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Just as the sun was peeking above the horizon, María Velasquez, her young daughter and Faith in Action Bay Area organizer Violeta Romano waited on the sidewalk for an Uber to take them to Velasquez’s ICE check-in.
According to Romano, the court assigns many check-ins for the same start time, leading to long queues outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on Sansome Street before 8 a.m.
Immediately after her court appearance, Velasquez, 27, would go to a second appointment about a mile away on Tehama Street at San Francisco’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program — an alternative to detention — where federal agents checked that her ankle monitor was functioning properly. She said she was never told why she had to wear the device, but their use has become common among immigration courts for tracking immigrants.
As expected, the line to enter the court building had almost reached the end of the block. Holding her documents in one hand and her then-4-year-old daughter’s hand in the other, Velasquez responded to an officer who sternly asked to see her court documents. When the officer noticed Velasquez’s daughter, he allowed her to jump to the front of the line.
Romano quickly hugged Velasquez and gave her blessings, then checked in with other volunteers organized by Faith in Action and United Educators of San Francisco as part of a renewed effort to help immigrant families in the school district. In training to accompany people like Velasquez, volunteers receive estimates for how long check-ins might last; one to two hours is typical but when a session lasts three hours, it’s time to worry and for volunteers to get Rapid Response Network lawyers involved. Faith in Action Co-President Brenda Córdoba described the extended team of volunteers as a “network of hope.”
In the past year, San Francisco has seen a brutal pursuit of immigration enforcement at the Sansome court. According to independent analysis by Mission Local, more than 500 people were arrested at routine immigration appointments in San Francisco in the first nine months of the second Trump administration. From immigration court appointments to routine ICE check-ins, the stakes for immigrants in the city have risen exponentially, often inciting fear of going to appointments that come with steep consequences if not attended.
A group of mothers with Faith in Action invited Velasquez, whose daughter is in preschool, to meetings attended by educators who could support her. Within the San Francisco Unified School District community, staff and families often work in solidarity.
“It’s a beautiful thing to foster a sense of community,” said Velasquez a day before her appointment. “They provide emotional support, which is crucial when you’re feeling stressed or extremely nervous. They help alleviate that anxiety. I feel that, despite this vulnerable situation unfolding, we must keep in mind that we deserve the right to a better life.”
When ICE officers asked the group of volunteers who appeared for Velasquez’s appointment to clear the entrance, they waited for her at Delah Coffee next to the immigration court. To their surprise, in under an hour and a half, Velasquez and another volunteer emerged with giant smiles on their faces. Teary-eyed, Velasquez explained to the group that not only did the appointment go smoothly but also agents removed her ankle monitor — an uncommon victory at ICE check-ins.
Cheers filled the coffee shop as volunteers embraced Velasquez and her daughter. Another successful accompaniment.
How the program got started
In the early 2000s, a group of teachers and parents frustrated with how San Francisco’s public high schools were operating started organizing. Among them were many monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrants who would go on to form Faith in Action Bay Area, with a model focused on empowerment and leadership development.
Since its inception, Faith in Action Bay Area coordinated volunteers to accompany immigrants. But as political transitions nationwide continued, the need for support grew. When the second Trump administration began detaining people outside of immigration court, it caused fear among those attending appointments. If they considered skipping an appointment, they faced a conundrum: Failing to show up can mean a deportation order.
Faith in Action Bay Area identified a particular challenge that would occur when multiple members within families were also undocumented and going through asylum processes. The idea to revitalize the accompaniments, which were not used much during the Biden administration, came from families feeling uneasy about going to appointments with each other since that could pose detainment risks.
“This team of educators and immigrant families, we started talking about it and saying, ‘What would it look like if educators from the kids’ school could go with families and be the ones who are accompanying?’ That’s what we’ve been building out over the last six months,” said San Francisco Board of Education Commissioner Matt Alexander.
Started by immigrant mothers who tapped United Educators of San Francisco and various school district staff, the “Safe Schools” meetings started in the summer of 2025 as a response to rising immigration-related concerns among school district families. These meetings, often attended by more than 20 people, are run by monolingual Spanish-speaking mothers and are used as a training ground for school faculty and families.
Priorities identified through the meetings are preparing school staff for potential ICE activity and immigrant families for emergencies, raising a legal defense fund, and protecting school district programs that serve immigrant children and court accompaniments.
Staff from about 10 San Francisco schools have accompanied families at immigration court or ICE check-ins since then, Alexander said. Faith in Action Bay Area has helped over 1,000 families in the region with court accompaniment — including more than 100 with children in San Francisco public schools.
On May 1, San Francisco’s immigration court at 100 Montgomery St. had its final day. All court appointments are being moved to a new immigration court in Concord or to the ICE field office at 630 Sansome St., which has only two judges remaining from the original 20 assigned to such cases, according to KQED.
In responding to the needs of immigrant students, school district staff, with the help of Faith in Action and United Educators San Francisco, have set up a system to track students’ needs and share tips on how to approach students who might require help.
Antoine Lagarde, a physical education teacher at San Francisco International High School, has seen how immigration regulation can affect his students. One of Lagarde’s students, whom he also coached in soccer, opened up to him about worry over his older sister’s imminent immigration court appointment. It would be her final asylum hearing, which would determine whether she could stay in the United States. His student told him she didn’t have a lawyer and the clock was ticking.
The sister might be deported to Peru, and since she was the main breadwinner, the teenager would be left to fend for himself. His mom even suggested that they all move back to Peru.
