SAN FRANCISCO (KRONA) – President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has canceled a “surge” in San Francisco that was scheduled for Saturday, when federal immigration agents were scheduled to conduct operations throughout the city.
“My friends who live in the area called last night to ask me not to move forward with the surge, as Mayor Daniel Lurie has been making great progress,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
President Trump said the friends he spoke to were Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The billionaire tech executives and Lowry apparently helped convince Trump that San Francisco deserved more time to crack down on crime using city and state law enforcement before federal intervention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “I spoke with Mayor Lowry last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn things around. I told him I think he’s making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals. I said to him: ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, safer, but let’s see how you do?’” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt told reporters: “The president listened to Lori’s voice. He (Trump) said, ‘Okay, I’ll give you a chance. We’ll be watching. If you feel as though you continue to let your citizens down, the federal government may have to step in.'”
“We will continue to monitor San Francisco,” Leavitt said.
The purpose of the previously planned increase is to make San Francisco’s streets “safe and clean,” Leavitt said. She added: “The president is willing to work with anyone… to do the right thing and clean up American cities.”
During the mayor’s phone call with the president Wednesday night, Lowry said Trump recognized the value of San Francisco as a “global technology hub.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told KRON4 that the increases implemented by the Department of Homeland Security are intended to “target the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, child molesters, and terrorists — in cities like Portland, Chicago, Memphis, and San Francisco.”
Early Thursday morning, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrived at Coast Guard Island in Alameda. Agents shouted at hundreds of protesters to get out of the way so their cars could enter the island.
Agents used pepper spray and grenades. A pastor suffered facial injuries when he was struck in the face by something. “Apparently I got shot with everything the Border Patrol pointed right at my face,” the priest said. “I came to say, ‘We are here in peace,’ and he didn’t care.” Another protester’s foot was trampled.
More anti-ICE protests are scheduled around the Bay Area Thursday afternoon.
Before the president’s announcement, Lurie and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins warned of Trump’s so-called “playbook” for deploying federal immigration enforcement agents and National Guard soldiers in left-wing U.S. cities with sanctuary policies.
So far, the Trump administration has not sent National Guard troops to the Bay Area.
“We know this federal administration has a playbook,” Lurie said Wednesday. “In cities across the country, masked immigration officials are deployed to use aggressive enforcement tactics that instill fear. These tactics are designed to incite backlash, chaos, and violence, which are then used as a pretext for deploying military personnel.”
“The predecessor to the National Guard would likely be Customs, Border Patrol and ICE agents, just as we saw in Los Angeles and Chicago. My concern…is that the president would need to have civil unrest in order to have the legal authority to send in the National Guard,” Jenkins explained.
And in Chicago, federal immigration agents made highly visible arrests that were “provoking very emotional reactions from the people who witness them. That’s what concerns me. We have to make sure we don’t give the president any opportunity or legal basis to continue,” Jenkins said.