Two women knocked on Dana Yates Sahae's door around 10 a.m. Friday and asked to see her Ring camera footage. What she found waiting for her was video of four immigration agents chasing a man across her San Mateo lawn and taking him into custody just hours earlier, part of a cluster of three arrests within five miles of each other that same morning.
Sahae, a candidate for San Mateo City Council District 5, said she learned only after reviewing the footage that the man had been pursued and apprehended on her property. According to the San Mateo Daily Journal, the footage shows one agent wearing a vest marked “police,” with three others joining the chase — two carrying rifles and one carrying a taser that was deployed during the encounter. Sahae said she posted the video to Instagram because she believed it was important for people to see what immigration enforcement actually looks like on the ground.
The scene that followed was not limited to the arrest itself. Sahae reported that one woman, who had a young child with her, fell to the ground and cried after learning her spouse or partner had been detained by ICE. Later that day, Sahae said she confronted agents when they returned to her property to retrieve remnants of a taser cartridge left behind on her lawn.
Three Arrests, Five Miles, One Morning
Friday's incident on Sahae's lawn was not isolated. ICE made three arrests within five miles of each other in San Mateo County that morning, according to the Daily Journal's reporting — one in San Mateo, another near Ninth Avenue and Delaware Street, and a third on Burlingame Avenue in Burlingame. Rapid responders had been made aware of seven arrests total in just the first six days of November, per the same account.
Nani Friedman of Faith in Action Bay Area said the arrests appeared to be targeted operations, with ICE seeking out specific individuals rather than conducting sweeps. Friedman also cautioned that rapid responders likely undercount actual arrests, since the organization only becomes aware of incidents that are reported to it — and said San Mateo County residents were arrested in incidents during October without rapid responders' knowledge.
San Mateo County Supervisor Noelia Corzo said seeing a person captured on video during an arrest was particularly jarring and sobering. Corzo added that San Mateo County may no longer be experiencing ICE's presence and enforcement as intensely as other counties in California, per the Daily Journal.
A Pattern Playing Out Across the Bay Area
The San Mateo arrests fit into a broader trend that immigration attorneys have flagged across the region. A Mission Local analysis of federal data released by UC Berkeley, cited by Berkeleyside, found that immigration arrests across major Bay Area cities rose 81% between July 2025 and July 2026. In the week before that October report, Mission Local said it verified six immigration arrests across the Bay Area, four involving violent tactics and two resulting in hospitalizations. Bay Area immigration attorneys told the outlet they had seen more arrests and more violence over the preceding couple of weeks, though the report noted not everyone agreed a surge was underway.
Other recent incidents echo what Sahae's camera captured. In San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood, a video showed masked federal agents detaining 51-year-old Milton Ramos-Rodriguez, an incident that, per ABC7 News, prompted protests at City Hall and plans by supervisors to pursue additional funding for legal immigration services. In Redwood City, the organization confirmed a detention at Ebener Street and Poplar Avenue on Oct. 22, alongside another detention outside Cardenas Market in East Palo Alto that same morning, which responders described as a targeted operation.
Further north, videos circulating that same week showed ICE agents stopping a vehicle near the Richmond border in San Pablo, according to the East Bay Times, while Richmond City Councilmember Claudia Jimenez said agents arrested two people around 5 p.m. that Wednesday at 14th Street and Market Street. Immigration advocates separately told Yahoo News that five people were arrested by ICE agents in the East Bay on a Thursday.
Hotline Fields Hundreds of Calls as Arrests Continue
Faith in Action Bay Area runs a San Mateo County rapid-response hotline that it says volunteers staff around the clock to confirm sightings, offer emergency legal support to those detained, and assist their families. The organization's website describes the hotline as operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and says that once an arrest and detention are confirmed, the Rapid Response Network activates emergency attorneys aiming to provide legal support the same day. The hotline can be reached at (203) 666-4472, also styled as (203) NO-MIGRA.
Executive Director Lorena Melgarejo told the Redwood City Pulse in May that the hotline fields as many as 400 calls a day about suspected ICE sightings, though she said roughly 98% of those checked turned out to be false rumors. Melgarejo also said the county recorded 16 confirmed ICE detainments in April, compared with 24 in October. The organization recruits volunteers from across San Mateo County and says no language skills are needed to join its verification team.
City Officials Say They Stay Out of Federal Operations
Police department spokesperson Officer Andrew Peek said the department does not receive advance notifications from ICE and does not coordinate or participate in federal immigration enforcement operations, according to the Daily Journal. Mayor Adam Loraine said the city remains committed to serving everyone who calls San Mateo home.
Sahae said the arrest methods used on her lawn were unsafe, noting the chase and apprehension happened shortly before neighborhood families would likely be dropping their children off at school. She said immigration enforcement should be a focus for elected leaders, particularly at the federal level. The Rapid Response Network urges residents who witness ICE activity or see someone detained to call its hotline immediately. Separately, the office of Assemblymember Catherine Stefani advises on its immigration-resources page that residents should not open the door to agents unless shown a signed warrant.