“At night, you’re thinking, would they stay? Would they have to have an emergency shelter? Who would be responsible for them?” Lagarde said. “So you start to kind of go in these worst-case scenarios. It’s like vicarious trauma, you know, kind of like you start to get really worried about what might happen to them.”
Lagarde contacted the community schools coordinator at his school, who oversees the integration of services to meet students’ needs and connected her with the sister to get more information to help her case. He also invited her to a monthly meeting, led in Spanish, focused on keeping the school district safe for immigrant families. There she was able to contact a lawyer and a group of people who could help.
The main purposes of the accompaniment are to provide emotional support, confront fears of going through the immigration process and provide a sense of community. In a worst-case scenario, where someone is detained at immigration court, those individuals have a network of legal specialists ready to provide immediate help.
If Faith in Action notices that they have a family from a particular school, they reach out to educators from the school with permission from the family and ask if they’d like company for their appointments. The organization collaborates with the school district to connect families with the district’s social worker and coordinate critical legal support. That brings trust that school district staff can support students’ well-being.
“It’s an opportunity to leave the theory and to actually do the practice,” Lagarde said. “This is the ultimate test. Do we care about our students outside the classroom? Because we have a power as citizens, we have a moral power, as teachers and educators.”
“This is something super concrete you can do today, to help your community. You can show solidarity with our undocumented students, use our power as citizens,” he said.
The solidarity goes both ways. According to El Tecolote, San Francisco Unified School District has made significant staffing cuts to its newcomer program, which operates at three schools to help immigrant students, due to a $102 million budget deficit. This has left schools like Visitacion Valley Middle School and San Francisco International with fewer resources to tend to their newcomer populations. Additionally, United Educators of San Francisco went on strike in February over low wages, rising health insurance costs and staffing shortages.
Immigrant parents, families and students all joined the picket line.
From the educators’ strike to meetings to save the newcomer program, students who speak English as a second language and monolingual Spanish-speaking parents consistently show up to school board meetings and rallies to speak on their experiences and support the educators who have had their back.
Strength in numbers
A San Francisco Unified School District mother, who wished to stay anonymous due to her immigration status, said she has had a rough journey since arriving from Peru. Her immigration case has taken her from Colorado to New York and involved a lawyer who allegedly made false promises. After she arrived in Vallejo, a priest put her in contact with Faith in Action organizers in San Francisco.
Struggling with housing insecurity, she moved to the city in hopes of finding stability for her children.
“It is terrible to live on the street, truly terrible,” she said in Spanish. “I wouldn’t wish living on the street on anyone, not even my worst enemy. It is horrible, and being a single mother with children makes it even worse, because you have no family, you have no one, not even someone to talk to.”
“I get by however I can,” she said. “Wherever I happen to be, I hustle to provide for my children. I share whatever little I have with them.”
After connecting with Faith in Action, she found a footing and enrolled her two children in San Francisco schools. She was also setting the foundation for the help that she needed to advance her immigration case. At her first immigration court check-in she found herself unable to speak. That changed after a faculty member from San Francisco International High School told her about the accompaniments.
“I didn’t say a word,” she said. “I had no words to speak. But the second time, I did speak, because I went with my children. Thank God, they accompanied me.”
Priests, community members, the teacher and principal of her son’s school as well as members of Faith in Action joined her. “Practically speaking, I was protected. It was like the devil against God,” she said.
While filing an appeal for her immigration case remains a struggle, the San Francisco mother finds comfort in knowing she has found like-minded people who are able to give her the stability she’s long searched for. “It’s like a family,” she said.
Community as family
Anxiously pacing by the door on a Saturday afternoon, Romano was on the phone with people, coordinating meticulously, as Velasquez roamed the room and tracked her daughter’s whereabouts as she approached the building. The occasion? Velasquez’s daughter’s fifth birthday.
Velasquez and her friend had been working in the Faith in Action office since the early morning to fully deck it out in Disney’s “Frozen” themed merchandise. A few months prior, Velasquez’s daughter asked why she couldn’t have an elaborate birthday party like the other kids around her. When Romano and other Faith in Action organizers heard this, they made it a priority to throw her a worthy celebration.
Once Velasquez’s daughter walked through the door, voices singing “Las Mañanitas” filled the room, and Velasquez rushed to embrace the girl as the crowd cheered. The group had chipped in for a tiny costume like the one worn by her favorite “Frozen” character, Anna.
The community came together and brought homemade dishes that included Salvadoran sandwiches, Honduran chicken and Nicaraguan rice — a mixture of Latino cultures, stories and paths that all led them to the same place.
Velasquez fled El Salvador due to difficulties with people close to her. But doing so meant a life of instability and one she’d have to face alone. Velasquez is struggling with housing security and described the experience as isolating. However, the community she craved for so long is now her reality.
“I don’t have any relatives here. So, I feel that the community is my family,” Velasquez said. “I used to feel a sense of shame, fear and embarrassment but eventually, I told myself: ‘This shouldn’t be happening.’ I realized that if I raised my voice and shared my testimony, I would find help, and doors would open for me. So, honestly, I feel it’s something truly beautiful.”
If you or someone you know could benefit from court accompaniment, call Faith in Action’s community response hotline at (203) 666-4472. If someone is being detained by ICE or you see ICE in San Francisco call the San Francisco Rapid Response Network at (415) 200-1548.
