Gregory Bovino, the chief U.S. Border Patrol agent, center, leads federal agents toward protesters near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 3, 2025.Antonio Perez/TNS

By Matthias Gafni, Staff Writer Updated Oct 22, 2025 (SFChronicle.com)

The Trump administration has dispatched more than 100 federal agents, including from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to Coast Guard Base Alameda and they will begin to arrive Thursday, according to a source familiar with the operation.

In other cities, National Guard deployments have come in support of immigration enforcement operations, which President Donald Trump has said are critical to protecting U.S. jobs and public safety. 

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On Sunday, Trump told Fox News: “We’re going to San Francisco and we’ll make it great. It’ll be great again. San Francisco is a great city. It won’t be great if it keeps going like this. We’re gonna go to San Francisco. The difference is they want us in San Francisco.”

Earlier this week, Mayor Daniel Lurie said sending troops would not help make San Francisco safer nor help stem its drug crisis, and that soldiers could not legally arrest drug dealers. City Attorney David Chiu warned that his office would sue to keep soldiers from being deployed to San Francisco’s streets.

The source spoke to the Chronicle on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection.

Trump said he might invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows presidents to deploy troops on U.S. soil. He has already sent National Guard members to Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Portland, Ore. The Chicago deployment is on hold in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Portions of California have different restrictions in place guiding how aggressive federal immigration agents can be in their efforts to arrest and deport immigrants without legal status.

In the federal court district that covers Sacramento and Kern counties and eastern portions of the state, a judge approved an injunction aimed at preventing agents from racially profiling residents by targeting them based on their appearance or what language they’re speaking. It was approved after a January raid in which agents targeted farmworkers.

The order prohibits Border Patrol agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they are noncitizens in the U.S. and are in violation of federal immigration law. It also bars them from arresting people without a warrant if agents don’t have probable cause to believe the person is likely to flee. 

The New York Times reported earlier this month that the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of California was swiftly fired after she told Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief in charge of the raids, that he was required to follow the order.

A similar order was approved in the district covering Los Angeles and other portions of Southern California, where Border Patrol and ICE agents have conducted raids in public places. But the Supreme Court overturned that order. In doing so, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump, said that stops in which U.S. citizens were targeted based on their appearance were both rare and harmless. 

Such stops would be “brief” and once officers saw proper documentation of citizenship, residents would “promptly be let go,” he wrote. That has not occurred in practice: ProPublica reported that at least 170 American citizens have been held against their will by immigration agents since Trump took office in January, and in some cases have been beaten, shot, detained while pregnant and denied access to lawyers and loved ones.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to remove a reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement being deployed as part of the operation.

Oct 22, 2025

Matthias Gafni

Investigative Reporter

Matthias Gafni is an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He investigates stories on corruption, child and adult sexual abuse, criminal justice, aviation, healthcare and more. In 2017, Gafni won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work on the Ghost Ship fire. In 2018, he was named SPJ Reporter of the Year in Northern California. The following year, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work covering the Camp Fire. In 2020, he won a Polk Award for military reporting of a COVID-infested aircraft carrier and in 2020 he won an IRE award for his coverage of an East Bay hospital. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and graduated from UC Davis.

(Contributed by Adrienne Fong)

We need to demand elected officials address economic inequality at every level—including here at home

By Tim Redmond

October 20, 2025 (48hills.org)

I loved the No Kings demonstration. I loved the massive numbers of people in the streets, the fun and energy, the great signs, the clear indication that people in San Francisco aren’t bowing down to Donald Trump.

The speakers were inspiring.

They didn’t ask me to speak, but if they had, this is what I would have said:

It’s beautiful to see so many people all over the country standing up for democracy and against authoritarianism. This is no time for factions or political infighting; we face an existential emergency, and we all need to unite against that threat.

I see signs all over supporting so many causes, and I love them all.

But I want to take a moment to talk about why we are here.

Trump’s election had a lot to do with racism and sexism, and Joe Biden clinging too long to office, and a lot of other issues.

It was also about economic inequality.

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For way too long, the Democratic Party has also been the party of Wall Street, of the billionaires. Economic inequality has wrecked the country, and people are angry.

