San Francisco Immigrant Forum - Regular Meeting

Hello everyone, welcome into the SF Immigrant Forum bi-monthly regular meeting. Today is Wednesday, September 24th, 2025. My name is Jamie Richardson. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the Senior Communication Specialist at the City and County of San Francisco's Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs. Welcome in. As folks are signing on, I would like to provide an interpretation Announcement we do have interpretation available today, so if you would like to connect to zoom interpretation in Spanish Chinese or Filipino. Please follow the instructions that are on the screen by navigating your mouse the options at the bottom and selecting the language interpretation channel and the language that you would like interpretation in. There's also instructions available on how to do this on your mobile device, as well as your desktop. All right, hopefully everyone is connected to their interpretation channel and I go ahead and get started again, this is the SF immigrant forum meeting, this is a look at our meeting today with the agenda, I have some introduction slides. That i'll share just orienting everyone if this is your first or fifth immigrant as of immigrant forum meeting we'll just. provide some context of what this meeting is at the top. We have our special topic presentations today from SF Island and SFILDC to discuss the Rapid Response Network and updates around immigration enforcement in San Francisco, Know Your Rights, and community-based resources. And we'll follow up with two short presentations from Mission Asset Fund and the Office of Financial Empowerment to share resources. And we'll have a short Q&A after each presentation, but if you have questions that come up during the presentation, please do use the Q&A function. You can find it at the bottom of your screen. We'll be monitoring the Q&A throughout this meeting, and we'll try to get to as many questions as we can. And if your question is, is this meeting recorded? The answer is yes, these meetings are recorded. and posted on osia's youtube as well as the sf immigrant forum website and if you're on the listserv we email it out afterwards so what is the sf immigrant forum this reflects a new alignment to support immigrants asylees and refugees in san francisco it's made up of three components a website of resources an email listserv that anyone can join and share resources or stay up to date on resources that are being shared, as well as today's meeting, a community forum where we theme a topic and invite presenters to share resources with attendees like you. So here's a screenshot of our website and an example of all of the resources that you can find on sf.gov slash immigrants. It's not just immigration legal support. It's also food, Know Your Rights links, and a lot of community and city resources. So we encourage you to check that out if you haven't. And there's also a special page for service providers. As I mentioned, there's also a listserv. Here's some instructions on how to join that listserv. It's a Google group, so anyone who joins can post and receive emails. And if you have trouble with these instructions on how to join, please do email us at civic.engagement at sfgov.org, and we can send you a direct invite. And we'd also like to invite you to, I know you're here today, but we'd like to invite you to our next Immigrant Forum meeting on December 3rd. We'll be discussing resources for immigrants and their families within an academic and education context. It'll be at the same time in the afternoon and we will drop in the link later this meeting to make sure that people can register, but it's also on our website. And if you are from a Community based organization and you have resources that you would like to share with others that attend these meetings in the future, we do have a forum. That you can fill out and request request a presentation and those should be you know 15 to 20 minutes in length and be inclusive of resources for service providers for the immigrant community in the San Francisco Bay area, so if. you're interested, please scan that QR code or follow that link to sign up to present. And before we get into our first agenda item, which is updates from the four city departments that make up the steering committee of the SF Immigrant Forum, I did want to do a short introduction to My colleague, who is from University of San Francisco's McCarthy Fellowship Program, and I'll ask Elena Jimenez to go on camera and just give us a short hello, but Elena has been helping me out in terms of organizing the Immigrant Forum, getting more folks on the listserv, and conducting a lot of outreach. So, Elena, if you want to say a few words, I'll pass it to you. Oh, I don't think your audio is working. Well, maybe we'll, we'll say hi at the end, but everyone, uh, this is Elena and just want to really appreciate her support of OCEA and also this forum. So thank you so much. And with that, I'm going to pass it to my colleague, Richard Whipple, the deputy director of OCEA to give some updates from our department, and then we'll proceed with the other departments here. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Jamie. Hi, everyone. Thanks for being with us this afternoon. As was mentioned, the SF Immigrant Forum is really an intentional collaboration among city departments to coordinate more and share information with community. So we're really pleased to be in partnership with our sister departments and pleased that you're with us today. I'll give just a couple of quick updates about things that are happening. A couple of things that I wanted to mention in terms of the city's internal work. I know that the city has been coordinating through the mayor's office and our office conversations with community leaders around different topics related to immigrant needs in 2025. Hopefully there's a lot of good work that's coming out of those meetings, which range in topic from communications and messaging workforce and economic access. as well as public trust and public safety and our executive director Jorge Rivas who's joining us today as well as taking the lead on a lot of those conversations in partnership with the mayor's office and hopefully we'll have some concrete details to bring back to you all in a future meeting. But if you'd like to be more engaged in those spaces, please do reach out to us. On a related note, I'm sure many of you saw last week that the San Francisco Foundation in partnership with mayors in the Bay Area announced the launch of an exciting new fund, Stand Together Bay Area. which will be providing financial relief and assistance to any families or individuals impacted by immigration, meaning particularly around deportation or enforcement. There's more information that can be found on the website, which we can put into the chat for folks to learn more about this important fund. And you'll be hearing more later on about other funds available through one of our partner presentations. And then lastly, two other exciting things, we're also really happy to promote and announce the launch of an important immigrant powered worker cooperative, Radiate SF. Radiate SF offers a wide range of professional services, whether it's meeting facilitation, data analysis, interpretation, translation, and much more, and is entirely immigrant owned and operated. So we encourage you if you need any services from consultants to reach out to these locally based immigrant professionals, many of whom have come through our fellows program. We think an important way to show solidarity with immigrants right now in this time is to hire them and collaborate with them. So please do keep Radiate SF in mind and the original Cooperative as well radiate Bay area. So super proud to have collaborated with these 2 cooperatives and really promoting the skill set and the professionalism of our immigrant community. And then lastly, just wanted to flag that OCEA partners with many of our community organizations on some important immigration clinics. And so we have a few that are coming up in the next couple of months that I'll flag. The first one that's coming up soonest is a citizenship workshop in the library. So kudos to our library partners for hosting us. This will be on October 21st. It's called Lawyers in the Library, but it is a small citizenship workshop. And we'll put details in the chat as well about how folks can sign up for appointments. The following month, we'll have a larger scale citizenship workshop. This will be at the Southeast Community Center on November 22nd. And again, also appointment-based, also naturalization or citizenship-based. And then we'll be working with many of our other grantee partners to provide support with work permit applications. And we'll be doing that at a work permit clinic on December 2nd. We're also in progress of working with our partners to have additional clinics to support other folks with upcoming court dates to make sure that they can safely attend them, be it virtually or in person. So those are just some upcoming clinics and workshops that we have happening. And with that, I'll pass it back to Jamie.

Thanks, Rich. I'll pass it to Christy from DPH. Thank you.

Thanks. So I'm Christy from Department of Public Health and just want to share that all DPH sites and clinics are continuing to support our immigrant communities by sharing resources from the one many that you found on the SF immigrant forum site and clinics are offering medical e-visits and the department's also continuing to share the sanctuary city policy updates as they change across all departments or all programs in dph as well as training staff on the city immigration protocols and responding to immigration inquiries and activity on any of our sites So if you're here from DPH and you need some guidance, please talk to your supervisor or your site leadership and feel free to reach out to me if you need any direction assistance. So thanks. And I'll pass it to Andy.

Hey, good afternoon everybody. My name is Andy Beatley-Hegler and I work for the San Francisco Human Services Agency. Happy to be here during these difficult times and similar to what Christy said, the San Francisco Human Services Agency continues to serve our community and we do everything from Medi-Cal and CalFresh, otherwise known as food stamps, to different types of cash aid. focus is typically on the refugee cash assistance and the refugee and asylee population. So happy to be here and I think two main announcements. The first one and I think the one that will affect most of our attendees today is that there is going to be a webinar It's SFHSA Benefits 101 webinar, and that's going to take place on November 13th at 10 a.m. And thanks, Jamie, for pasting that in the chat there. So this is going to be an overview of public benefits programs and upcoming changes. There will be some changes to the Medi-Cal program starting January 1st, 2026. And so this webinar will review some of those changes. So again, that's going to be November 13th, 10 a.m. And Jamie pasted the link to register for that webinar to the chat. So if you want to attend that webinar, you can click on the link Jamie posted in the chat and then you can register for the webinar. You'll be sent an email where you can get a link for the webinar itself. The other short announcement I wanted to make is about a program that I'm actually personally very excited about. However, I'm afraid it won't affect a lot of the attendees of this meeting because it's really just focused on refugees and asylees. But if you or someone you know recently obtained status of refugee or asylum, or if they're an entrant from Cuba or Haiti, they might be eligible for this Refugee Housing Support Program or RHSP. And this program then is designed to help people who obtain their refugee or asylee or Cuban or Haitian entrance status on or after October 1st, 2024. So again, it's only if you received your refugee status on or after October 1st, 2024 But if you did achieve your status after that date, then you could be eligible to receive housing assistance. And that program is being run out of our human services agency. So if you have questions about the program, if you or someone you know might be eligible for the program, you can contact me directly. And I will have my contact information into the chat. But it's just Andy.Beatley. That's A-N-D-Y dot V-E-E-T-L-E-Y at S-F-G-O-V dot O-R-G. So I think that's it for me, and I'll make sure to get that information in the chat. And back to you, Jamie.

Thanks, Andy. And before we kick off our presentation, and again, thank you for all the updates from my colleagues here. We're going to do a quick poll. This is our fifth Immigrant Forum webinar since January, and we wanted to take the temperature on how folks are feeling about the topics and any feedback they might have. So I'm going to share my screen shortly. And today's webinar poll will just be these short questions, and if you have longer feedback, please do reach out to us at civic.engagement at sfgov.org. But let me launch the poll. All right, so there should be a pop-up on your screen with four questions. The first one is, how many SF Immigrant Forum meetings have you attended? Our past meetings were in January, March, May, July, and today. The second question is, are you currently part of our SF Immigrant Forum listserv, which is a Google group? The third question is what immigrant focused topics would you like us to cover in the future? There's a few categories here. You can check one or all of them or a few or add in a different topic because the last question is, is there other feedback you'd like to share? Maybe there's a topic we've missed or you would like to hear more about a particular topic. So I'll give folks about one more minute to respond to the poll. And we really appreciate everyone's feedback. If you have colleagues or friends that will be viewing this in a recording, we will be sending a similar poll out over our forum listserv after this, along with the recording of the webinar, so more people can participate. But we really appreciate everyone's feedback today. This is a somewhat new presentation format, so we really appreciate it. All right. And while folks are finishing the poll and we're about to transition into our special topic presentations, I do want to give a reminder that if you do have questions, we have the Q&A function in the Zoom. Please add your questions there and we'll do our best to get to as many as possible today. And we will be recording this webinar So if that is a question, there's the answer. We'll record it and send it back to you. All right, I'm going to end the poll. Thank you everyone for participating in the poll. And with that, I'm going to introduce our first presenters. We're going to be hearing from the Rapid Response Network, and we have Thais Santos, the SF Island Program Manager for Mission Action, as well as Millie Atkinson, the Director of Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco. So I invite, I see Millie has your camera on, and if Thais, you wanna. go on camera and we can start screen sharing. I will pass it to you all. We are happy to invite Thais back. If you were here in January, we had a great forum meeting discussing immigrant rights and resources, Know Your Rights information, the Rapid Response Network. And we thought September, nine months into this current federal administration, was a great time to hear some updates, get some new information on what's happening on the ground, and hear from you both. So again, thank you for being here, and I will pass the mic over to you.

Thanks, Jamie. Also, thanks to the OCA team. Let me share my screen. All right. Can you all see my screen?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. All right, so I'm here. We are here today. I'm here with my colleague, Millie Atkinson. We'll be presenting on some rapid response refresher and know your rights training. Just quick disclaimer to you all, it's important that you know that the information provided here is just for information purposes and should not be taken as legal advice. If you do have questions about any specific case, please consult with an attorney. Sorry, let's see. All right, I wanted to highlight some of the purposes of this training. I think that this is a refresher session to protocols, tools, and the updated rapid response system. We're aiming that probably we review some of the basic rapid response information, urgent legal consultation procedures, as well as accompaniment support services, and know your rights information and recent immigration changes. Um, we'll have we, we were planning to have some live on scenarios, but I don't think we'll have time, but happy to share this. slides with you all and add those to you in the end. Also this is important because as Jamie said, since the beginning of the year, since we conducted this presentation, a lot has changed and a lot of our internal protocols in terms of rapid response also has changed. So it's important that we are all aligned and we are all on the same page as community partners. So it's important that we have this presentation to update you all. Um, all right. Some of our agenda will be just, you know, like, um, an overview, basic overview on the SFIs and SFIDC and rapid response structures. Um, we'll understand a little bit more, um, and some know your rights on DHS, the department of homeland security. Um, the recent updates on immigration, the re immigration landscape, um, some know your rights at direct direct service sites, and lastly, a Q and a and discussion. So again, thank you for being here. And first I would like to start us off with introducing you to our three collaboratives. So I'm the program manager for SF Island and the Rapper Response Network in-house at Mission Action. My colleague Millie Atkinson is the director of SFILDC. SF Island is a coalition of 11 organizations. that provide know your rights, education, outreach, and community-based support. SFILDC is a network of 15 legal service providers that offer free legal service defense to SF residents in immigration and removal proceedings. The Rapid Response Network, it's a joint initiative between SFILand plus another organization called Association Mayeb and SFIO DC. The Rapid Response Network do operate 24-7 rapid response hotline and we coordinate ice activity verification, legal referrals, and accompaniment services across San Francisco, among other services we'll be mentioning here. SFILAND is the first one that we'll get into it and SFILAND stands for San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network. These are the organizations that are part of SFILAND and it was created in 2006 And it's, as I was mentioning, it's basically for a direct legal services. So, some of the orgs that are on as they're a part of SF Island are legal organizations that can provide representation, form processing, consultation, and some other organizations that are part of SF Island as well can do education presentations, as you know, as Know Your Rights presentations. So each year, the network serves over 2000 community members. This year, the number increased drastically given the administration that we're all in. And it's also an advocacy coalition. When to contact us? So if your organization or any other institutions that you work for are looking for any direct immigration legal services, outreach services, know your rights presentations, more advocacy for your community, referrals to other services, We can all provide that through SFILDN and we do have some language capacity, but feel free to email us an email that it's in your slide if you have any specific questions about the network or any specific questions about the services that we offer. And I'll pass it to Mili so she can speak a little bit on the SFILDC coalition.

