Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Wednesday that local police could arrest federal agents if they break California law while conducting immigration raids that are expected this week in the San Francisco Bay Area.
With Border Patrol agents due to arrive, Ms. Pelosi issued the stark warning along with Kevin Mullin, a fellow Democratic representative, who represents the small slice of San Francisco that Ms. Pelosi doesn’t. President Trump has said several times in recent weeks that he wanted to send federal forces to the city.
“While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not,” they wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them.”
A spokeswoman with the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The idea appears to have come from Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney. Ms. Jenkins said in an interview on Wednesday that she came up with the strategy after seeing federal agents repeatedly roughing up people in Los Angeles and Chicago.
If federal agents came to her city and did the same, District Attorney Jenkins decided, she would treat them like anybody else breaking the law and would seek to prosecute them.
Hit people with batons? Beat them up? Not on her watch, she said.
“I had lead time to think about what authority I have and what I can do,” she said. “This is something I felt very strongly about, and I had my office research it.”
District Attorney Jenkins said she had communicated with the San Francisco Police Department about arresting federal agents for “clear, excessive use of force” and that the agency was on board with the concept. A spokesman for the department did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.
District Attorney Jenkins said she did not envision police officers handcuffing federal agents in full view on city streets. Instead, she said, local law enforcement could review camera footage of beatings, if they occur, and try to identify the agent involved. Then, she said, she would ask a judge to sign a warrant for the agent’s arrest and seek to prosecute the agent in court.
“For me, this is about San Francisco and what I need to do for San Francisco,” she said.
That could be much easier said than done. Many federal agents are operating in masks and without badges or other identification; a California law barring agents from wearing masks does not take effect until January and even then is quite likely to face legal challenges. And the Trump administration could seek immunity for its officers or ignore the warrants altogether, Ms. Jenkins acknowledged.
She said she had not discussed her idea with other prosecutors in California or around the country.
District Attorney Jenkins shared the idea on X earlier this month after Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, said that he would support President Trump sending National Guard troops to San Francisco. (Mr. Benioff later recanted and apologized for his statement on the Guard.)
The ability of states to arrest federal officers is murky, and without much legal precedent, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. A state cannot unduly interfere with the ability of a federal agent to enforce federal law, he said, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have the legal right to apprehend individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.
“As long as the ICE agents are acting legally, the state can’t prosecute them and hold them liable, even if it dislikes what they’re doing,” Mr. Chemerinsky said.
But immigration agents who overstep their legal bounds — for instance, by using excessive force — could be sued in California, he said.
“I think the ICE agents can be sued, for battery, for excessive force, in state court, and I think they can be similarly prosecuted,” Mr. Chemerinsky said. “If ICE agents act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted.”
In their statement, Representatives Pelosi and Mullin made clear that they believed federal immigration agents had overstepped their authority in other situations.
“Reports of a planned mass immigration raid in the Bay Area are an appalling abuse of law enforcement power,” they wrote. “Broad sweeps that target families and terrorize law-abiding residents betray our nation’s values and waste resources that should focus on real threats to public safety.”
Spokespeople for both Democrats declined to further explain how they believed local or state police should arrest federal agents.
Representative Sam Liccardo, a Democrat who previously served as the mayor of San Jose, said he had spoken with colleagues and local law enforcement officials about such an action.
“All law enforcement must comply with the Constitution,” he said, “and to the extent that there’s a violation of federal or state constitutional protections or civil liberties, there’s certainly a basis for asserting a violation.”
In other cities where the federal government has escalated immigration enforcement, local authorities have complained that federal agents have bent the law and abused civilians.
Representative Ro Khanna, another Bay Area Democrat, has pushed for a requirement that immigration agents wear body cameras and visibly display their names during operations.
“The issue is, a lot of these ICE agents are harassing American citizens,” he said. “They’re acting in a lawless way.”
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
Kellen Browning is a Times political reporter based in San Francisco.
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