When Trump talks about immigrants taking American jobs, or Venezuelans moving fentanyl into the country, he’s looking for diversions. All these things drive attention away from the fact that the 400 richest Americans now have $6.6 trillion, $1.2 trillion more than they did a year ago, and more than the total wealth of the 170 million people in the lower 50 percent.

That has happened because of policy decisions that Trump promoted, but they started with Ronald Reagan, who dramatically cut taxes on the rich, and continued through both Democrats and Republicans, and the Democratic Party hasn’t made economic inequality an issue.

I am going to stand here today and say that if we can’t address radical economic inequality, I’m not sure we can address anything else.

We will never have universal health care. We will never have high-quality free public education, at every level. We will never end homelessness. We will never end poverty. We will never have affordable housing for working people. We will never address climate change. We will never be able to deal with the shocks to the system as AI and robots put millions of humans out of work.

Thomas Piketty, the eminent French economist, says if we don’t address economic inequality, we will not be able to stop the decay of civilization, which is under way all over the globe (and Trump is a symptom of that).

We have to stop Trump. We have to elect Democrats to Congress, to save what’s left of our democracy. But that’s not enough.

Here’s what Sen. Bernie Sanders said at the DC rally:

But let’s be clear: This is not just about one man’s greed, one man’s corruption or one man’s contempt for our Constitution. This is about a handful of the wealthiest people on earth who, in their insatiable greed, have hijacked our economy and our political system in order to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Yes. I’m talking about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and the other multi-billionaires who were sitting right behind Donald Trump when he was inaugurated – the very same billionaires who funded his campaign, who have bestowed gifts upon him and who have seen huge increases in their wealth and power since Trump took office.

Yes, I’m talking about the insanity of one person, Mr. Musk, now owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.

I’m talking about the incredible injustice of the top 1% in this country now owning more wealth than the bottom 93%.

I’m talking about the richest people in America becoming much, much richer, while 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck, struggling every day to pay their rent and mortgages, pay for childcare and education, pay for their health care and prescription drugs, afford decent quality food for their kids and put aside a few bucks for their retirements.

We need to recognize that.

But we also have to demand that our elected officials at all levels—from the Berkeley City Council to the SF Board of Supes, to the state Legislature to Congress—make taxing the rich a key part of their agendas.

Because as Piketty proves, nothing—not “training for the jobs of the future,” not the Yimby housing agenda, none of the things the Democrats talk about—will solve the problem. The only solution is taxation, at a high level: At least a 3 percent annual wealth tax on fortunes of more than $100 million, at least an increase in the marginal tax rate on the highest incomes, at least a change in the tax laws so Jeff Bezos can’t be a $400 million boat and pay no taxes at all.

This starts right here at home. San Francisco could have a local income tax on the very rich, and we would have no budget crisis. We could fund Muni, and affordable housing, and health care, and schools:

If we just take the 5,073 San Francisco households with earned income of more than $1 million, and we again make a very, very conservative assumption that the average take-home pay is $1.5 million, those folks made $7.6 billion last year.

Based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, the tax savings on that money under the Trump tax cuts is about $451 million.

Guess what: Over two years, that’s $902 million—more than the two-year local budget deficit.

I asked state Sen. Scott Wiener if he would sponsor a bill to allow the city to impose a local income tax. He shrugged it off, saying it would never pass, so he won’t try.

That’s because we aren’t insisting that our elected officials stand up against the billionaire agenda. Even in liberal San Francisco.

The state Legislature could increase taxes on the rich, impose a wealth tax, and hike the corporate tax rate. With all the budget problems, not a peep from anyone in Sacramento.

If you marched against Trump, and then accept candidates for local and state office who support the immigrant agenda, we are going to fail. Former Sup. Dean Preston notes that we are already failing.

Let me repeat that: If we oppose Trump but support local candidates, all of them Democrats, who support the billionaire agenda and groups like Together SF, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, and the rest of the billionaire-backed astroturf groups, We Will Fail. As a city, as a state, and as a nation.

We can do better. We must do better. It starts right here at home.

