In the space of one day, Thursday October 23, immigration authorities set up camp at the Coast Guard Station in the city of Alameda, preparing for a wave of sweeps across the Bay Area. The president threatened to send National Guard troops to San Francisco to “clean up” the City. {Address the injuries caused at Alameda. Also need to highlight the role of activists in stopping the deployment, and the participation of Berkeley people. Link to the immigration article.}
But that afternoon, word broke that Trump gave SF’s Mayor Lurie some time to “fix the problem,” and a reprieve, or pause, on deployment of the National Guard.
On Friday Oct. 24 the Alameda County sheriff reported that the pause in the “surge” will apply to the whole Bay Area, not just SF, and also to immigration sweeps as well as the Guard. However, California and our region remain big targets for Trump, and the immigration sweeps are certain to continue, though at a lower level for now.
Trump’s temporary pause aside, his threats have increased the fear in immigrant communities, with many families feeling unable to send their children to school, go to work or shop. But he has also stimulated resistance, multiple demonstrations, and mutual aid support for immigrants under siege.
In our Fall issue, Berkeley Speaks delves into some of the issues this frightening episode has raised.
Our leaders must grow a spine
On October 23, Mayor Lurie, heir to the billionaire Levi Strauss family, disclosed the understanding he and Trump came to in order to avoid a military invasion of the city:
“We have work to do, and we would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery. In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco.”
Mayor Lurie may have played into Trump’s hands by linking Trump’s planned invasion to crime and drug use. In contrast, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee stated, “These federal actions are not about public safety, as they try to pretend that’s what they do. They’re political stunts designed to divide and to intimidate.”
S.F.’s crime rate is actually at its lowest level in decades. The same is true with Oakland—and Berkeley.
Trump has converted the issue into one of who can solve SF’s “runaway crime.”
San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder spoke directly about Lurie’s outreach to Trump. According to the S.F. Chronicle, Fielder “said she remained concerned that the mayor said he would welcome continued partnership “with the FBI, DEA, and ATF. These agencies have taken on extensive roles in immigration enforcement, according to the New York Times.
Sup. Fielder went on to say, “While we in San Francisco uphold a criminal justice system that ensures due process, Trump does not. Trump has said he will come after presumed criminals, but his forces have come after law-abiding people in other cities, regardless of citizenship status.”
[On November 12, Mayor Lurie made his approach clearer. He announced a new plan to arrest and forcibly treat fentanyl users. This is not far from Trump’s July executive order, which abandons support for Housing First, and encourages the use of forced treatment for both drug users and unhoused individuals with serious mental illness. Both men’s plans deny bodily and mental autonomy to people with behavioral health issues. They rely on force, coercion, and a punitive approach, and short-term treatment with no guarantee of long-term housing, without which stability is impossible.]
Politically, this is a situation where Trump wins whatever he does. It is a part of his “art of the deal” to win even when he loses. While his objective was to take over S.F. and the Bay Area by force, his backup plan may be even better for him—to manipulate the mayor of San Francisco to beg for the corrupted, unconstitutional federal government to determine the nature of local law enforcement.
In our Spring 2025 edition, Berkeley Speaks asked in its Editorial, “Is Berkeley Standing Up?” We looked at political leaders on the state and local levels who have adopted Trump-inspired positions on issues like trans people’s rights, persecution of the unhoused, and preventing undocumented people’s access to Medi-Cal.
We can’t take part in this “odious machine”
Six months later, we are seeing a more direct form of collaboration, particularly with ICE and with other national security agencies as well.
Being collaborative has come to have a positive meaning, based on cooperation and trust. But when we are talking about an authoritarian regime, it reminds us of those in Europe who collaborated with the Nazis, or those who “named names” to the FBI during the McCarthy era. We are referring to the UC system’s decision to provide 160 names of people accused of holding unapproved beliefs about Israel, or City-contracted agencies sharing pictures of our residents with Homeland Security, or working with companies that are deeply intertwined with ICE.
Berkeley Speaks’ editorial position is that local, regional, and statewide governments must make the hard choices to block this toxic collaboration. Otherwise, we will all be complicit in the hellscape that Trump is creating.
Berkeley’s Sanctuary stance is a matter of principle. Violations of the Sanctuary principle are not minor bureaucratic errors, a matter of formalities. Trump’s goal is to deport up to 11 million of our neighbors, break up families, destroy careers, and send people into lives of great danger, while putting great stress on already challenged nations who receive them. Let’s not collaborate with his authoritarian regime. Instead let’s be like the Sanctuary movement of the 1980s, founded in Berkeley, who helped the victims of Reagan’s wars in Central America, and built a movement of concrete solidarity.
Please read our report on “Local Collaboration with Immigration” in this issue.
We leave you with this quote from a Berkeley hero and leader of the Free Speech Movement in 1964, Mario Savio:
