A 39-year-old woman is facing a federal felony charge that could put her behind bars for up to eight years after she allegedly bit an ICE deportation officer during her arrest at San Francisco International Airport. Ana Oliveira-Mendonca was taken into custody on September 15 after agents surrounded her at the airport, where she had been with her fiance, and placed her in handcuffs.
According to The Mercury News, federal prosecutors in the Bay Area allege Oliveira-Mendonca bit the arm of the ICE officer attempting to arrest her, prompting the officer to exclaim, according to the criminal complaint, “you just bite me (sic).” The officer was treated at a hospital and given vaccines as a precaution, per the complaint, though prosecutors have not released the officer's name. Oliveira-Mendonca was released on $10,000 bond following her first court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero, a long-serving Northern District of California jurist appointed in 1999 who spent eight years as chief magistrate judge before taking recall status in March 2023, according to the U.S. District Court Northern District of California.
Why the Bite Allegation Carries Such High Stakes
The specific allegation that Oliveira-Mendonca made physical contact with the officer is central to how prosecutors can charge her. Under 18 U.S.C. § 111, simple assault on a federal officer is typically a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in prison, but an assault involving physical contact, without a dangerous weapon or bodily injury, can be a Class D felony punishable by as much as eight years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, per Eisner Gorin LLP. That bright line between a bump in a crowd and a felony-level charge is exactly why the bite allegation matters so much to the government's case.
Oliveira-Mendonca's prosecution is not an isolated event. The Bay Area's U.S. Department of Justice wing has filed several cases against people accused of attacking or vandalizing ICE agents as the agency has ramped up deportations during the second Trump administration. Hoodline reported last month on a Martinez man charged after an ICE officer's foot was run over during an attempted driveway arrest, another case brought under the same federal assault statute.
Not Every Case Against ICE Officers Results in a Conviction
Not all of these prosecutions have gone the government's way. The most recently resolved case ended in a not guilty verdict for a Pittsburg man charged over his conduct during an anti-ICE protest. In that trial, the defense argued the man's alleged shoving of an officer “wouldn't even get a yellow card in a soccer game,” according to a KQED report referenced in online discussion of the case. It is unresolved what defense Oliveira-Mendonca's attorneys will mount regarding the nature and intent of the alleged bite, and whether any surveillance footage exists to verify the sequence of events.
SFO's Growing Role as a Flashpoint for Immigration Enforcement
The arrest adds to a mounting tally of ICE activity at SFO this year. At least 25 travelers, including 19 green-card holders, were detained at the airport during just the first six months of 2026, making SFO the site of the second-highest number of extended traveler detentions leading to ICE transfers in the country, behind only Miami International, according to SFGATE.
City officials have limited power to intervene. SFO Airport Director Mike Nakornkhet told the Airport Commission in August that while SFO operates under San Francisco's sanctuary policies, the federal Department of Homeland Security holds supreme regulatory authority over airport security and enforcement, which prevents municipal officials from restricting ICE operations, according to the airport's own commission materials. Under California's Values Act and San Francisco's 1989 Sanctuary City Ordinance, local police and airport staff are barred from using municipal resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement, Mission Local has reported.
The friction has already spilled into city hall. After controversial SFO immigration arrests in March, Supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Chyanne Chen proposed legislation requiring SFPD officers to verify the credentials of plainclothes federal agents and record interactions on body-worn cameras, the SF Standard reported at the time. Separate reporting that same month from The Guardian found that TSA agents had been flagging passenger boarding logs and sharing travel data with ICE to help officers locate and arrest targeted travelers inside terminals, raising questions about how agents identify specific people moving through the airport.
Concerns about ICE conduct at SFO predate Oliveira-Mendonca's arrest. In July, a deportation officer left a loaded firearm unattended in a public restroom in Terminal 2, where a flight attendant discovered it and triggered a police response; the airport later reported the incident to the TSA after local police returned the weapon to the agent, according to The Daily Beast.
