Police radios reveal tense ICE arrest at San Francisco airport

Plainclothes federal agents moving through Terminal 3 at San Francisco International Airport set off a chain reaction just before 10 p.m. on March 22, when an employee at a magazine and snack kiosk called 911 as Angelina Lopez-Jimenez was taken into custody with her 9-year-old daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, nearby.

Newly released 911 calls, dispatch audio and security camera video showed the scene turning fast, with concern, confusion and some panic rippling through one of the Bay Area’s busiest public spaces. Multiple passengers and airport workers called 911 because they believed the men in plainclothes might be kidnapping the woman. At least a dozen San Francisco police officers responded.

Police radio traffic showed how tightly officers were trying to thread the line between public safety and immigration enforcement. A San Francisco Police lieutenant told officers not to intervene in the ICE arrest unless agents needed help for their safety. Once Lopez-Jimenez was handcuffed, the lieutenant ordered units to clear out.

San Francisco police said their officers responded to a 911 call and did not assist ICE, though they remained on scene for public safety. But witness video and later coverage showed officers appearing to form a barrier between onlookers and the federal agents, then walking alongside them as Lopez-Jimenez was taken away in a wheelchair. Angela Chan, a former Police Commission member, said the officers were “clearly assisting” and that there was no visible danger that justified their role.

The episode landed hard in a city where sanctuary rules are part of the political identity as much as the legal code. San Francisco’s ordinance limits city employees from assisting federal immigration enforcement unless required by law, and airport officials said they were not involved in or notified before the operation. Mayor Daniel Lurie said the city’s sanctuary policies remained intact and called the episode isolated.

Federal officials identified the people involved as Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and Wendy Godinez-Lopez, saying both had final removal orders issued in 2019. ICE said Lopez-Jimenez tried to flee while being escorted for processing. Later reporting said Transportation Security Administration officials had alerted ICE days earlier after the pair appeared on a passenger list for a flight to Miami, and federal officials said they were ultimately repatriated to Guatemala.

The airport arrest has now become a new test case for San Francisco’s sanctuary framework, with advocates and the Public Defender’s Office filing a complaint and public-records request seeking communications among SFPD, ICE, Homeland Security, airport officials and others. At SFO, where federal power, local policing and public visibility collide in a few crowded concourses, the question is no longer whether the scene was tense. It is what city officers are supposed to do when it happens again.