Thank you all for listening.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

Saikat Chakrabarti, who is challenging US Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the 2026 election, spoke about a recent Trump administration memo aimed at stopping at stopping left-wing political activities on CNN on October 20, 2025.

 (Photo: CNN/screenshot)

“Look how CNN shut down his question and moved on,” said one viewer.

Julia Conley

Oct 21, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Saikat Chakrabarti, the progressive organizer who is challenging US Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the House seat she has held since 1987, was met with stone-faced stares and laughter on CNN when he spoke during a panel discussion Monday about the Trump administration national security memo that one journalist said amounts to a “declaration of war” on the president’s political opponents.

Chakrabarti was joined by author and historian Max Boot, journalist Bata Ungar-Sargon, commentator and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin, and former spokesperson for the George W. Bush administration Pete Seat in a panel discussion hosted by Sara Sidner.

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The discussion covered the weekend’s No Kings rallies, racist texts attributed to a nominee of President Donald Trump, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) raids in cities across the country before turning to the administration’s recent strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea, which it says have been aimed at stopping drug trafficking and which have killed dozens of people.

Chakrabarti said the administration’s policy of bombing boats in the Caribbean—vessels that, Vice President JD Vance admitted, could very well be fishing boats—to kill people the White House has claimed without evidence are “narco-terrorists,” raises alarm about the president’s push to unilaterally define who qualifies as a “terrorist.”

Trump’s policy in the Caribbean, Chakrabarti suggested, represents just one way in which the president is attempting to designate groups as terrorists. In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing—which he baselessly blamed on left-wing groups—he signed an executive order in September designating “antifa”—an anti-fascist ideology embraced by autonomous groups and individuals—as a “domestic terrorist organization,” despite the fact that there is no such legal designation in the US.

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Days later, Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which focuses on left-wing and anti-fascist organizations and mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

The memo has recently garnered outrage from Democratic lawmakers, more than 30 of whom signed a letter condemning Trump’s threats against progressive groups and organizers, but it has received little attention in the corporate media, and Chakrabarti’s fellow guests on CNN Monday displayed little recognition of what he was talking about when he raised alarm about NSPM-7.

“Here’s what concerns me—Trump is saying, ‘I can define who’s a terrorist, and that means I can kill him.’ At the same time, we’re seeing executive orders defining whole parts of Democratic Party as domestic terrorists,” said Chakrabarti. “Here we’re seeing NSPM-7, which says any anti-American or anti-capitalist or anti-Christian speech, is extremist speech.”

While claiming to protect the US from drug traffickers, he added, the administration has created “a task force of 4,000 agents who are being taken off of drug trafficking and human trafficking, and the actual crime, and being put on prosecuting those people who are saying anti-capitalist things.”

“Do you think that’s okay?” he asked the other panelists. “Can you put two and two together about what’s going on here?”

None of the other guests responded, and Seat looked blankly at Chakrabarti before Sidner said the show was going to a commercial break.

“We will answer that question, coming up,” Sidner said, laughing. “We’re going to leave it there for that conversation.”

When the show returned, the conversation turned to Ukraine and Russia.

“Look how CNN shut down his question and moved on,” said commentator Guy Christensen.

Ken Klippenstein, who has reported on NSPM-7 and tracked mentions of the memo in the corporate press—some of which have downplayed the threat—expressed alarm that “the moment NSPM-7 comes up, [the] CNN anchor laughs nervously and ends the segment.”

On Tuesday, however, Klippenstein reported that the “NSPM-7 dam” in the corporate media was continuing to break, with CNN airing a second segment that mentioned the memo.

“This would be like if George W. Bush had said CodePink was al-Qaeda,” explained former national security official Miles Taylor, “or people protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were associated with the Islamic State.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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City Attorney David Chiu promised ‘legal action’ against the White House if it went forward with its plans

by Yujie Zhou October 21, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)

City Attorney David Chiu on Tuesday vowed “legal action” against President Donald Trump’s administration if it goes forward with its threats to send National Guard troops into San Francisco.

Also on Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said would sue “immediately” if Trump sends troops.

The vows came the same day as San Francisco joined a coalition of local jurisdictions from around the country urging the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Chicago, as well as other American cities.