Thanks, Thais. So the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative is the SFILDC. You want to move to the next slide? So SFILDC was founded in 2015, and we really did model our network after SFILN and what SFILN created. We have 15 partner organizations, all San Francisco nonprofits that provide removal defense representation before the San Francisco Immigration Court, and the list of all of our partners is there on the right-hand side. Next slide. So we have three main or four main functions. Our goal and our mission is to provide universal representation to any San Francisco resident who has a hearing before the San Francisco Immigration Court. And when we initially started, we thought that that was a very achievable goal. And every year we represent over a thousand individuals in their case before the immigration court. But because the Number of people needing our services has increased year over year since we started in 2015, we have started to do more limited scope work where we help people along the way with their case when we don't have capacity to provide an attorney that can represent them in their whole case. So we also participate in the attorney of the day program at the San Francisco immigration court. So if someone shows up to court, there is often an immigration attorney from there who will speak to people the day of their hearing. Give them an immediate consultation and refer them to to be added to our database and. If anyone is detained and contacts the Rapid Response Hotline, then one of our SFILDC attorneys is on call as well 24-7 to meet with that respondent or their family members in order to provide emergency legal consultations. So in our history, we've represented over 2,000 individuals before the court. We've won some type of relief in 87% of our cases that are completed. And even for those cases where we might not win, we are still able to prevent deportation or removal in 96% of our cases. And we've represented, or we've provided legal consultations to over 10,000 individuals through our AOD program and our remote consultations. And right now we are maintaining a database of over 1500 San Francisco residents who were not able to provide representation. But because we are able to identify them and provide legal consultations for them, we can screen them and provide other services for them while we're waiting to place them with an attorney. Next slide. So the distinction between SFILDC and SFILN, the big one is SFILN provides a lot of different legal services, including outreach and know your rights, whereas we focus just on removal defense. So it's all geared around the court in San Francisco. So in order to be eligible for our services, it has to be a San Francisco resident and they have to have a current case in the San Francisco Immigration Court. So if they've never been to court, if they've never been stopped at the border, if they've never had any contact with ICE, we're likely not going to be able to assist them with anything because we're really focused on everyone should have an attorney if they're going to immigration court and appearing before a judge. In addition to the full scope representation, which right now is extremely limited, we're not taking on a lot of new cases because we take so long to resolve our current cases. We do help anyone in San Francisco on our database with their initial asylum application filing, and we will help get them to a clinic so they can get their work authorization. We can help them with change of address forms and simple motions. We are now starting to do regular clinics to help them request that their hearings be virtual. And we will provide a legal consultation for free to anyone who lives in San Francisco and has a hearing scheduled. So, there's a couple of ways to get added to this database and receive services. You can go to 1 of our 15 partner agencies and go through their regular intake process. You can call the rapid response hotline, say that you have a court case, and that you want to speak to an attorney with us a file DC, and they can route you to our database and get you set up with that. And for SFUSD families, there's now an attorney at the district office who has regular consultation hours. So if a child or a parent SFUSD wants to be connected with our database and our services, they can contact the district office and schedule an appointment with an attorney there. Next slide. So that's all for SFILDC.

Thanks, Millie. All right, let's talk a little bit about the San Francisco Rapid Response Network and a little bit of the overview of the hotline. So our hotline is a 24-7 multilingual hotline that supports immigrant community members impacted by ICE activity and immigration enforcement in San Francisco. Some of the services that we provide is assistance for detained individual, as you know. So when somebody calls our line saying that their loved one was detained, our dispatchers conduct an intake with them and they, well, SFODC works on dispatching an attorney for legal support and we also can connect families to resources. We also provide ICE verification, so confirming reports of ICE activity to prevent misinformation and provide accurate updates. We're working on developing a better verification system right now. As we know, we have the increased We are trying to increase our capacity, but I'll give you more updates about this very soon. Also, we do have accompaniment services to ICE check-ins, ISAP appointments, USCIS appointments, and immigration court appointments. We are also able to provide through our partners and the journey of the day program, urgent and urgent legal consultations, referral to trust the journeys and resources, some guidance, information and reassurance to families and community members. Who we serve so our primary audience are for San Francisco residents impacted by ice or immigration enforcement. This is really important because we do sometimes in the past with the increased ice activity in the other counties. We try to assist individuals from outside of San Francisco, but unfortunately, we do not have capacity. Our capacity is limited. So, we, our primary audience is focused on San Francisco resident residents. Sorry. The eligibility for legal consultations and accompaniment services. And we'll get a little bit more into it shortly. For urgent legal, for urgent consultations, legal consultations, those are limited to SF residents for non urgent consultations. They're available available to San Francisco residents, but also folks that live in other counties. And I listed some of the counties in the slide. Some of the exclusions for non San Francisco residents that have urgent needs or urgent appointments coming up, they should be referred to their local rapid response for immediate assistance. We won't be able to provide any urgent assistance for folks who live outside of San Francisco. In terms of accompaniment services, they are available to anyone through our Bay Resistance and Faith in Action partners that we'll be speaking shortly about. For folks with a nice check-in, ISAP, USCIS appointment, or immigration court hearing in San Francisco, regardless of their county of residence. All right. So in our hotline, usually the main call, the main calls that we receive are either detention calls. So we receive calls of an SF resident who have been detained by ICE and then the dispatchers will complete the intake form and immediately alert the SFLDC attorneys to be dispatched to either 630 or other locations where the person are being held detained. So, also, we do get a lot of calls to report ice activity in San Francisco, and the dispatchers usually try to gather more details about those activities, either location, photo, recordings, in order to verify that activity and coordinate a response to the community. We also receive calls for individuals, and this is also something that has been added to our rapid response network recently. So really carefully pay attention to this. We're now able to provide accompaniment services, as I was mentioning, and legal consultation. So recently we started receiving those type of calls for folks who are looking to have accompaniment services to ICE check-ins, immigration court hearings, ISAP and USCIS appointments, and also folks who are willing to um receive urgent and no urgent legal consultations of course depending on eligibility and we do get general calls so individuals requesting know your rights presentations and materials folks uh would like to you know like to get referred to social or legal services and individuals also that would like to sign up to be a volunteer and to partner with our rapid response Network The detention calls, it's usually when the loved one calls the hotline to report that an SF resident has been detained by ICE. The dispatcher will fill out an intake with the available details that the person will provide. The main information that it's needed from a trusted person for the SF residents, because remember, for this type of calls, we are only able to serve San Francisco residents. So the main information is usually alien number, NOAA's A number, date of birth, preferred language, detention location, family contact information, brief information, criminal history. When dispatchers are conducting the intake, they're probably asked for more information, but that's usually the main information that it's needed for the attorneys to be able to find the person detained and provide the immediate legal assistance. Also, the attorneys, after the dispatchers conduct the intake, attorneys are alerted and dispatched to provide immediate legal assistance. The dispatcher will follow up after with the loved ones to share updates about the case and connect families with trusted resources, either financial, social, or other legal resources needed. Important. The Rapid Response Network can only assist San Francisco residents, as I mentioned, in detention cases, and if the detainee lives outside of San Francisco, our dispatchers will be referring them to their local Rapid Response Network. For ice activity calls, some of the steps for verification, as I was mentioning, so unfortunately, we're not able to verify ice activity outside of San Francisco. If you do encounter ice in nearby counties, please refer to their local rapid response network. Some of the information that the dispatchers try to collect is either the exact cross street or address where the sighting happened, visible ICE, DHS or police logos, agent vehicle descriptions, number of agents, type of uniforms, and marked vehicles. All this information helps our dispatchers to actually be able to verify the activity, connect with reliable sources, and provide accurate updates to the community. So it's always important for people who experience or encounter ICE activity to take photos or videos only if it's safe to do so. We wouldn't like anybody to put themselves at risk to try to record ICE or know take pictures or to approach them um in any situation so if it's if you're able to to take a photo or video and send to our rapid response network that would be great because then we can determine if it was truly ice activity or another law enforcement agency like sfpd probation officers and also if the report is reliable or if maybe based on the rumor or confusion of the caller Also, it's important that the person calling about the ice activity should have seen the incident themselves or spoken to the media who did. Dispatchers cannot confirm anything based on social media posts or secondhand information or any speculation. Also, the callers can call the hotline to back to verify if the report was confirmed or not. And when a report of mass enforcement is received, our team also coordinate efforts to update the community throughout through social media and also other lines of communications, press conferences and ethnic media. Try to, again, prioritize safety. Do not approach ICE or confront agents. Also, use caution when taking pictures or videos and prioritize community safety, please. For urgent consultations, Millie, would you like to speak a little bit more about this?

