Shortly after 1 p.m., San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office notified the press of a “public safety update” to be broadcast on YouTube.
News reports from the Chronicle and others began rolling in that President Donald Trump will deploy more than 100 federal agents, among them from US Customs and Border Protection, to a Coast Guard base in Alameda. It’s an omen widely viewed as presaging an even more vicious immigration crackdown in San Francisco. The deployment would follow a strategy that has played out in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland. Clearly, Lurie believed the time had arrived to take a stand against the White House.
The Mayor stood at a lectern shoulder to shoulder with city officials. All of them looked appropriately, gravely serious. If the moment felt sickly inevitable, it was nonetheless full of anticipation to see how Lurie would handle the moment.
The Mayor began by saying that he’s been preparing for a federal deployment for the last ten months, which would mean since his inauguration in January. Public safety agencies, hospitals, schools, and transportation systems are ready, he said, adding that City Attorney David Chiu was ready to sue the Trump administration.
“As our policy has always been, we will ensure that our local government does not support federal civil immigration enforcement operations,” Lurie said. “Sending the military to San Francisco will not help our city or our country.”
The mayor was also a mayor, plugging his achievements, at least some of which surely should be shared with his predecessor, London Breed. San Francisco has a net increase in police officers and sheriffs’ deputies for the first time in a decade, he said. Violent crime has dropped to a 70-year low, and tent encampments are at record lows, he added.
But he also took a stand that he hadn’t voiced until now, reiterating the legal point that the National Guard isn’t permitted to assist with policing street crime, or making drug arrests. Their presence in front of schools, restaurants and office buildings “doesn’t make our city safer. It terrorizes our communities,” he said. At last weekend’s No Kings protest, 50,000 people marched on Market St. without a single arrest, he said. The mayor urged San Franciscans to not take the bait of federal officials inciting chaos. “Our message is clearest when our voices are loud and peaceful,” Lurie said.
In his short term so far, Lurie has not always been the most articulate or polished speaker. Until now, the Mayor has studiously avoided mentioning Trump by name. On Wednesday, though he still didn’t mention the President directly, he rose to the occasion. He was prepared, and made it feel like the city is as ready as it can be for what’s to come. The speech was by far the strongest contrast he has drawn between the values of San Francisco and the Trump administration, and it was a relief to finally hear the city’s top official tell it like it is.
“This federal administration has a playbook” of relying on masked immigration officials pursuing aggressive enforcement tactics “designed to incite backlash, chaos, and violence, which are then used as an excuse to deploy military personnel,” the Mayor said.
“While we cannot control the federal government,” he went on, “here in San Francisco, we define who we are.”
