ICE agents arrest San Francisco woman at SFO

Plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a San Francisco woman on Wednesday at the San Francisco International Airport as the Trump administration escalates immigration enforcement across the country. 

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In a video posted online, Iryna Gorb, 38, is seen on the ground outside the Bay Collection store in Terminal 1 as two officers detain her. “Please help me. Please somebody,” she yells, later adding: “They’re f—king ICE. I’m from Ukraine.” Gorb also says that the agents were “choking” her during the apprehension. 

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An unnamed spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told SFGATE in an email that Gorb “attempted to flee and resisted arrest.” According to the department, she entered the United States in July 2010 and has since “overstayed her visa.”

Gorb is currently in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. A longtime friend told Mission Local that she called him from the Stockton ICE field office and was later transferred to the California City Detention Facility. Gorb’s friend said she lived in Nob Hill, worked at Better Half Cafe in Polk Gulch and was a professional photographer. 

Gorb was returning to San Francisco after a flight from Portland. Her arrest is similar to a separate ICE detention at SFO in March involving a Bay Area mother and daughter. Plainclothes agents arrested the Contra Costa resident before a flight to Florida following a tip from the Transportation Security Administration.

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The New York Times reported the TSA is sharing names and birth dates of travelers with other federal agencies, streamlining ICE’s effort to detain and deport undocumented immigrants and creating ambushes in airport terminals. 

July is on pace to set a new record for nationwide ICE arrests, according to an independent data analysis from Syracuse professor Austin Kocher. “The daily rate of ICE arrests in June was over 1,300, the highest month of the Trump administration, and in July that number increased again to a record 1,474 arrests per day for the first 11 days for which we have data,” Kocher wrote.

State Sen. Scott Wiener published a statement condemning Gorb’s arrest. “She is part of our community,” he wrote. “Iryna committed no crime, but ICE nevertheless violently grabbed her and is now trying to deport her to Ukraine, a war zone currently being invaded and bombed by Putin.”