Tucked inside a barricaded corner of the Golden Gateway Garage at 250 Clay Street, a row of unmarked white vans and other vehicles bearing federal license plates has been sitting in a city-owned facility that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency now confirms includes parking spaces assigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city says it is investigating whether the arrangement runs afoul of sanctuary laws designed to keep local resources out of federal immigration enforcement.
SFMTA confirmed Friday that ICE is assigned parking spaces inside the garage, according to Mission Local, which visited the site that same afternoon and observed the barricaded section filled with unmarked cars carrying federal government plates, including the row of white vans. The outlet did not see ICE officers or other federal officials on site during its visit, but the confirmation itself marks the first time the city has acknowledged the agency's foothold in a municipal parking structure.
The path from city ownership to federal use runs through several hands. San Francisco contracts garage management to a private operator, IMCO Parking, which in turn subcontracts part of the facility to the federal General Services Administration — an agency that supports logistics for other federal agencies. The GSA then assigns the spaces to ICE, creating what Mission Local described as an arrangement with at least three layers between the city and the immigration agency actually using the spots.
SFMTA Says Proximity to ICE Field Office Factored In
SFMTA director of communications Parisa Safarzadeh said the agency knew of the federal subcontract when it was signed, and that GSA assigned the ICE parking spaces in the garage because of its proximity to the ICE field office at 630 Sansome Street. That federal building, per the same account, was the epicenter of immigration arrests and protests in 2025, a period when ICE agents and activists clashed repeatedly and violently on downtown San Francisco streets.
One of those confrontations, in July 2025, involved an ICE SUV driving through a crowd of protesters; a woman holding onto the vehicle's hood was thrown onto the street during the encounter. Safarzadeh said the city is exploring options under its contractual agreement and that using the garage to support ICE enforcement is inconsistent with SFMTA and city values. She added that SFMTA is working with IMCO Parking to ensure the garage's use adheres to local laws.
Whether SFMTA knew ICE was actively using the garage before Mission Local's inquiry remains unclear, per the same report. The underlying federal contract does not specify which federal agency the GSA assigns to the property, leaving a gap in the paperwork that mirrors the uncertainty around oversight.
Activists Allege Yearlong Presence, Link to Arrests
Activists told Mission Local that ICE agents have worked out of the garage for at least a year and said they have seen uniformed agents standing inside the lot. They also said a vehicle involved in a recent, violent Oakland arrest that left an immigrant hospitalized was seen leaving the garage. Separately, a video from an October 2025 arrest reviewed by the outlet showed a blue Nissan SUV used by ICE with a license plate matching a vehicle later seen inside the garage.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who authored legislation barring immigration enforcement on city property, said he was not aware of ICE's presence at the city-owned garage until Mission Local raised the issue with him. Mahmood said he is now working with city officials to determine what happened, how the space was used, and whether any laws were violated.
Sanctuary Law Questions Remain Unresolved
Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney in the San Francisco Public Defender's Office who helped draft some of the city and state's sanctuary laws, said SFMTA must ensure city-owned garages are not used to facilitate ICE operations. Those laws generally prohibit collaboration between local municipalities and federal immigration agencies, and San Francisco's sanctuary city ordinance bars city employees from using city funds or resources to help ICE enforce federal immigration law.
SFMTA's own facility regulations, laid out in the 2022 contract awarding IMCO Parking the nine-year, $180 million deal to run Golden Gateway Garage and other Group B facilities, require the manager to provide free parking to law-enforcement, fire and emergency vehicles only for up to 30 minutes while responding to an incident or request for assistance at the garage. It is not established whether ICE's assigned spaces fall under that narrow provision, and the same agreement states the contractor may only subcontract services with the city's prior written approval. No finding in the available record establishes whether that approval was granted for the arrangement now under investigation.
No court, city agency or other authoritative body has concluded that the garage arrangement violated sanctuary law, and the city has not received responses from ICE, GSA or IMCO Parking addressing the allegations, according to the reporting. For now, the Golden Gateway Garage — a city-owned facility with a capacity of 1,053 vehicles, according to San Francisco's parking facility dataset — remains at the center of an open question Mahmood says he intends to answer.