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The coalition of 109 mayors, elected officials and cities and counties, including Chiu, filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, which is now considering whether to prevent the National Guard deployment to Illinois in the case of Donald J. Trump, et al. v. State of Illinois, et al.

The brief was jointly filed by cities across the country and up and down the California coast: Alameda, Anaheim, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, and Santa Monica, alongside Portland, New York, Baltimore, Boston, Tucson, Minneapolis, and many more.

It comes as Trump has repeatedly talked about deploying the National Guard to San Francisco, rhetoric that followed Marc Benioff’s remarks last week that he would support seeing troops in the city. Benioff has since backtracked. 

San Francisco Mayor Danie Lurie stated yesterday that sending the National Guard to San Francisco “will do nothing to get fentanyl off the streets or make our city safer.”

The legal brief details how increasing deployments of the National Guard erodes state and local sovereignty, weakens community confidence in local law enforcement, disrupts social stability, and leaves local governments with millions of dollars in unpaid expenses. 

“We urge the Court to uphold the bedrock legal principle that domestic law enforcement is not the military’s job,” said Chiu, noting that it should only be a last resort when local resources are overwhelmed. 

Chiu cited that San Francisco is currently at a 70-year low in homicides and a 22-year low in car break-ins. The fact that the city managed the recent “No Kings” demonstration, in which over 50,000 people participated without incident, proves that the city is capable of keeping its own people safe, he said.

Local law enforcement also has a better understanding of the city, deeper ties to the community, and more experience of working with other city departments, Chiu added. 

“Should President Trump make good on his ridiculous threats to send the military to San Francisco, our city is prepared, and my office is prepared to take the necessary legal action to defend San Francisco,” Chiu said.

We’re more than halfway there!

We’ve raised 2/3 of our $300,000 goal to cover immigration for the next three years of Trump’s term! More than 500 of you have stepped up since September — an incredibly feat of community support.

We are humbled. We still have a bit to go: Donate below if you want to keep Mission Local in the courts, reporting on ICE’s actions in San Francisco.about:blank

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Yujie Zhou

yujie@missionlocal.com

I’m reporting from Bayview-Hunters Point and Chinatown. I came on as an intern after graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and became a full-time staff reporter as part of the Report for America and have stayed on. Before falling in love with the Mission, I covered New York City, studied politics through the “street clashes” in Hong Kong, and earned a wine-tasting certificate in two days. I’m proud to be a bilingual journalist. Follow me on Twitter @Yujie_ZZ.More by Yujie Zhou

Supes unanimously approved public bank plan two years ago. Jackie Fielder wants it to become reality.

by Xueer Lu October 20, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)

Two years after San Francisco officially endorsed its intent to stand up a city-owned and -operated public bank, one supervisor is urging it to follow through.

On Tuesday, District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder will introduce a non-binding resolution asking Mayor Daniel Lurie and city departments to explore and fund a “green bank.”

Like a public bank, a green bank would be controlled by city officials to provide low-interest loans for renewable energy projects, small businesses, and new affordable housing.

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City officials already approved a plan to do just that in 2023. At the time, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a plan to create a public bank that would, among other things, leverage funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and other sources to provide low-cost loans for projects that reduce emissions, address environmental injustices, or otherwise improve environmental outcomes. 

Despite the unanimous approval, that plan, sponsored by then-Supervisor Dean Preston, still awaits implementation. The plan estimated that the process of creating a public bank in compliance with local, state, and federal laws and regulations would cost about $1 million.

According to the plan, the process of creating a public bank would start with the creation of a three-year municipal financial corporation that doesn’t take deposits. After three years, that entity would become a full-service, FDIC-approved chartered public bank.

In 2019, a California state law passed that enables local governments to charter public banks. If San Francisco successfully creates a public bank, it would be the first in the state.

Public banks, which are owned and operated by the government, are exceedingly rare in the United States. The only one in the country handles funds for the state of North Dakota, and has been around since 1919. 

Several other cities in California, like Los Angeles, have plans to form public banks, but have yet to actually do so. 

