After several months marked by widespread deployments of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel alongside units of the National Guard across a number of American metropolitan areas, federal authorities appeared to be turning their attention toward San Francisco as the next potential site of operations. Anticipating this, networks of local resistance groups began to intensify their activities, coordinating efforts not only within the city itself but also with activists from other regions that had already experienced or were still enduring similar federal interventions. These collaborations took shape through extensive digital organizing: thousands of volunteers connected via encrypted Signal channels, marathon Zoom planning sessions, and an unceasing flow of social media communications that amplified both logistical instructions and rallying calls to action. Through these digital platforms, they orchestrated protest strategies and dispersed urgent updates warning that federal agents could soon be arriving in San Francisco — even though, as of that moment, their deployment had not yet actually materialized.
By Thursday morning, the focus of attention dramatically shifted when San Francisco’s mayor, Daniel Lurie, issued public statements on both Instagram and X announcing that he had held direct discussions with President Donald Trump. Lurie reported that he had successfully persuaded the president to rescind the planned deployment of federal agents, which had initially been scheduled for the upcoming Saturday. Shortly afterward, Trump confirmed this apparent reversal through a post on his own platform, Truth Social. In his announcement, he referenced the optimism of several prominent Silicon Valley and Bay Area figures, including Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff, who had urged him to recognize what they described as San Francisco’s promising future. Their appeals, Trump claimed, convinced him to give the city what he called another “shot.” As a result, he concluded, the previously planned surge would be suspended for the weekend, ending his message with a cryptic “Stay tuned!”
Despite official assurances, many San Francisco residents and activists remained deeply skeptical of the administration’s intentions. Grassroots organizing, therefore, continued unabated. Earlier that same week, approximately one hundred federal law enforcement officers had gathered on Coast Guard Island—a small, strategically located base situated in Alameda, directly across the Bay from the city. According to federal statements, this facility was being used as a staging point for forthcoming immigration enforcement operations. Its isolated geography made the deployment more conspicuous: with only a single access road connecting the island to the mainland, news of the agents’ presence traveled rapidly. Before long, demonstrators mobilized and encircled the site, effectively trapping the agents in place. By Thursday morning, some two hundred protesters had assembled with the intention of disrupting government activity, and confrontations soon erupted between federal personnel and local demonstrators.
Meanwhile, civic action took on an educational and strategic dimension. On Wednesday evening, Bay Resistance—a prominent coalition known for its rapid-response organizing across the Bay Area—hosted an online webinar that drew an extraordinary level of participation. So many people attempted to join the event that, due to the organization’s standard Zoom plan, the call reached its technical capacity at five thousand participants, forcing hundreds of others to wait for and later view a recorded version of the session. During the meeting, organizer Emily Lee voiced the prevailing sentiment of defiance among San Francisco’s activist community. “The Bay is not going to sit quietly,” she declared, underscoring the determination to unite and actively resist policies issued by the current administration. Her words were met with widespread affirmation and echoed throughout the digital gathering.
Throughout the webinar, coordinators alternated between English and Spanish, ensuring multilingual accessibility for participants from diverse communities. They delineated specific strategies for upcoming collective actions spanning multiple cities and neighborhoods across the Bay Area. Organizers shared insights drawn from their exchanges with activist counterparts in Los Angeles, where communities had already confronted large-scale ICE operations and troop deployments. They discussed practical, experience-based lessons—how to build communication networks swiftly under pressure, how to maintain morale during extended standoffs, and how to ensure the safety of protestors. In addition, speakers noted the creative tactics pioneered by demonstrators in Portland, who effectively employed humor and visual symbols such as inflatable figures to ridicule federal presence while challenging the administration’s portrayal of their city as a chaotic “war zone.” By reflecting on these prior examples, Bay Area organizers framed their forthcoming resistance not merely as a confrontation, but as a carefully coordinated exercise in civic mobilization—one that blended serious political opposition with inventive forms of public expression intended to reaffirm both community solidarity and democratic resolve.
Sourse: https://www.wired.com/story/san-francisco-troops-protests-ice/
