It’s been a wild 24 hours in San Francisco.
When news broke on Wednesday that the Trump administration was sending a surge of federal agents to an artificial island in the Bay to carry out mass immigration raids, there was a nearly audible scramble across the city to respond.
Group chats and social media feeds lit up with Know Your Rights resources, and activists sprang into action — launching previously devised protest schedules and hastily organizing Zoom calls.
Mayor Daniel Lurie — who has made a tunnel-vision focus on local issues a hallmark of his administration — addressed the press and adamantly underscored that San Francisco did not need any direct federal intervention in its affairs.
On Thursday morning, protesters swarmed the single road onto Coast Guard Island to block the incoming brigade, prompting federal officers to deploy flash-bang grenades to disperse them. The city waited with bated breath to see what would come next.
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Then, almost as suddenly, it was over.
Lurie released a statement saying that after a late-night call with the president, the federal deployment had been canceled.
Trump later corroborated the reversal with a typically verbose Truth Social post, specifically shouting out billionaires Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff for helping to paint the picture of a city on the upswing.
There are still unanswered questions.
Will planned protests continue with the same strength and ferocity? Will the DEA and FBI swarm San Francisco to help tamp down the drug trade? Will other parts of the Bay Area still be hit with immigration raids?
What is clear is that this will not be a day San Francisco and its residents soon forget.
