REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Federal immigration agents have detained seven people across San Mateo County since Friday, November 6, in a run of targeted arrests that twice brought U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to the front of the county's main jail in downtown Redwood City — once on Sunday afternoon, November 8, while the city's Día de los Muertos celebration was under way blocks away. The detentions were confirmed by Faith in Action Bay Area (FiABA), the organisation that runs San Mateo County's official immigration rapid response network, and reported by the M-A Chronicle. A second outlet, RWC Pulse via Palo Alto Online, independently reported the Sunday arrest outside the jail.

The jail at the centre of the weekend's activity is the Maguire Correctional Facility at 300 Bradford Street in downtown Redwood City, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office's main jail. FiABA confirmed that ICE agents were present outside the facility on Friday afternoon and again on Saturday morning, and that on Sunday at 3:35 p.m. agents arrested a targeted individual outside the facility. RWC Pulse reported the same Sunday arrest and described the man as a second individual taken into custody outside the jail that weekend, blocks away from Redwood City's hallmark Hispanic heritage celebration for Día de los Muertos.

Where each of the seven detentions happened

On Monday morning, November 9, FiABA confirmed a further targeted arrest in downtown Redwood City itself, at the corner of Hopkins Avenue and El Camino Real — about a block from Sequoia High School. More detentions followed the same Monday morning on the coast side of the county: one in Montara, at the intersection of Eighth Street and Main Street, a two-minute drive from Montara State Beach, and one in Half Moon Bay, at the laundromat near the Cabrillo Highway Safeway, across the street from Half Moon Bay High School. FiABA said it was in contact with the family of the person detained in Half Moon Bay and was providing them resources.

The remaining detentions happened on Friday, November 6. ICE detained a targeted individual near the Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo on Friday morning; FiABA confirmed that arrest on Friday afternoon and said it was already in contact with the detained person's family and arranging legal resources. Two more people were detained in targeted arrests elsewhere in the county on Friday — one in the early morning near the Burlingame Avenue Starbucks in Burlingame, and another later in the morning at the intersection of Ninth Avenue and Delaware Street in San Mateo.

FiABA stressed that all seven detentions since Friday were targeted arrests — operations aimed at specific individuals — and that none of them were raids of private property or cases of ICE detaining people indiscriminately on the street. In an Instagram post, the network also claimed that at least 16 San Mateo County residents have been detained by ICE in the past nine days. That wider figure is FiABA's own count, reported here as the network's claim; the reports reviewed for this story did not include a statement from ICE about the weekend's operations.

Why a county jail is the flashpoint

The pattern — agents waiting outside a county jail — sits at the centre of California's long-running argument over how far local jails cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. California's SB 54, the California Values Act, sharply limits that cooperation: a county jail may share an inmate's release date with ICE only in defined circumstances, such as a serious or violent conviction, and the state's TRUTH Act requires notice to the person before ICE interviews them inside a jail. None of that stops ICE from making its own arrests in public places outside a facility, which is the pattern the rapid response network describes this weekend — agents positioned in front of Maguire as people came and went.

For immigrant families in Redwood City, San Mateo, Burlingame and the coast-side towns — and for the Bay Area's wider immigrant workforce, including the Punjabi and South Asian communities spread across the Peninsula and the East Bay — the practical effect is the same whatever the legal channel: a routine trip near the county jail, a school or a laundromat now carries the risk of an encounter with federal agents. Two of the Monday arrests happened within sight of high schools, a detail that has sharpened local reaction.

Neighbours and teachers describe a changed street

Science teacher Lance Powell, who has witnessed ICE's presence in Redwood City, told the M-A Chronicle: “[ICE presence] is disturbing when it's happening in your neighborhood. I mean, it's disturbing, period, but when it starts to show up in your neighborhood, it takes it to another level.” His wife, Carmen Powell, a teacher at Encinal Elementary School, said ICE detained a man in front of their home: “It's a little bit more real when it happens in front of your face, in front of your house. You are supposed to feel safe in your neighborhood with neighbors that you know. It just feels like a violation.”

The weekend's arrests also mark a clear step up from the county's recent baseline. On October 22, ICE made targeted arrests in Redwood City — near Ebener Street and Poplar Avenue at about 9:20 a.m. — and in East Palo Alto, outside the Cardenas Market at about 11:15 a.m.; those were the first confirmed ICE detentions in the immediate area since August 2025, and this newsroom reported them at the time. Seven detentions in four days, across at least six separate locations, is a different scale of activity.

Awaaz Punjab will update this story if ICE, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office or the county issues a statement on the weekend's operations.