to some US airports amid the partial government shutdown — and SFO employs private contractors to manage security checkpoints, so therefore doesn't rely on federal TSA employees.

The Chronicle reports that the woman being restrained, Angelina Lopez-Jimenez, had tried to escape custody, and officials said she may have been detained elsewhere and was being transported through SFO. An immigration judge had reportedly issued a final order for Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter’s deportation seven years ago, in 2019.

Mission Local reports that a total of 20 SFPD officers were on the scene of the arrest. A group of bystanders filmed police officers forming a buffer around ICE agents in plainclothes, who witnesses say refused to identify themselves. SFPD officers were also filmed escorting ICE agents as they transported the woman in a wheelchair away from the scene.

SFPD released a statement that officers were responding to a 911 call about the incident, and they stayed on the scene to “maintain public safety.”

“The crowd was furious, but was giving them their distance and was only asking reasonable questions about the identification and documenting what was happening,” Killian told Mission Local. “I was like, you’re not supposed to be helping, but if you’re allowed to crowd control, how is that not helping them?”

Grisel Ruiz, ​​the senior managing attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, pointed out that SFPD’s crowd control role amounted to providing resources that supported ICE operations.

“Creating a perimeter around an ICE arrest to keep the public at a distance so that ICE can conduct an arrest appears to be the SFPD using its resources to support an ICE arrest,” Ruiz told Mission Local.

Bill Ong Hing, a longtime immigration attorney, professor of law at University of San Francisco, and a former police commissioner, told Mission Local that SFPD is only allowed to assist ICE in an emergency or if the public potentially poses harm to ICE agents. Otherwise, police may have violated both the city's ordinance and SFPD’s directive.

“SFPD may argue [the woman being arrested] created a situation where there was a danger to the public," Hing says.

Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco public defender’s office, told Mission Local, “It does not appear there is any crime being committed by any members of the public.”

“A dozen officers stand in a circle to help officials to take or keep someone in custody, that seems to fit the definition of ‘assisting,'” Chan said, calling the incident “alarming and horrifying.”

Previously: ICE Not Deployed to Assist TSA at SFO, But They Were There Arresting Someone Sunday Night

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