This story aired in the December 2, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
It seems like every day we see another headline about ICE mass deportations. While legal advocates are doing everything in their power to support immigrants, some locals have taken matters into their hands.
Berkeley parents are creating groups to support their child care providers, neighbors are rallying outside of Home Depot to protect day laborers.
In this story we go to downtown San Francisco where one group is providing support for people attending immigration court.
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On a Thursday evening in San Francisco’s Panhandle neighborhood, a group of 20 people are gathered inside of the Democratic Socialist of America, or DSA, local chapter office, but they’re not here to discuss political campaigns.
In this small gathering space, these Bay Area residents are getting the run down on what it means to show up, literally, for immigrants facing uncertainty when visiting San Francisco’s Immigration Court. This is a training for something called protective presence, a community-led practice with the goal of slowing down and stopping arrests outside of court.
Tonight, DSA member Alice is facilitating the training. That’s not her real name, she’s remaining anonymous for fear of being targeted for doing this kind of immigration defense work.
“I'm so excited to have this group of people here,” she says to the group “I’m really excited we’re going to be pulling out more people to the court room.” Around her sit teachers, paralegals, college students, members of faith groups, and friends and family of previous participants.
“We're going to go around and share our name and pronouns and what inspires us to do this work.” Some are newcomers, and for others, this is simply a refresher.
Their goal is to learn how to best support immigrants attending court hearings, whether it be by protesting, flyering, sharing legal resources, or providing moral support.
“There's going to be information I go over in this and I am very new to this still myself. I will not speak out of my depth.” Alice hasn’t been doing this for long, she started just a few months ago when she learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was arresting people inside courthouses.
A Growing Problem Inside Courts
In May of this year, ICE expanded their enforcement operations to immigration courts nationwide, arresting migrants who appeared in court, many of whom were seeking asylum. These actions aligned with the Trump administration’s efforts to fulfill their mass deportation agenda.
Legal experts warn these arrests in courthouses undermine the immigration court system and violate due process – a right granted to everyone regardless of legal status. Immigration court is supposed to guarantee fair hearings, and instead, lawyers say the Department of Homeland Security is moving to dismiss cases in order to subject migrants to a process called expedited removals, a quick way to deport people.
The risk of arrest and deportation has made attending court a gamble for some immigrants. Advocates have also noted outcomes where detainees are denied calls to legal counsel, an illegal move on ICE’s part. With no alerts going out to families, this lack of communication has made it seem as though people are disappearing into the court system.
According to Mission Local, a news organization that follows San Francisco court arrests closely, at least 120 people have been detained in courts this year.
From Fear to Organized Response
When Alice heard this news in late spring, she was horrified. She watched on social media as federal agents abducted people outside courthouses, and she wanted to do something about it.
That’s when she heard about protective presence. “I saw a flyer and I came out,” she says.
In June, Alice learned about a protest happening outside an ICE office in the South of Market neighborhood. ICE had texted immigrants, ordering them to show up for a check-in over the weekend. This was out of the ordinary because check-ins normally happen Monday through Friday.
“We were concerned that it was basically like a plan for abductions,” she says. ICE had a pattern of doing just that in other cities, calling in migrants only to have them arrested. So Bay Area residents responded quickly. Over 200 people rallied to protest, and Alice was one of them. That weekend, ICE closed the building and no immigrants were arrested.
Alice was moved by the immediate impact of that action. “And so that was my first taste.”
A Training Is Created
Alice kept showing up to protests. She started talking about it with other DSA members and learned there was a lot of interest in showing up to courts, but people were intimidated, not really sure where to begin. “I think it is really nerve-wracking to just show up to things,” she says.
Alice and other members created a training to alleviate some of that anxiety. “I also know in my own experience, it's much easier to do this when you're in community and you have a sense of belonging.”
The training developed into a formal presentation, a question-and-answer section, and a portion where people paint signs they can bring to court. Initially, these sessions were just for DSA members, two hours every other week. Eventually as news of their training spread, the public started showing up.
According to another DSA member J, who also wishes to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted, over 60 people have come through their training since July. Since August, these volunteers have been showing up outside of court every Friday.
Some volunteers sit in on hearings and help track arrests, keeping notes of names and important details, others inform passers-by about the arrests happening inside. They hand out flyers or hold up signs.
Outside of Court, A Defense Line Forms
The day after the training, at least 10 volunteers are on the sidewalk outside of San Francisco’s immigration court in the Financial District. Some are here from last night, others are here on their own accord.
Alice is dressed in black, she has a kaffiyeh wrapped around her head, and is wearing sunglasses. She’s holding a sign that says, “Honk If You Hate Ice.”
“We are at Sutter and Montgomery [street], and right now, cars are hanging out and we’re hoping that they give us some honks.”
Drivers passing by do indeed honk their car horns.
“The really dope thing about the honks [is] when people honk, you can hear it in the immigration court. So we are helping our folks at their hearings know that we support them and that we're in solidarity and that we're not gonna step down.”
Another volunteer, Inas, who came to the training, is here to accompany anyone into court who wants her support. She can help with translation or even connect people to free legal services.
“This is an issue that’s really important to me. Both my parents are immigrants” Inas says, standing next to the courthouse entrance. “I did sign up to be one of the accompaniments for when people go into their hearings because I'm bilingual and I figured that that is the best way I could use what I have right now.”
The Impact of Protective PresenceArrests in San Francisco courts have dropped considerably. From June to August, there was an average of 25 arrests per month. In October, that number dropped to only 7. While we can’t say for sure why those numbers declined, we can say that volunteers are making a difference.
Attorneys have been able to stop deportations of people arrested in court through habeas corpus petitions, a filing process that releases migrants from detention while a judge determines if their arrest was even legal to begin with.
But in order for these petitions to be filed, legal counsel needs to immediately connect with detainees.
This is where volunteers like Inas or Alice can make a difference. By calling their local Rapid Response Network, a hotline that acts quickly to provide support in moments like these, they’re able to connect people to lawyers, potentially slowing down or even stopping a deportation.
Alice says the work she's been able to be part of creates this network of support.
“Over time, people know to expect us, we've actually had people reach out to us and ask ‘Can we be sure that there's a protective presence on Mondays,’ ‘cause, that's not part of our normal schedule.”
Back on the street, Alice crouches down and pulls out a large piece of pink sidewalk chalk. In large, jagged letters, she writes: “WE KEEP US SAFE.”