Yeah, so we will provide a consultation to anyone who has court in San Francisco, but sometimes it takes us a week or two to schedule those. So we got some additional funding this year to expand and support rapid response. So our partners have agreed to create a rotating schedule for what we consider urgent consultation. So these are consultations that have a very TIGHT DEADLINE WHERE THEY NEED LEGAL ADVICE BEFORE AN UPCOMING APPOINTMENT OR BECAUSE THEY'VE HAD SOME CONTACT WITH ICE AND WE BELIEVE THEY MIGHT BE AT RISK OF DETENTION. SO IN ORDER FOR US TO SERVE PEOPLE WITH THAT NEED, WE HAVE TO LIMIT IT TO PEOPLE IN VERY SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES SO THAT WE HAVE ENOUGH ATTORNEYS TO PROVIDE THESE WITHIN 24 HOURS, WITHIN 48 HOURS BASED ON WHEN THE The need is, and so we identified for areas where we believe people need these consultations that we got a high volume of calls requesting them, and we want to make sure that they're able to speak to an attorney before that upcoming deadline. So it's limited to San Francisco residents only, and we will provide a Urgent consult within 24 hours if ICE has come to someone's home for a wellness check for a minor or if they like knocked on the door and left and they didn't arrest anyone but the family living there believes they are at risk still and they want to speak to an attorney immediately. If someone can call us within 48 hours of a court date or in ICE check-in, we will also give them a legal consultation to screen them and advise them of any risks that they might personally have if they go to that check-in or court and are detained and make sure that they have information about accompaniment and also how to call the Rapid Response Network if they are arrested. And so we just want to make sure that individuals who call us when those specific circumstances are able to speak to someone immediately and our partners have all agreed to do those consultations within 48 hours of the ICE check in or the court date. If people call us the night before they have court or the night before their check in, we can't always guarantee that we're going to have an attorney available to speak with them on that timeline. So if someone can call us, you know, even 30 days before their court or their check in, we can schedule them for an intake and make sure that they speak to an attorney before that visit. But we do try to turn those around within 72 hours if it's an upcoming court date that we know about in the next week or so. And then if people don't have that urgent need because they don't have a deadline or anything, but they want to speak to an attorney, we call those non-urgent consultations. And of course, anyone who is detained who reaches out to us the day of the arrest, we consider that an emergency consultation. We will dispatch an attorney immediately to meet with them that same day. We will also provide urgent consultations to people who have been moved to a detention center and the family did not call us the day of the arrest. but the family member is detained and they need to speak to an attorney immediately. There's just limitations on how quickly we can schedule those calls with the detainees because we have to go through whatever process that detention center has. So sometimes that can take us a few days, but we try to set those up as quickly as we can.

