This is part one of a two-part series on the local presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The ‘Pacific Sun’ is not reporting the names of people detained due to privacy concerns. — Editor
Marin has seen a sharp uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity since March. Witnesses to a recent ICE operation say they felt shaken after watching men in plain clothes whisk away a young man in a white van.
On March 25, Rose Spikes arrived for work at the Marin County Civic Center, just before 7am. She parked her car and noticed three men standing beside three unmarked vehicles in the lot. Dressed in casual clothes, they didn’t display badges or identifying gear. Yet, she decided to watch them.
“They looked like cops, and they were staring at the jail,” Spikes said. “And I know that that’s what time people get out of jail.”
Spikes suspected they were ICE. Two walked into the Marin County Jail building. The third remained outside and talked on his phone.
A colleague, Abrina Carlos, joined Spikes. They observed a white van with blacked-out windows pull into the driveway and park in a handicapped spot directly in front of the jail entrance. While the van was nondescript, it had a tell: a Department of Homeland Security license plate.
In the meantime, three volunteers with Marin Rapid Response Network, a local ICE watchdog organization, arrived and entered the jail building. Clad in pink vests, these trained legal observers were on a mission to document the activity.
Once inside the building, volunteer Chana Filton said that she saw an elevator door open. A man exited, holding onto a young, clean-cut man in handcuffs. Three other men in plain clothes rushed over and escorted them outside. Metallic badges, now revealed, were on lanyards around the necks of the four officers.
While they hustled their ward toward the van where a uniformed officer waited, Filton asked the young man for his name and information that would allow the Marin Rapid Response Network to contact his family and provide other support. Although an officer discouraged him from answering, he told Filton what she needed to know.
Seconds later, the officers placed him in the back of the van and slammed the door shut.
An ICE representative confirmed to the Pacific Sun that the men are indeed ICE officers and the detained man, 29, has a felony and a misdemeanor conviction on his record. According to ICE, he illegally entered the U.S. on an unknown date and will remain in a detention center until deported.
“ICE will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing alien offenders from the U.S.,” the representative said.
The number of Marin residents detained by ICE is suddenly on the rise. This young man is one of nine detained by the federal agency in the last four weeks. In the 16-month period prior to this past March, ICE had detained an average of one to two Marinites per month.
“They’re making it clear they’re going to be here a lot more frequently,” Marin Rapid Response Network director Lisa Bennett said.
No raids have occurred in Marin. Instead, ICE appears to have targeted specific individuals.
And ICE isn’t just detaining people with criminal histories. A Marin family of three was taken into ICE custody at an immigration check-in appointment last month in San Francisco. Bennett said that none of the family members have criminal convictions.
Within two days, they were deported to Guatemala.
“In fact, most of the people who are detained don’t have a criminal record,” San Jose-based immigration attorney Lina Baroudi said. “And here in the Bay Area, most detentions have happened at routine ICE check-in appointments, which means people have an appointment with ICE, they show up as they’re obligated to do, and then they get detained on the spot.”
Despite President Donald Trump’s promise to first focus mass deportation on criminals—“the worst of the worst”—it seems the administration may not be achieving its goal. Just 2% of immigration court filings in February 2026 alleged criminal activity as the basis for deportation, compared with 4% in February 2025, reports Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC),a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center.
When Trump’s second term began, it quickly became clear to Baroudi that individuals with criminal records accounted for a small percentage of cases. The attorney found that the government’s reasons for detaining people seemed almost arbitrary.
“I can guess based on certain cases that people are being detained because of the underlying asylum claim, or people are being targeted by ICE because of their ethnicity, like Iranians,” Baroudi said.
She currently represents a Marin client who has no criminal history. ICE detained him, although he is in the process of seeking asylum in the U.S.
The man has been in the U.S. for three years, has stable employment with a Marin nonprofit and is involved with his local church. His family lives here.
Baroudi successfully argued before a federal judge in U.S. District Court—not an immigration court—that her client’s detention was unlawful. ICE was ordered to release him..
Now, government attorneys claim that he’s a flight risk or a danger to the community. Baroudi disagrees.
“Everyone who wants to find him knows exactly where he is,” she said.
The client will have a bond hearing in immigration court to determine whether he remains free or is detained again by ICE. Baroudi is concerned because immigration courts are in flux.
Trump’s administration is transforming the immigration courts. The New York Times reported that the administration axed 100 of the 750 immigration judges who were presiding at the beginning of Trump’s second term. Appointments for 143 permanent and temporary judges were announced.
These changes have wreaked havoc in San Francisco Immigration Court, which serves the Bay Area. Of 21 judges, just two remain on the bench; most were fired, while others retired, resigned or were transferred. The larger of two San Francisco court locations is closing on May 1.
“The backlog that has been going on for years and years now has been made worse,” Baroudi said. “Regular people applying for asylum haven’t had their court hearing.”
Immigration courts in San Francisco currently have a backlog of 118,592 cases, according to TRAC.
“So, very few cases are actually going forward,” Baroudi said. “The court cases I’ve been going to have been related to detention and bond. And we are seeing very few cases being granted relief.”
Of the asylum claims that are being heard, the denial rate has surged. U.S. immigration courts denied asylum in almost 80% of cases last year, up from 50% in 2023, TRAC reports.
While these developments aren’t promising for the Marin residents that ICE detained over the last four weeks, a coalition of local organizations has proposed an ordinance that could limit the federal agency’s activity on county property—including the jail building.
Part two of the series on ICE in Marin will run on April 29.
