‘Remain vigilant’: San Francisco cheers canceled raid while fearful for Bay Area
Several hundred people rallied in San Francisco’s Embarcadero district Thursday afternoon to cheer the cancellation of a highly anticipated immigration raid that had put the city and state leaders on edge, while acknowledging that the uneasy détente could fall through at any time.
Mayor Daniel Lurie told reporters Thursday morning President Donald Trump had informed him late Wednesday that he was recalling 100 Customs and Border Protection agents that were preparing to take action in San Francisco on Saturday after tech moguls Marc Benioff and Jensen Huang urged him to reverse course.
Rally speakers included members of organized labor such as SEIU California President David Huerta, who was injured and arrested in June while protesting immigration raids in Los Angeles, the Bay Resistance immigrants’ rights coalition, and San Francisco supervisors Jackie Fielder, Chyanne Chen and Bilal Mahmood, who each represent heavily immigrant communities. Rally attendees held signs that read “ICE OUT OF THE BAY” and other anti-Trump slogans.
Last week, federal prosecutors downgraded Huerta’s charge from a felony to a misdemeanor after accusing him of impeding immigration officers as he protested a series of deportation raids in Los Angeles.
Huerta told the crowd that San Francisco was the first municipality to resist a federal incursion after Trump said last month he would train the military on liberal cities.
“You guys did something we have not been able to achieve anywhere else, and that’s keeping ICE out of the Bay Area,” Huerta said to the crowd, drawing massive cheers. “But as we kept them out here, as you kept them out here, they’re still in Los Angeles, they’re still in Chicago, they’re still in Portland, they’re still in DC, and every day that they are out there, we have to stay in solidarity, and we have to continue to protest, because our voices, our collective voices, is our power and our strength.”
Fielder, who represents the Mission District, which is home to a large contingent of Central and South American migrant communities, said she had spoken to government agencies, officials and community groups and businesses for the last 48 hours preparing for what Trump had promised was a “surge” of CBP agents.
“I have all the faith in the amazing people here and not here, who are actively organizing 24/7 to make sure that every block is covered,” Fielder told the crowd. “However, I am not celebrating anything today because we have no idea which federal agencies are backing down. We have no idea what that means for counties outside of San Francisco. ...We are not leaving anyone behind in our fight against ICE, because it is disgusting that we are at a point where democracy and ICE and all these federal agencies are playing a big game of bravado between a bunch of tech billionaires.”
Trump did not say whether the agents would leave the Bay Area entirely or if other cities like Oakland or Alameda would be spared, too. As of 7 p.m. Thursday, protesters across the bay in Alameda continued to clash with police and block access to Coast Guard Island, where CBP agents were staging.
Trump told reporters during a White House roundtable that he “loved” what Lurie, who has avoided antagonizing the president since he took office, was doing to bring crime rates down in San Francisco. Homicide levels have ebbed to historic lows not seen since 1954.
Lurie told reporters he had not promised Trump anything in exchange for drawing back CBP officers, nor did he ask Huang and Benioff, who initially asked Trump to send in the National Guard to “clean up” the city, to intervene. Benioff later walked back his comments.
Lurie said he agreed to meet with Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss partnering with federal agencies like the FBI and ATF to tackle the city’s persistent fentanyl problem, which Fielder criticized, saying Trump was untrustworthy.
“We cannot let up on any of this, because what is to prevent him (Trump) from sending any other federal agency tonight, tomorrow, any day of the next three years that he is in power?” she told the crowd.
Mahmoud drew parallels between Trump’s increasing consolidation of power over business, media and Congress and his adolescence growing up in Pakistan during a military dictatorship.
“Make no mistake, federal agents are already (in) and have been in San Francisco for months,” he said. “Hours ago, I got a call from a resident in the Tenderloin, someone who grew up in Pakistan, where my family was from. He was detained by ICE at immigration court earlier today. It was a reminder that we are at the precipice of fascism in our country, and we have to remain vigilant.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 8:35 PM.