The concept is broadly popular in San Francisco, says Fielder. A poll released Oct. 6 showed that 70 percent of participating San Francisco voters were in favor of having a green bank, and 67 percent favored a public bank. 

The poll was commissioned by the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, a group co-founded by Fielder, a longtime public-bank advocate, back in 2017. 

This is the first time Fielder is pushing for the public bank as an elected official. 

“A green bank is how we take our money back from Wall Street and reinvest it into housing, clean energy and small businesses right here at home,” Fielder said in a statement on Monday. “I hope to see widespread support for it on the Board of Supervisors.”

Preston’s effort to support a public bank was supported by six other supervisors, including Connie Chan, Shamann Walton and Myna Melgar, who still sit on the board.

“It feels really exciting with this new board to have another opportunity to reify this commitment,” said Misha Steier, a lead organizer for the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition. 

Steier added that the coalition is also eyeing a ballot measure in 2026.

“We really just feel like the time is now. There’s so many other reasons to do it,” Steier said. “We’ve got this AI boom in San Francisco. I say we bank the boom.”

Fielder told Mission Local in January that she wanted to take the public bank “over the finish line” during her time in office.

“As working San Franciscans struggle with the rising cost of living and the growing threat of climate crisis, we need public institutions that aspire to reimagine how we can invest in our communities and in solutions that address climate change,” Fielder said.

We’re more than halfway there!

We’ve raised 2/3 of our $300,000 goal to cover immigration for the next three years of Trump’s term! More than 500 of you have stepped up since September — an incredibly feat of community support.

We are humbled. We still have a bit to go: Donate below if you want to keep Mission Local in the courts, reporting on ICE’s actions in San Francisco.about:blank

Donate

Latest News

Trump says San Francisco ‘went wrong.’ Crime data shows otherwise.

Plans for affordable housing at shuttered S.F. food hall site stuck in limbo 

No trial for S.F. sheriff chief-of-staff who lied about hit and run

Xueer Lu

xueer@missionlocal.com

I work on data and cover City Hall. I graduated from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism with a Master’s Degree in May 2023. In my downtime, I enjoy cooking, photography, and scuba diving.More by Xueer Lu

The Trump administration is escalating its crackdown on dissent, and reports are mounting that ICE may be deployed to the Bay Area. But in the Bay Area we are also ready to stand up for our communities. This is not a drill. This is not a moment to wait.Bay Resistance is organizing, not just to react, but to prepare, to stand with each other, and to mobilize. We’re building community solidarity networks, training people in knowing your rights and de-escalation, and coordinating Day 1 response plans to protect our neighborhoods, our loved ones, and our communities. Join us TOMORROW at 6pm Wednesday, October 22. Register now to get the Zoom link/location once you RSVP JOIN US TOMORROW  ✅ Learn Know Your Rights ✅ Get Trained in Community Safety, Legal Observer Protocols, and Rapid Response ✅ Hear the Day 1 Mobilization Plan — and How you Can Plug In ✅ Help us Send a Unified Message: STAY OUT OF THE BAYThis is a call to action for renters, workers, students, parents, elders, and everyone who calls the Bay Area home. We need every hand, every voice, every heart. We are stronger together.Register now.Learn more about our mobilization plans at Bayresistance.org

(Contributed by Adrienne Fong)

Your weekly to-dos

1. Sign up for the “What’s Next After No Kings?” mass call tomorrow, October 21, at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. No Kings was massive, powerful, and meaningful — but it wasn’t the end of our work. Join movement leaders and fellow activists Tuesday night to celebrate what we accomplished and dive into what’s next in the fight.
2. Find (and take action with) the local Indivisible groups in your area. Local activists and organizers were the beating heart of No Kings Day — and they’ll keep leading the fight on the ground in your community. Use our map to see what groups are near you, follow them online, and get in touch with local Indivisibles.
3. Email your Democratic senator(s) and tell them to hold the line in this Trump Shutdown showdown. So far, all but three Senate Dems and Independents — Cortez Masto, Fetterman, and King — have held the line against Trump’s dangerous budget. We need to let them know we’re behind them as long as they keep fighting hard!
4. CA Indivisibles: Sign up for Neighbor2Neighbor to knock doors on your time ahead of critical ballot measures. To thwart Republicans’ attempt to gain permanent control of the US House, we need to give our likeminded neighbors a nudge to vote by November 4! Our innovative Neighbor2Neighbor program lets you canvass your neighborhood on your time.
5. Volunteer for a virtual phonebank to help Dems win big in Virginia this fall. We’re making 1,000,000 calls to voters to help VA Democrats build a vital defense against Trump’s authoritarian overreach — a Democratic trifecta in his own backyard! All you need is your phone and a computer. Join a live phonebank training here.

