Martin has lived in San Francisco for 17 years. During that time, around 50 family members from the Mexican state of Yucatán followed him north, settling in cities across California, including Antioch and Sacramento.
Martin, who asked that his real name be withheld, has been working since he arrived in the city, doing labor he says citizens don’t want.
“They don’t want to burn their hands,” said Martin, who currently works as a restaurant cook. “They don’t want to pick up food people drop on the floor.”
He spends the money he earns shopping for food and clothes at San Francisco stores. He used to love going out after work — shopping, eating at restaurants, hanging out in parks, and enjoying the nightlife. But things have changed.
“Sometimes I want to go to a nightclub,” Martin said. “But then I see the news and figure it’s better to go home.”
He’s one of many undocumented workers in San Francisco who are retreating from public life amid fears of an immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump. And while Martin plans to stay in the city for as long as he can, he said “nearly all” of his relatives in California are weighing whether to return to Mexico.
Like other workers, he has fears of being rounded up by federal immigration agents, which are stoked by headlines, social media posts, and videos showing Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in U.S. cities since Trump assumed office Jan. 20. San Francisco officials last week confirmed that a rumor about ICE agents confronting a middle school student was untrue, but by the time it was debunked, it had sent shockwaves of panic through the undocumented population.
ICE confirmed its agents made an arrest Jan. 23 in San Francisco, and a union leader said ICE agents tried to enter two downtown office buildings where undocumented janitors were working. Union leaders and politicians decried the tactic Tuesday at a press conference, where dozens of officials declared their support for the city’s immigrants. It’s little comfort to people worried about ICE uprooting their lives and splitting up their families.
Another undocumented restaurant worker said he believes that if ICE ramps up immigration enforcement, it will force those with his status to stay home and disincentivize businesses from hiring them.
“I may just have to go back home,” the worker said, referring to Nicaragua.
Others say they are resigned to whatever happens to them under Trump’s presidency and have no intentions of hiding or fleeing the U.S.
An undocumented day laborer who does moving and cleaning work for U-Haul in San Francisco said they can’t afford to stay home and whether they get deported is out of their control.
“I can’t think about it,” the worker said in Spanish. “It’s up to God.”
Another undocumented day laborer, who’s been in the U.S. for 21 years, expressed similar feelings of resignation.
“You can’t have fear about it,” the person said. “What can you do?”
Open Door Legal director Adrian Tirtanadi said his firm, which provides services to immigrants, is getting more inquiries from undocumented people amid the ICE crackdown. Among them are Dreamers, who were allowed to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but fear they can be easily targeted under the new administration.
“There’s so much community anxiety about the Trump administration and ICE raids,” Tirtanadi said.
Tirtanadi said there is a backlog of roughly 1,200 people seeking deportation defense in San Francisco Immigration Court. He added that roughly half the people in California’s immigration courts do not have legal representation.
San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy prevents immigration officials from deputizing local law enforcement for operations. Even so, the sheriff’s office shares information about certain undocumented inmates with ICE before it releases them, but only when the inmates meet certain standards and are deemed particularly dangerous, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said at Tuesday’s press conference.
The district attorney’s office has also shared with federal authorities information about undocumented people charged with dealing fentanyl, spurring criticism in a public letter signed by more than 30 local nonprofits. Gabriel Medina, executive director of La Raza Community Resource Center, which signed the letter, said many undocumented Latino immigrants don’t trust District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
“Many folks are continuing to express concerns to me after the election,” Medina said via text. He said he called on Jenkins last month during a meeting of the Immigrant Rights Commission to assure undocumented immigrants that she would not cooperate with ICE.
In an emailed statement, the DA’s office accused the public defender of “lying and misleading the public” by characterizing the DA’s cooperation with the federal government in drug dealing cases as working with ICE. The office said it abides by the city’s sanctuary policy and is only informed about a defendant’s immigration status if the public defender requests the prosecution consider it during a case.
“We do not provide that information to any third parties including ICE,” the statement said. “We neither collaborate with ICE or interfere in their work regarding immigration enforcement.”
Medina said fewer people had been coming to La Raza’s Tuesday food pantry — a weekly event where residents can pick up free groceries at the nonprofit’s Mission headquarters — since the election. He added that La Raza now tries to keep the pantry queue indoors, whereas participants used to line up on the sidewalk.
“Everybody’s looking at everybody to make sure they’re safe,” Medina said.