Thanks, Millie. All right, next, the request for accompaniment services, please also, if you'd like to request accompaniment services for a community member, or anybody's interested in the accompaniment for ICI CANs, immigration court hearings, ISAP appointments, or USCIS appointments, call the hotline because our dispatchers are trained to assess the case and see whether or not they're going to be able to refer that person, that individual, So just call the hotline just to be sure. So usually, so we're partnering with Faith in Action and Bay Resistance to provide those services to the community. And when, you know, somebody calls the hotline requesting accompaniment services to the various appointments I just mentioned, the dispatchers will collect some information and will check also if the person has an urgent appointment coming up or if they would have some more time so then they could coordinate accompaniment services for that specific individual. So if you're calling as a community member with an immigration appointment in San Francisco, the dispatchers will refer you to Faith in Action through the San Mateo County hotline. The caller should inform if the services are urgent or not. And this keeps actually the San Francisco Rapid Response Line free of emergencies. That's why we're referring accompaniment services on an urgent basis to the San Mateo County hotline. If the caller is a case manager or advocate who would like to request accompaniment services for a client, our Rapid Response Network dispatcher will refer them to fill out the Bay Resistance Accompaniment Form. and but it's best used when there is some time to plan ahead so again it's always important to mention the urgency of that appointment when calling the hotline and also inform if the servant the the caller has any language um services so we can check with our partners if their language capacity Just to be clear that when requesting accompaniment services, the people who will be accompanying these folks to the appointments are not attorneys and sometimes do not have legal expertise. So they're not able to provide any legal consultation. So just be aware of that. It's just the accompaniment services are a way to actually provide an extra layer of safety and to be there for our community. Also, Bay Resistance, just mentioning, has capacity to perform accompaniment services in Concord. You would definitely need to reach out to their rapid response network to coordinate those services in Concord, but just wanted to mention that to you all. For our last type of calls, the general calls and requests for resources, for folks who'd like to request materials and presentations, they don't have to call our rapid response hotline. They can email us, and the email is on the presentation. And same for Know Your Rights presentations. They can always email the SFILA Network Gmail to request Know Your Rights presentation for your community or organizations. If you decide to call the hotline, the dispatchers can also provide some guidance, some referrals that you're interested and connect to you with trusted services and other organizations. You can always visit the SF file and web page. Just a quick note that the rapid response website is currently being update and it's down out of service. So I appreciate your understanding. We are revamping the website to provide you with new materials and resources, and we will update you when it's ready again. Um, here, just a quick overview of the materials and resources we do have at our SF file and org website. So you can print those, but also, if these are not enough for your organization, and also, if you'd like to request extra materials, we do have red cards available in various languages bracelets. key chains, magnets, anything you can imagine, and we are working on developing more. So again, just feel free to email us and request the amount of materials you'd be interested. Some key messages for community members, if you do encounter ICE, just basic know your rights. ICE and other law enforcement cannot enter any private area. We will get a little bit more in depth about what private area means. Without permission or a warrant signed by a judge, do not open the door without a signed warrant. You don't have to answer questions or show ID to ICE. Don't sign anything you don't understand. Don't attempt to run away from ICE. Instead, you can always ask, am I free to go or am I being detained? Do not lie or provide false documentation to an ICE officer. What can you do when encountering ICE activity? Again, if you're in a safe place to take photos or videos of ice activity, please do because this helps us verify incidents and provide timely support, but always call the hotline if you do encounter ice. And what can you do if you're actually detained by ice? So some know your rights for folks who are detained by ice always to stay calm and silent. So we actually try to advise people. To remain silent that folks do not have to answer questions about their immigration status, where they were born or how they enter the United States. Also ask to speak with the lawyer. You can always say I want to speak with my attorney and do not sign any documents without legal advice. Also do not show any false documents or a lie because that can literally cause serious harm to your case. You can always request to make a phone call, and you can either call your attorney if you have a private attorney, a trusted person, and ask them to contact the rapid response hotline. So then we can fill out the intake, our dispatchers can fill out the intake, and an attorney can be dispatched to provide immediate legal assistance. Again, do not sign anything without advice. I made pressure and they're really good at doing this. You need to sign a voluntary departure and other forms. Millie can speak a little bit more about that very soon. So but you do have the right to wait until the trainee can preview your documents in case. Always keep copies of your important information. We always try to remind our individuals that it's important that they have their documents prepared if they are at risk of being deported. So carrying the A number and your attorneys and the rapid response contact information, it's always helpful. Also, this makes it easier for the family and the hotline to locate the person if they are detained. We are working, given the scenario that we're living in, and we are working on actually developing some, strengthening our hotline services and reach. So we recently developed a BART campaign. You'll be able probably to see in some BART stations here in San Francisco, our hotline ad. Please take a picture and you can always tag our Rapid Response Network Instagram page. It's always important for our community members to know that we're trying to reach them somehow and we can be a resource, an extra resource for them. We're also working on developing mass enforcement protocols. It's important now that we all know that what happened in LA in the past, that could happen here in San Francisco, so it's important that we work on developing these mass enforcement protocols. and a coordinated response across partners. Also, we are working on similar trainings like this one for dispatchers, community members, community partners to advise them about their rights and what they could do to support their own community. We are also working on a canvassing campaign across San Francisco in neighborhoods, businesses, and on the streets to make sure that families know about the hotline. And we are, as I mentioned, creating more materials and distributing them with our community members. Um, so as I mentioned, we are developing and revamp, we are revamping our old materials materials. We are developing new ones, more multilingual and accessible. Um, also according to the recent immigration updates that we're all seeing. So more, more exciting updates to come. Now I would like to get into more detail about Know Your Rights on how the US Homeland Security Department operates. So then it gives us the idea of what to expect and also when to call the hotline. And also if you're actually seeing ICE or other agents on the street, if you'd like to report any ICE activity to our hotline. So, for us to understand the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, it was created after the 911 and it's a big, big federal agency with various branches and under the Homeland Security Department, you can find the CBP, which stands for Customs and Border Patrol. Um, the, which is usually responsible responsible for immigration applications and, you know, all, you know, you visas, um, asylum applications, any, any sort of documentations, um, related to immigration and the immigration customs and enforcement, which is normally as ice. Um, that usually conducts the arrests here in San Francisco and other other locations, the tensions and removals. So under ICE, you can always also find the department, so the ERO, the enforcement and removal operations, which usually are the agents that you see on the ground picking up folks and detaining them, and the Homeland Security Investigations, which usually they investigate folks That have criminal history and the immigration status here, they're not super present and conducting ice arrests in the community, but they can also do and conduct the rest and support the, which other ice agents and provide in conducting those arrests and rates. Also for IEDIT here, right on the bottom, for those who don't know, TSA, the Transportation Security Administration at the airports are also part of the Homeland Security Department, and they're focused on airport and transportation security. They do, because they're part of the Homeland Security, like ICE and CBP, they do share biometrics and data with DHS systems, so ICE do have access to their files. And so CBP also does have access to it, unfortunately. So here in the beginning of the year when we conducted this presentation with you all, these were the pictures that we showed to you all about how ICE agents were presenting themselves at the time. And the first picture here you would see right on your left, it was actually an arrest conducted here in San Francisco. And you would see that ICE agents would actually be able to be identified because they wouldn't use face masks, they would have badges, they would have any sort of vest that would identify them. That was back in January and beginning of the year. Now, here, I put some more pictures of the beginning of the year and their vehicles. Now ICE presents themselves with face masks, unfortunately, and they just actually declared yesterday that they're not going to take masks off. So we're going to continue seeing ICE agents with fully masked, actually. Some of them, as you see in the picture, do not have vests, so they work undercover, sometimes not even their badges because they put their badges in a way that we cannot see it. And their vehicles sometimes nowadays especially are just plain white vans, plain SUVs or any car like any transportation or vehicles that we can't identify, unfortunately. So just if you're not really sure of whether you're seeing a nice agent or not, just call the hotline because we our dispatchers, again, are trained to do ice verification and we do have line of communication with other city agencies that could provide us with um could help us with this verification um it became a little trickier to recognize ice agents nowadays more than it used to be so just um for you to know What is Border Patrol? So again, Border Patrol is an agency that is part of the Homeland Security Department and is responsible for enforcing immigration laws at and near U.S. borders. So agents conduct special patrol in borders and monitor ports of entry. So there is the rule of the 100 miles on which federal border patrol agents can actually expand their authority within 100 miles of any U.S. land or coastal border. This on include the United, the entire US population, never living near borders, coastlines and international airports. So, it covers about 2 thirds of the US population and includes major cities like San Francisco because, you know, we're right by the coastline Los Angeles, New York, New York City. Oh, sorry New York City, Chicago and Miami. So with that power, the Border Patrol can set up immigration checkpoints, as you've seen in Oakland and the Alameda County. They can board buses, trains, and other transit. They conduct stops and searches, but also constitutional rights still apply. Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. Um, here is just an overview of what these rule for the 100 miles on could look like. So you see that mainly all the cities on the coastline and on that, not just on the border to other other countries. are actually could see the presence of Border Patrol agencies, including San Francisco, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, all of those cities. So a little bit of what the sanctuary law means. San Francisco sanctuary policy ensures that the city will not use local resources to collude with ICE to deport immigrants and undermine community trust. So basically, ICE can still operate in San Francisco because they're part of the federal government, but they must do so without the help of city resources. Theoretically, in theory, they cannot use the local police to actually work with them in arresting individuals here in San Francisco, but they can operate in San Francisco because they are a federal agency. Millie, would you like to talk a little bit more about the current scenario here in San Francisco?

