After several months deployment US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Guard in American cities, federal agents are preparing to land in San Francisco.
Local resistance groups are coordinating their efforts with activists in other cities across the country under siege by federal law enforcement. Thousands of volunteers coordinating their activities through Signal group chats, Increase calls and social media posts, planned protests, and spread the word that federal troops were heading to San Francisco. Although this is not the case yet.
On Thursday morning, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie posted a message Instagram And X announce that he spoke with the president Donald Trump and convinced him to recall federal agents who planned to travel to San Francisco that Saturday. Trump confirmed this on Truth Social shortly after, he wrote: “Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff and others have called and said the future is bright for San Francisco. They want to give it a chance.” That's why we won't attack San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!
Activists and San Franciscans aren't entirely convinced, so the organizing continues.
At the beginning of this week, A contingent of about 100 federal law enforcement agents converged on Coast Guard Island, a small base in Alameda just across the bay from San Francisco that federal officials say is being used as a staging area for upcoming immigration raids. There is only one road to and from the island, and once word of the deployment spread, the agents were quickly locked down. 200 protesters appeared on Thursday morning to try to interfere with their movements, resulting in collisions.
On Wednesday evening the group called Bay Resistance conducted an educational webinar that attracted a huge audience; Due to the group's Zoom subscription limitations, the call had to be limited to 5,000 people. Hundreds more later viewed the footage.
“The Bay Area is not going to sit quietly,” said Emily Lee, an organizer with the Bay Area Resistance, during the call for mobilization. “We will definitely stand together against this administration.”
Throughout the call, organizers spoke in English with Spanish translation, sharing plans for upcoming activities throughout the Bay Area. They talked about lessons learned from their direct interactions with organizers in Los Angeles who were mobilizing against ICE raids and the deployment of federal troops there, as well as the importance of taking the same course from Portland protesters who relied on humor and inflatable animals to oppose ICE actions and protest Trump's claims that the city is a “war-torn” hellhole.
