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from Carolyn JonesCalMatters
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After a hectic night in the Bay Area, President Trump canceled a planned “surge” of federal immigration agents in San Francisco after friends convinced him to back down.
“Great people like (Nvidia President) Jensen Huang, (Salesforce CEO) Marc Benioff and others called to say the future of San Francisco is great,” the president wrote on social media. “They want to try it. That’s why we’re not going into San Francisco on Saturday.
The announcement followed a nervous night for Bay Area immigrants and others. On Wednesday afternoon, Trump deployed about 100 federal agents to a military base in the East Bay in preparation for a high-profile and long-threatened crackdown on immigration.
Agents were expected to raid local Home Depot stores, where undocumented workers often congregate, in the next few days. local news outlets reported.
“We’re going to go to San Francisco,” Trump told a Fox News reporter on Sunday. “The difference is, I think they want us in San Francisco. San Francisco was really one of the great cities in the world, and then 15 years ago it went wrong. Wake up.”
Bay Area protesters began gathering Thursday, starting with a pre-dawn rally blocking the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda, where federal agents were expected to arrive. Agents deployed an apparent flash grenade to disperse the crowd The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Elsewhere, protesters planned to gather at San Jose City Hall, San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza and other locations.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said on social media that Trump called him Wednesday night.
“I told him the same thing I told our residents: San Francisco is on the rise,” Lurie wrote. “We have work to do and would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF and the US Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but having the military and militarized immigration authorities in our city will hinder our recovery.”
“In that conversation, the president made it clear to me that he is canceling any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco,” Lurie continued. “Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem confirmed that direction in our conversation this morning.”
State and local officials anticipated the attacks and had stern words for the Trump administration and vowed to take action to protect residents.
“We are a nation of laws and accountability, not a nation that turns a blind eye to abuses of power,” Newsom said in a statement. “We don’t bow to kings, and we stand against this would-be tyrant. The idea that the federal government can deploy troops in our cities with no reality-based justification, no oversight, no accountability, no respect for state sovereignty — that’s a direct attack on the rule of law.”
Newsom characterized the deployment as an attempt to suppress voters as Californians vote Proposition 50 to redraw the congressional maps in favor of the Democrats. Newsom put the measure on the ballot to counter Republican gerrymandering in Texas, which was intended to help Trump retain the GOP majority in the House of Representatives. Less than two weeks before Election Day, the race remains close.
Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta have vowed to sue the federal government to stop National Guard troops from being stationed in San Francisco. Until now, the administration’s increased presence in the Bay Area appeared to be limited to immigration enforcement.
“There is no reason to send National Guard troops to San Francisco. There is no emergency. There is no riot. There is no invasion. Not even a riot,” Bonta said in a statement. “Trump has made no secret of his intentions: to use our National Guard as his own royal army and our cities as training grounds for the military. It’s outrageous, indefensible, and most of all, illegal.”
San Francisco, Oakland, and several other Bay Area cities are the so-called sanctuary citieswhich limits how local law enforcement officers interact with federal immigration agents. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said she would prosecute federal agents who used excessive force or otherwise violated local laws.
Trump has used crime data as justification for potentially sending troops to San Francisco and other left-leaning cities. But the crime rate in San Francisco is decreased significantly in most categories. Oakland, which has historically had some of the highest violent crime rates in the country, has also seen steep decline in most types of crime this year.
One of the most diverse regions in the country, the Bay Area has a strong immigrant population— approximately 30%according to the Bay Area Equity Atlas. Most come from Latin America and Asia, but thousands also come from Iran, Russia and Canada. At least 457,000 lack of legal statusaccording to the Migration Policy Institute.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.