Yeah, I just want to highlight that the, the 100 mile radius of the border policy used to only be prior to this administration. They considered the border, the land borders. So that changing it to be all of the coastline has been challenged in court. There's a lawsuit ongoing right now for the rates that they conducted in Bakersfield. And so there are still questions about authority to conduct those. And the reason they use CBP is because CBP has a little bit more right to stop someone and accuse them of being in the United States unlawfully if they're near a port of entry or the border. And so that's the reason why they're trying to expand their authority, because they have a little broader authority to detain people. Prior to this administration, it was extremely rare to see ice at courts and it was mainly because they did not want people to be afraid to go to their immigration hearings. And because when someone is in the middle of their immigration case, they legally cannot be deported until a judge orders them deported. So. What we've seen in practice in San Francisco specifically is we've seen arrests in the community, but most of the people being detained right now are people who are going to ICE for their check ins, which are just regular check ins that they have while they're in some type of process or they cannot be removed or going to their immigration hearings. it's easy for them to catch people there because they know when and where they will be. And if they do not come to court or they do not come to their check-ins, then they have issues, other issues with immigration about not complying that could get them in trouble. So it's really a difficult situation people are in where they have to decide if they wanna continue on the path to trying to apply for asylum or any legal status that they have or abandon their case and go into hiding. to avoid being arrested and separated from their family. Most of the people we've seen arrested at court and at their check-ins have no criminal history. They've been complying with check-ins. They have not violated the terms of their check-in, but we are seeing in the last few weeks because of so many legal challenges to these arrests, that ICE is now accusing people of not complying with check-ins or missing appointments. And we're seeing a lot of that, those accusations are false and that people, it's usually problems with the app or the system that they use to contact people. So now more than ever, it's really important that people go to all of their ICE app and ICE check-ins because if they don't, they are putting themselves at higher risk of detention because ICE can say that they are a flight risk because they're not attending their hearings and their check-ins. Because of some of these initial arrests, there are regular protesters and activists outside of the court at 100 Montgomery Street, and that has really slowed down the arrests at that location. That location is a private office building where ICE officers have to arrest people inside the court lobbies. And then take them downstairs and transfer them to another office at 630 Samsung street. And that's where we've seen a lot of clashes with protesters because of that. The most, most of the rest we've seen since August have been at the court located. There's 2 courtrooms in the federal building at 630 Samsung street, and it's easier for them to detain people and move them into detention. without coming into contact with protesters. And also because it's a federal building, nobody can enter the building without showing ID. And they can refuse people entry if they believe that they are going to be disruptive or try to somehow obstruct law enforcement. And then we are also seeing individuals who are arrested and detained being held at the 630 office building. There was always a policy before that. It wasn't appropriate to hold people there for more than 12 hours. These are just basically office spaces with locked doors. They're not meant to hold people overnight. There's not sufficient facilities for bathrooms for food for people to have a change of clothes to have any hygiene. Um, products and things like that, um, people are sleeping on floors or sleeping sitting up. They don't have blankets or pillows. So, um, that is also something that we're really concerned about as well are the conditions here in San Francisco for people who are being held before they're sent to a detention center. And there's been a lawsuit filed by the and the lawyers committee for civil rights and last week to challenge the courthouse arrest and the detention conditions at 630 Samsung street. And that is ongoing litigation and they worked really closely with our rapid response partners and our attorneys to identify cases for that lawsuit. So, I can talk a little bit about what happened on the 28th and so on August 28th, we saw the largest enforcement outside of court, or the 630 sense and check in buildings in San Francisco that we've seen since we had the rapid response network start the hotline in 2017. so, on that day, we saw, we identified at least 12 adults who were detained. We know that it was federal agents were in. um some type of identifying uniform along with other officers who were not identified and we believe they were using um The excuse that they were doing a criminal drug enforcement investigation in order to enter the building and that what they ended up doing is they arrested several people. But most of the people that they arrested were not charged with any drug related charges. They pulled people out of their homes, question them, detain them and took them to immigration for processing without any type of criminal accusations or allegations against them. Many of those individuals are still detained now. A few people were released immediately and put on some type of supervision program. But it's also the first time we've seen an immigration sweep where there were what we call collateral arrests. So prior to August 28th, when ICE was arresting people in the community, they were generally looking for a specific person because that person had some type of immigration or criminal violation in their history. They often had their name and their photo. and would arrest them outside their home or on their way to work or dropping their kids off. They would follow them in their car and they would look for that individual and they would not arrest anyone else. This is the first time we've seen them arrest multiple people that weren't an obvious target of an investigation or they didn't have some type of immigration violation. And we know that because they were questioning people and getting their information about their immigration status during That action, so we were able to connect with the people who called the hotline and were able to give us the names of the people detained the way operates currently is if we do not have someone's full name, they will not let us speak to them. Even if we know that they are arrested and being held there. So, it's really important for community members to contact the rapid response response hotline and get us that information for us to be able to speak with detainees. So. That was a difficult day because we knew that there were up to 10 people arrested and we were only able to speak to 2 of them because they were the only 2 that had family members call in immediately. And we've been following up with other family members as we've been able to identify them as well.

Thanks, Millie. Would you like to speak a little bit more about the screen? Yeah.

So historically, there has been laws about unlawful search and seizure where ICE could not and Border Patrol were prevented from racial profiling, meaning just because you didn't speak English or had an accent or looked like you were from another country, they can't make an assumption that you are here in violation of some type of immigration law. They have to have a reasonable suspicion based on something other than your race or the language you speak or the type of employment or the location that you are to give them enough information to detain you and question you and put you into immigration proceedings, whatever those may be. After the raids and sweeps that we saw in Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles brought a lawsuit against them. challenging many of the rest down there because many times U.S. citizens were arrested even after they told ICE that they were a U.S. citizen. And we got a very disturbing decision from the Supreme Court, who overturned the lower court's decision, saying that ICE could in a place like Los Angeles, where there is a high rate of undocumented immigrants, detain people and have a reasonable suspicion to detain someone. because they speak a foreign language or they have an accent because they are in a location where it's known that day laborers or people from certain industries are often undocumented. And this is really concerning for us as attorneys. This is kind of a huge overreach And we expect that with this decision, we're going to see more sweeps and raids in the Bay area as well. This decision is limited to Los Angeles, but I think the practices that they're implementing there will probably carry over. And we're already seeing some of that in Oakland with, like, random traffic stops and then going after people generally in public, which, like I said before. we haven't really seen inside san francisco this administration apart from the raid on august 28th so we do expect more of that but we still want people to exercise their right to remain silent to not volunteer information and we are doing more outreach in areas that we know have um are known to be places where day laborers and undocumented individuals look for work just to warn them that they could be arrested just for being in that location or they could be targeted because they're in that location, but still want people to exercise their rights to remain silent and caution non-citizens not to carry a foreign passport or a consulate card or other documentation that makes it easy for ICE to say that they are an immigrant and not a U.S. citizen. And we don't think that U.S. citizens now have to carry around their passport with them. If you have a real ID on you, that should be sufficient to show that you are a U.S. citizen. But you can also exercise your right to remain silent if you are a U.S. citizen and you are here if you are here lawfully as a resident, you still have the right not to answer their questions. You don't have to prove anything. But for some people who might have other considerations and don't want to risk being detained, it's your choice what you want to tell them, what information you want to give them. But we don't recommend that people who are in some type of process that's not finalized. So you have an application pending that doesn't grant you status. I wouldn't carry around proof of that because it also shows them it's proof to them that you're not in the United States. And if your case is not approved already, and you don't have um authorization to live in the united states as a resident or u.s citizen um that might actually be evidence that they use to hold against you so it's it's a difficult time um for everyone especially those who are concerned that they are u.s citizens or have status and they're going to still be targeted by ice because of their race or because of the language that we speak so um yeah that's an unfortunate ruling but We still have rights. I can talk about domestic air travel as well. So the TSA collects a lot of information from you when you're traveling. Previously, there didn't seem to be real connection between people traveling domestically, not going through customs, who were undocumented as long as they had an identification that would allow them to board a plane. However, that's changed. We've had reports of individuals who are traveling domestically with their foreign passport to go from San Francisco to another state and then being detained at the airport. And we believe it's because TSA is now sharing information with ICE specifically to identify people when they go through their biometric screening or when they show their passport and potentially flagging them for arrest. So we caution individuals who don't have legal status not to travel through an airport if they can avoid it. And if they have to for some type of emergency, they should definitely consult with an attorney before they travel to see what risks they might face. Not all immigrants are vulnerable for deportation, that is true, but I do believe that they're starting to increase who they believe are people who should be deported from the United States. But the people who are most at risk and who were targeted initially are people with outstanding removal orders or deportation orders. So they were in the system at some time. They were asked to leave the United States and they never left. Those are the people that traditionally ICE is going out and looking for in those targeted arrests. And then people who have a check-in or an ongoing proceeding, we've seen high numbers of arrests for them. So we advise community before you go to your check-in or your court hearing, that you speak to an attorney, you understand the obligation you have to attend those hearings, and you understand the consequences if you do not go to that meeting or check-in, and that you understand the resources available through rapid response if you are detained, that you contact us immediately so we can provide some legal support. Um, individuals with criminal records have always been a high priority for arrest and attention from the United States. But now we're seeing them say that anyone with any type of, like, petty theft defense charges that they normally would not consider dangerous or serious. They're now trying to argue that. those individuals with any type of criminal history are not eligible for bond and need to be detained throughout the duration of their case so we're not talking about violent crimes here we're talking about any type of criminal activity even really minor misdemeanor things could make someone at risk it's also a way that they flag someone if someone's booked into county jail their fingerprints automatically go to the FBI and ICE is alerted if there's a match for someone who was had some type of contact with immigration in the past. We're now seeing more collateral arrests. So an individual might live in the home with someone who was a target of an arrest, it shows up and then they arrest everyone in the home or they arrest anyone in the home they believe is undocumented. And then now they have a legal authority on a registration requirement saying if you don't register and identify yourself to ice that you're here unlawfully that can be a basis for arrest already. If you have some type of. a status in the united states either residency citizenship temporary protected status a u visa or t visa you still have the right to remain in the united states and you still have the right to see a judge to remain in the united states but we are now seeing them detaining people with status more often and placing them in removal proceedings and placing them in detention So we really think it's important that everyone contact an immigration attorney, schedule a consultation, kind of talk through their individual immigration case and circumstances and get advice particular to them about what their risks are and how they can protect themselves and their families and prepare for what they should do if someone in their family is detained. So, um, yeah, if you need a consult, if you, um, have a family member who's, um, impacted by ice or detained by ice, please call the hotline. If you see ice in the community, please call the hotline. Um, again, we really want people to get individualized legal advice. This isn't stuff that we can do in a know your rights presentation easily. Everyone's situation is a little bit different and little things can sometimes impact whether or not someone needs to be preparing or doing a risk assessment and making plans versus someone who's here lawfully and they're just scared because of what they're seeing on the news and they're panicking for no reason. And we also encourage people to look at the emergency toolkit available on the rapid response or it's on the SF Island website. There are things that we really encourage parents to do to make sure if they have US citizen children, that there's a plan in place for the care of the children if someone in the family is detained. And then there's a lot of resources available for individuals who have a family member detained through Mission Asset Fund, which I hope we give them time to talk as well.

Sorry. Thank you. Really? Yes. Thank you for also providing this recent immigration changes to our community partners here today. Yeah, for the sake of time, I'm going to move a little faster with this know your rights on direct service sites. And if you do have any questions, we can send you the presentation folks can send you this presentation after. And then feel free to reach out. So I'll skip this. It's just important that folks understand their rights on service sites when encountering ICE in businesses and other locations, health locations, schools, anything related, because then we can increase trust with population. You want also your organization can understand their rights and can be compliant and also understand local and state laws. Also, some of the know your rights for service sites. ICE and other law enforcement cannot enter any private area of a business without permission or a warrant signed by a judge. You're also not obligated to review client information to ICE, and you should contact your director's executive leadership for further guidance if ICE is on the premises. They can contact other folks and the program director who would be trained to actually deal with ICE. Your organization actually should create protocols and instructions for frontline staff. Here are some of the instructions we provide for frontline staff in case they encounter ICE and what they can do. Also, it's always important to contact your supervisor if you're a frontline staff and you don't know how to deal with ICE agents. And for managers, always try to not give consent twice to enter any private areas off the site. Private means any area that the general public cannot enter. So we can include shared common areas exclusive to the site or an office that is private to the general public and areas that general public cannot enter. It's important. It's important to mention that if people, folks can place signs on doors saying that a specific area is actually private, that helps actually to create that division between a general public area and a private area. So yeah, it's a good advice. Also do not volunteer information about a client at a site. If ICE has the right to search the records, they'll have a subpoena signed by a judge. You can always ask for a copy of their warrant to be presented to your director for permission to enter. That's why it's always important to contact your supervisor and your executive leadership if ICE comes to your site. And even if ICE presents a so-called warrant or other document, you can tell them to wait in the public area. So you can always direct them to wait on the general public area until you get permission from your supervisor, director, or executive leadership to speak with them. It's possible that if they have a valid judge signed warrant, they will enter anyway. If ICE actually has a valid signed warrant, as Millie was mentioning what happened in the Soma raid, they will burst doors, they will enter, they won't just wait for anybody to speak with them. They would just proceed with whatever they need to do and arrest whoever they need to. So you can always use your voice to make clear that you do not consent. This area is private. It's also something that you can say this area is private. You're not allowed to go back there and immediately contact your supervisor and executive leadership. They might be searching for someone specific, and it's important that your organization is aware of what is happening.

You should also ask for a copy of the warrant, because the warrant will say exactly what they're allowed to do where they're allowed to search and where they're not allowed to search. But, like I said, most organizations should have some type of internal policies on law enforcement. There are situations where there might be, they might be conducting an investigation on undocumented workers. If it's an organization that we're a company that. Is suspected of hiring undocumented workers, but in those cases, they would need to notify the company ahead of time that they're going to do an audit there and that would give them access to the files. But you don't need to answer their questions. You should just ask for a copy of the warrant. If they have a warrant signed by a judge, it should be very clear where they're allowed to go and. What areas they're allowed to search, but that doesn't mean that you need to answer their questions or give them information or unlock or give them access to things and areas that are not in the warrant.

