Open Letter Regarding San Jose Police Department’s Sweep on January 15th, 2026

Photo of the January 15th sweep that was posted to social media by San Jose Police Department then shared by Mayor Mahan

January 30th, 2025

Mayor Matt Mahan

Vice Mayor Pam Foley

Council Member David Cohen

Council Member Rosemary Kamei

Council Member Peter Ortiz

Council Member George Casey

Council Member Michael Mulcahy

Council Member Carl Salas

Council Member Bien Doan

Council Member Domingo Candelas

Council Member Pamela Campos

Council Member Tordillos

San Jose Police Department Chief Paul Joseph

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen

Re: SJPD’s Sweep on January 15th, 2026

We are writing to address our concerns with a recent violent sweep of our unhoused neighbors near The Plant Shopping Center in San Jose on January 15th by SJPD.

This particular sweep on January 15th was emblematic of all the issues of these systemic

attempts to further displace our City’s most vulnerable. As reported by our partners at the

Unhoused Response Group (URG), witnesses and victims of the sweep said there was no

warning before SJPD drug people out of their tents with some dressed only in underclothes in the cold weather. Several people were arrested and later released with trespassing charges. And like with all these sweeps, people’s belongings were discarded. Some of them were day laborers and now have no clothing or work tools.

To make matters worse, both SJPD and Mahan boasted about the sweep on social media with SJPD listing the number of people they arrested and cited. They included a picture of several people sitting on a curb, all of them handcuffed behind their backs faced away from the camera. It resembled the type of propaganda we are seeing from the current Department of Homeland Security conducting their violent raids across the country. Gloating about arresting and citing people for reasons directly related to being houseless is making a spectacle of their suffering. Also, similarly to DHS, the cruel conduct is justified by publicly calling them criminals. Thissweep was also conducted by an SJPD unit named the “Quality of Life” unit whoseresponsibilities are seemingly looking for unhoused people to contact and potentially arrest.

We see this recent sweep as exemplifying where poverty, immigration, and policing intersect.

Sweeps are already a cruel tactic to further displace and criminalize the poorest of our

community, but the police contact and any potential prosecution after can also lead to dire

consequences for our unhoused immigrant neighbors. Given the undeniable, violent conduct of federal ICE agents across this country and the raid-type of sweep people experienced at the hands of SJPD, we see our local police paralleling what the world has been witnessing around the country: armed, aggressive police terrorizing, criminalizing and detaining vulnerable residents of our city. Along with the increased threat of ICE contact because of these raid-styled sweeps to our unhoused immigrant neighbors, SJPD is essentially doing ICE’s business for them.

Lastly, this is all particularly appalling, and we believe intentionally timed, given the backdrop of the Super Bowl coming to the South Bay on February 8th. We have seen campaigns by the Mayor to host “clean-ups” and “beautify” our City before our wealthy out of town guests come. This same language of “beautifying” and “cleaning up” is how SJPD described this recent sweep. We are left to tie the safety of our unhoused neighbors from aggressive police terrorizing them, arresting and discarding all they have as part of this effort to prepare the City of San Jose for a national spotlight. This is cruel, immoral, and exemplifies the priority of the Mayor’s office to create an aesthetic in this city, including ridding it of those in need, living on our streets.

Given all above, we demand the City of San Jose and the Santa Clara County District Attorney Office to:

● Stop the systematic sweeps of our unhoused community. These are a costly,

inefficient and cruel way to address an undeniable housing crises in our city and we

demand this practice stop.

● District Attorney to not file criminal charges on those who were cited and arrested

in the sweep. Again, any prosecution of these poverty related citations and arrests will

impact all of those who were arrested but will especially make those who are immigrants

more at risk of ICE contact.

● Stop using city resources, the SJPD, to do ICE enforcement. We do not want our

public resources to be used to terrorize our unhoused neighbors and put those who are

immigrants at further risk.

● Dismantle the “Quality of Life” police unit within SJPD. The deceptive name for this

unit is especially cruel given their purpose of targeting poor and unhoused residents.

● Stop the towing of all lived in vehicles and those of all unhoused/marginally

housed people with expired registration. Additionally, as part of provider metrics,

ensure providers pay for client's registration/repairs/insurance, if requested and agreed

to, within three months.

● Stop SJPD profiling, harassment and citing of unhoused people who are

accessing city trails. Unhoused people, much like police officers, cannot be treated as

a monolithic group, their presence on a trail cannot be assumed to be trespassing.

● Stop SJPD threats to cite advocates providing aid to unhoused people. SB 634

prohibits cities from punishing individuals or organizations for providing food, water,

medicine, or, in some cases, shelter, to unhoused people.

The letter above written by:

● Silicon Valley De-Bug

● Unhoused Response Group (URG)

This position as articulated in the letter above is supported by:

●Asian Law Alliance

● Coalition for Justice and Accountability

● Guadalupe Residents Advocating for Community Empowerment (GRACE)

● NAACP of Silicon Valley

● Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Clara County (SURJ SCC)

● Sacred Heart Community Service

● San Jose Nikkei Resisters

● CHAM Deliverance Ministries

● Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN)

● Bay Area Super Heroes (BASH)

● San Jose May Day Coalition