Advocates are reporting an arrest by masked federal immigration agents in San Jose, as elected officials look to advance a policy requiring all law enforcement officers to identify themselves when working in the city.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Wednesday arrested one person at an ICE check-in facility on Blossom Hill Road, according to people with the Rapid Response Network who witnessed the incident. The network is a coalition of community-run organizations that protect immigrants and their families from deportation raids in Santa Clara County. Volunteers with the network said there was no further ICE activity in the surrounding area.
“For too long, immigrant families in San Jose have lived under the shadow of fear, not because they have done anything wrong, but because of the federal government’s indiscriminate targeting of immigrant families in the state of California,” District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who is leading the push for immigration agents to identify themselves, said at a Wednesday rally. “This is not law enforcement. This is blatant intimidation.”
Ortiz and Councilmembers Rosemary Kamei, David Cohen and Pamela Campos want the city to adopt a policy that would require all law enforcement to unmask and wear identifying information, including federal immigration agents, when conducting operations in the city. The councilmembers said masked ICE agents and people impersonating them pose threats to public safety.
The San Jose Rules and Open Government Committee unanimously approved the proposal moving forward to the full City Council for a vote.
The memo written by Ortiz, Kamei, Cohen and Campos directs the city attorney to provide a draft of a policy within 60 days that would include a plan of implementation. The councilmembers want the San Jose Police Department to report all instances when officers respond to ICE activity in the city.
“Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision essentially allowing for the racial profiling of our community just makes today’s action that much more pivotal,” District 8 Councilmember Domingo Candelas said at the committee meeting.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday knocked down a federal judge’s order that prohibited ICE agents from making race-based stops in Southern California. Advocates fear the stops will now increase.
“The Supreme Court ruling in Vasquez-Perdomo v. Noem is another attack on the immigrant population in East San Jose,” Maritza Maldonado, director of Amigos de Guadalupe, told San José Spotlight. “It reaches even beyond the immigrant population to anyone who is brown or Black, has a blue-collar job or speaks with an accent. It makes profiling legal in our country, sweeping up the innocent.”
ICE has conducted large-scale operations in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year. An Amigos de Guadalupe spokesperson told San José Spotlight this hasn’t been the case in Santa Clara County.
Still, fears of immigration raids have kept San Jose students from attending class and slowed foot traffic at Latino-owned businesses. Some undocumented residents have chosen to self-deport.
Immigration raids have given rise to ICE impersonators, including reported incidents at a Philadelphia university, the arrest of an impersonator in North Carolina for sexually assaulting a woman and an impersonator in Florida conducting a traffic stop asking people for their documents. The proposed San Jose policy aims to address this issue.
A Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office representative said they didn’t have any confirmed reports or calls related to ICE impersonators. But the county did see an increase of ICE agents showing up at jail facilities and the Superior Court during the summer.
Since June, there have been 27 reported instances where ICE agents detained people being released from custody at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said. ICE agents were also seen arresting people outside of the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
“You cannot build safety on secrecy,” Campos said at the rally. “Transparency is not optional, and accountability is non-negotiable. Civil liberties are a guarantee, and in San Jose, they will always be protected.”
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.
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