Thanks, Millie. Yes. And also sometimes well, almost never they have a warrant signed by a judge. Sometimes they will bring a warrant signed by a nice supervisor. And it's we usually we call immigration warrant and it's going to say on the top and I'm going to show you quickly. Department of Homeland Security and the signature won't come from a judge, it will come from an ICE supervisor. A valid judge signed warrant will be signed by a judge. It describes the place that actually needs to be searched and the names of these specific individuals for arrest. It has the correct date that it was issued. and it has a window of 14 days and the search cannot exceed the scope of the items authorized in the search warrant. So here are the differences between the two warrants. Sorry, I think this one is just the Homeland Security one. So it's an immigration warrant that will be signed by an ICE supervisor that usually doesn't give the right to ICE agents to enter places without authorization. But here you see a federal warrant that should be signed by a judge that actually will tell the agents and the people what the agents can actually search with that warrant and who they can arrest. some tips you should not try blocking ice from entering an area physically you can always use your voice because that could actually create problems for yourself also do never tell a client to flee the area that also could create you know a pre-test for arrest and may carry legal consequences for yourself You do have the right to record ICE, but at a distance. They're also really against being recorded lately. And as you probably heard, they clashed with protesters outside of federal buildings that were trying to record them, not at a distance, super closely and try to clash with them. So just be safe and try to keep a distance when recording or taking pictures of ICE agents. Also, always ask for identifying information from the agent. You can always ask them for their badge number or ask them for a business card and immediately report to your supervisor and executive leadership. Here are some additional know your rights that we do have this materials that you can always request from our rapid response email. And I won't get deeply into it because sake of time, but you can request those from us. Always, you know, you do have the right, as Millie was mentioning, to remain silent. You can try to limit the amount of information you give ICE officers. Also, they do always try to manipulate people into self-incriminating. That's why remaining silent is always really important. If ICE has the legal authority to do something, they will do it. They will literally burst your door, enter the areas that they need to enter. They won't ask for permission. If they're asking for permission, it's because they don't have a valid federal warrant and they cannot enter that area. Other resources available at SF Island organizations that you can find. We do have some red cards there. This is the post off with Know Your Rights information for your service sites that you can request from us and you can post it on your windows and doors to advise the community about what they can do if encountering ICE. Also, Millie already mentioned about the emergency toolkit that we have in our SFLM website and how important it is for folks to be preparing if they are actually at risk of being deported. That's it. Thank you all. Thank you, Millie. And here we pass to the OCF folks for questions and answers.

yes thank you so much for such a robust and important presentation and i know there's we could probably be on here for another couple hours to go really in depth in all of the resources you shared today and i hope folks found this truly valuable again this presentation will be recorded so if you need to go back and refer to the information shared today please do we do have a few questions that i want to get to and if folks can stay on the call for a little bit longer that would be great but again we are recording it if you're not able to So I think I'll start with the first question, and I think this refers to when we talked about the Soma incident in August. What qualifies as having a person's full name that the Rapid Response Network would like to have? If we could explain that a little more.

Yeah, so their first and last name. If they have two last names, it's helpful if we have both last names. It's also helpful if we know what country they're from and also their date of birth will help us. But at a minimum, we need first and last name. And we've had situations in the past where someone called in for someone with one name and then ICE has them under another name. So if you know that person has an alias or was working or identified by ICE in the past using a different name, we would want that name as well.

Great. Okay, and then one more question. Any advice for someone who was picked up by ICE after court in San Francisco and then transferred to Bakersfield?

They're going to need to hire lawyers, so we have the capacity to respond immediately. We have the capacity to give them emergency legal advice, but we're to get out of custody. They're likely going to need an attorney to fight their case with them. We've been very successful in the last several weeks of having volunteer attorneys file emergency habeas petitions. And we try to do that service for everyone. A habeas petition is challenging their authority to arrest you. And we have a lawsuit pending that will hopefully stop this practice, but rapid response cannot guarantee that we're gonna get you out of custody and that we're going to be able to represent you throughout your case. So if someone was arrested at court, make sure that you call the hotline to identify them. If they did not get a consultation that day, We will find them, and we will provide a consultation, and we will provide the family with a list of private attorneys that do detained work, but it's going to be really, really challenging and difficult for them to get out of detention if they don't have representation.

Thanks for that. I'm going to pause on the questions because our next presenter does need to leave soon, so thank you again. Really appreciate all of the information and just want to give props, and if you can put hearts and reactions, please do. Our next presenters are Mission Asset Fund. We have Gabriela and Doris who are going to share about the newly launched Alma Fund for our immigrant community. So I'll pass it to you, Gabriela and Doris.

We unfortunately can't share the document we have, but we will just make sure to send materials to everyone. My name is Gabriela Aleman. I'm here with Mission Asset Fund, and I'm the philanthropy and communications manager. And I'm really excited to present Doris, our senior programs manager, who will share more about our newest program and emergency grant program, Alma.

Thank you, Gabby, and thank you, Thais and Amelie for such a wonderful presentation and Osia for bringing us together. So for those who don't know who MAF is, we're a nonprofit organization and a mission to support low income and immigrant communities become visible, active and successful in their financial lives. Over the past 17 years, we have funded more than 16,000 loans to people across the country helping them to increase their credit scores, pay down debt, and save for important goals like becoming a homeowner, a business owner, or a U.S. citizen. Now, what is Alma? In May of 2025, we launched the Alma program to support families facing financial hardship after the detention or deportation of a primary income earner in the household. Through Alma, families will receive access to direct cash assistance, financial services, and community support to help them regain stability during these immigration emergencies. You might be asking yourself who qualifies. The program focuses on families who have been impacted by immigration, detention, or deportation. Patricia D. A household within the connection to San Francisco San Mateo and alameda that meets the electric eligibility criteria qualify and we encourage those interested in applying to visit our webpage. Patricia D. which I will be putting or gabby if you don't mind putting that on the chat that would be great our webpage also includes a pre application for families interested in receiving support through the Program. How do you know that a family gets selected? Well, MAF will review all submitted pre-applications within approximately two business days. Families selected to participate in the program will receive an email notification from MAF. Any funding is available in the pre-application applicants area will contact them with the next steps. How will families be able to use the money? And families are the experts of their own lives, we all know this, they know best on what their needs are. For this reason, the direct cash assistance provided through the program can be used for any essential living expenses they choose, such as rent, food or other necessities. And just to end our presentation here, we encourage those that are interested to apply to visit our homepage. And we also ask all of you to start spreading the word about Alma and feel free to send any inquiries to Gabriela or myself that we, and any questions that you might have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mission Asset Fund. Really appreciate you sharing this opportunity. And we did drop the link in the chat So folks are interested in learning more, please follow that link. The final presentation, unfortunately, our speaker had to hop off. So I'm going to share my screen and let everyone know about a new tool that the San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collectors Office of Financial Empowerment just launched in partnership with OCEA. It is preparing for financial emergencies. Let me put the link in the chat. And this tool is for all types of emergencies, including immigration emergencies. So hopefully, I think everyone can see my screen. As you can see, immigration emergencies is included in the list of emergencies, but it's also about building out a emergency plan for all families, whether it's medical, natural disasters, detainment, or incarceration. I want to highlight that this web page is available in many languages. And there are some, you can scroll through, but there's some in-depth resources at the bottom that really highlight a step-by-step family preparedness plan. deportation financial planning manual and the SF immigrant forum so if folks need other resources that's available there, so I put the link in the chat we really encourage people to. If you're working with clients that have questions about how to prepare for such emergencies pointing them in this direction to start building out that plan and SF island also has a family emergency preparedness plan as well, specifically around immigration emergencies. All right, I will stop there. Thank you for staying with us this whole time. Really appreciate everyone's participation in this meeting, but also the poll and giving us feedback. I'll just, for the final reminder, this will be on OCIA's YouTube if you want to refer back to the presentation today. It will also be posted on the SF Immigrant Forum website along with the slides today. And if you're on the forum listserv, we will be sending it out in addition to the poll if you want to provide more input. I see a lot of hearts on the screen. So thank you so much, everyone. We hope to see you again on December 3rd for our next forum meeting. And please do reach out if you have any questions. Thank you all so much and have a good rest of your afternoon.