District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder rallied with immigrant rights advocates on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 20, alongside members of the Democratic Socialists of America, La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Indivisible.
The noon rally drew roughly 250 people, who gathered on the steps and sidewalk outside City Hall. Organizers said the event was a response to a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in the South of Market neighborhood.
On Monday, Oct. 19, ICE agents arrested a man was identified as 51-year-old Milton Ramos-Rodriguez, a Salvadoran national who had previously been deported and has a prior California conviction for voluntary manslaughter.
Without addressing Ramos-Rodriguez’s criminal history, rally organizers called for increased funding for immigrant service providers. Specifically, politicians and activists sought additional staffing for the San Francisco Rapid Response Network, which operates a hotline for people to report immigration enforcement activity.
Fielder led the rally, demanding that ICE have no presence in San Francisco or the country. She thanked Mayor Daniel Lurie and her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors for their support.
Supervisors Connie Chan, Shamann Walton, Bilal Mahmood and Danny Sauter, along with Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, attended the rally and spoke about their commitment to maintaining San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city.
Fielder had also called for the removal of the “30-day rule” to expedite new immigration-related legislation. This rule is the usual requirement that requires a public review period before a committee can vote on the legislation. Along with Supervisors Chyanne Chen, Chan, and Mahmood, Fielder had co-sponsored the “ICE-Free Zones” ordinance. It establishes protections against federal immigration enforcement on city-owned property and prohibits ICE from using or commandeering municipal facilities for immigration operations.
Several speakers emphasized the urgency of the situation, claiming community members were being “snatched” and “kidnapped” from the streets.
“We’re supposed to believe these people are dangerous and its absolute bulls–t,” Sauter said.
Toward the end of the rally, shouts of “Where’s the mayor?!” broke out in the crowd.
None of the speakers mentioned the open drug scene just a block over in the area.
That dealers from Honduras are in the country illegally is well-established, and the resulting damage of the trade is clear and devastating. The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner recorded 351 accidental overdose deaths from Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, 2026.
Conditions in neighborhoods where there is a high concentration of drug dealers and uses continues to deteriorate. However, San Francisco’s sanctuary-city laws generally prohibit city resources from being used to assist federal civil immigration enforcement. Police also cannot hold someone beyond their lawful release time solely because of an ICE detainer.
A man who goes by Louis, a receptionist at La Raza Centro Legal and a recent San Francisco resident, said he was proud to attend the rally.
“As an immigrant myself, I think migration is the ancestral rights of all human beings,” he said. “I think it is disgusting that Trump is weaponizing this against our communities.
Asked about allegations that people from Honduras were coming to San Francisco to sell fentanyl, Louis dismissed them as narratives intended to frighten the public. Fear is a tool of the fascists, he said, and he insisted that the claims about people coming to the city to sell drugs were untrue.
After the rally ended, the full Board of Supervisors convened for its meeting. Lurie thanked Fielder for her work and said he was committed to ensuring that all city residents are treated with dignity.
The scourge of illegal substances, though, was on Lurie’s mind.
“San Francisco was caught flat-footed with the fentanyl crisis,” he said, explaining that his administration is working to make it faster and easier for people to access addiction care. He cited progress, including a reported 40 percent increase in shelter placements, more than 6,000 arrests, hundreds of pounds of drugs seized and a decline in fatal overdoses.
Still, Lurie said the city could not arrest its way out of the crisis. He said only 14 percent of people connected to recovery complete treatment and called for better citywide coordination.
“Safe streets are the foundation to our comeback,” Lurie said before leaving the meeting, with his trademark acknowledgment that we have much more work to do.