P.S. Together, we just pulled off the biggest day of protest in American history — and welcomed tens of thousands of new friends to our team! Now, we need to keep organizing and give folks the tools to keep fighting with us. If you can, please chip in today so we can build on the momentum of No Kings Day and keep growing our movement.

Upcoming events for you

These nationwide events, calls, and training sessions are coming up soon. For even more Indivisible happenings, check our national calendar and get in touch with Indivisible groups near you!

20 October 2025/SF News/Jay Barmann (SFist.com)

The nightmare of Donald Trump wielding the National Guard as his personal army in cities where he claims, without evidence, that this intervention is needed, is going to continue for now, after a decision filed Monday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two Trump appointees on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled in favor of the Trump administration, overrulling another Trump-appointed judge in federal court in Portland, in the case pertaining to the deployment of National Guard troops to protect Portland’s lone federal building.

Despite the small and inconsequential nature of the protest that has been happening over ICE activity in Portland, two of the three Ninth Circuit judges ruling on the case found that the deployment was justified because “state and local law enforcement have been unable or unwilling to assist the government’s efforts to protect federal personnel and property.”

The judges note of the protests around the country that “While many of these events have been peaceful, others have been violent and even deadly,” pointing to the shooting that occurred outside an ICE facility in Dallas last month.

The 93-page decision goes on to cite multiple incidents in Portland in which protesters have allegedly acted aggressively toward federal agents.

The judges also referred heavily to the earlier decision by the Ninth Circuit to lift a temporary restraining order issued by a lower court judge regarding the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles, a case known as Newsom v Trump. In that ruling, the appellate court found that the president operated within his authority to federalize the National Guard, but they noted that when troops are deployed for no apparent reason, future moves by the president could still be subject to the court’s review.

The two Trump-appointed judges in this case are Judges Ryan Nelson and Bridget Bade. They cite that the “threat to federal personnel and property, and the resulting inability to execute federal laws” are likely sufficient to support the deployment of federal troops as the President sees fit.

In dissent, the third judge on the panel in this case, Clinton appointee Judge Susan Graber, writes that her colleagues’ ruling “erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies.”

Graber points to Trump’s social media posts that refer to Portland as “war ravaged,” specifically at a time when the protesters numbered between 10 and 20 people on some days.

“The Founders recognized the inherent dangers of allowing the federal executive to wrest command of the State militia from the States,” Graber writes.

She further adds, “We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending — sometimes breaking— the truth. By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda.”

And, Graber calls on a larger panel at the Ninth Circuit to vacate the decision of her collegaues before troops can be deployed to Portland, noting the lower court’s assessment that by adding federal troops to the situation, it was only likely to make it more dangerous and to aggravate the protesters further.

This all bodes terribly for Trump’s latest threat to send troops into San Francisco next, despite the fact that there is no ongoing protest or “insurrection” happening outside a federal facility here — though there have been occasional gatherings outside an ICE facility downtown since June.

Related: Benioff Walks Back National Guard Comment as Salesforce Pledges $15B Investment In San Francisco

Photo via Getty Images

KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco Oct 19, 2025 President Donald Trump again threatened to send National Guard troops to San Francisco, and says he may invoke the Insurrection Act to do it.

Posted in Arts & Community

“We will not bow,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee told the thousands of East Bay residents who marched.

by Natalie Orenstein, Esther Kaplan, Darwin BondGraham and Richard H. Grant Oct. 18, 2025 (Oaklandside.org)

Thousands of protesters rallied and marched today in Oakland in opposition to what many see as increasing authoritarianism by the Trump Administration — part of a day of “No Kings” protests in an estimated 2,500 cities and towns across the United States.

The protest culminated in a rally on the shore of Lake Merritt where former Congresswoman and now Mayor of Oakland Barbara Lee said her city will not stand idly by while people’s rights are stripped away.

“We are not subjects. We are the people,” said Lee. “We are the people who will not bow to any king….we are free people and we intend to stay that way.”

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon gave a fiery speech about Trump and the Republicans who control both houses of Congress: “They smile while children are separated from their homes.”

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“We are living in the midnight of our democracy,” Simon warned, “but midnight don’t last forever — dawn is coming.” She called on the audience to not “capitulate,” saying, “From Oakland to Haiti, from the picket lines at Kaiser to Detroit…no empire stands up against the people who remember who the fuck we are.”

Organizers estimate that more than 10,000 people turned out for Oakland’s march on an unusually warm October day, similar to the turnout for June’s protest. Nationally, the protest group Indivisible, said it counted roughly 7 million attendees.

Some supporters showed up in costumes, mixing Halloween spirit with political messages. Others wore silly inflatable animal suites, similar to those protesters have used in Portland, Ore. to emphasize that their city is not a “war zone,” as Trump and others claim.

Karen Hsu and Gautam Machiraju, both 31-year-old Rockridge residents, came to the protest to speak up for people who “don’t have voices right now.”

“We’re both children of immigrants who came here to find a better life,” said Hsu. “That’s the America we believe in. Where everyone is welcome.”

“We also came to find community in resistance,” said Gautam. “The number of people in Rockridge headed to BART this morning was really inspiring.”A time-lapse video of the front of the march gives a sense of how many people showed up to Oakland’s “No Kings” rally on Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Darwin BondGraham

The march in Oakland wound its way up Harrison Street and down 13th to Lake Merritt. A scraper car cruised by several times blasting YG and Nipsy Hussle’s protest anthem “Fuck Donald Trump.”

Mitch Plueger, a 37-year-old Oakland resident and Naval Academy grad served on an aircraft carrier for six years. “I took an oath to support and defend the constitution and Donald Trump has no respect for the constitution,” Plueger said. “He’s showing he’s against democracy, and I had a duty to do something.”

Plueger said about half the people he served with had the same view. “You saw the reaction when Hegseth gathered all of those commanding officers for that meeting, a bunch of them don’t believe in what they’re doing.”

Molly Lorenz and Christina Macalino, met at Montera Middle School in Oakland. This is not the first protest they’ve attended together. Lorenz was carrying a sign from the 2017 Women’s March. “We were reflecting on that today,” she said, “and how we’re still fighting for the same things.”

The friends, who work in education, said they came to the march to support Palestinian children and children detained by ICE. For Lorenz, it’s encouraging to attend protests and “be reminded that so many others feel the same.”

Oakland’s No Kings rally in June drew an estimated 10,000 people, along with a range of elected officials including Rep. Simon, state assemblymember Mia Bonta, and Alameda County supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas. An estimated 4 million people showed up at nearly 2,000 protests across the country on June 14, including an estimated 140,000 across the Bay Area. 

House Speaker Republican Mike Johnson has condemned the day of protests as “The Hate America Rally.” But today, many marchers in Oakland and around the country carried American flags and signs with patriotic slogans. The No Kings’ slogan is “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.”

Berkeley, El Sobrante, San Pablo, and other East Bay communities also saw large protests today.

Read more about the No Kings protests

The East Bay ‘resistance’: A guide to local activism

Photos: Oakland ‘No Kings’ protest fills streets

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Natalie Orenstein

natalie@oaklandside.org

Natalie Orenstein is a senior reporter covering City Hall, housing and homelessness for The Oaklandside. Her reporting on a flood of eviction cases following the end of the Alameda County pandemic moratorium won recognition from the Society of Professional Reporters NorCal in 2024. Natalie was previously on staff at Berkeleyside, where she covered education, including extensive, award-winning reporting on the legacy of school desegregation in Berkeley Unified. Natalie lives in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and has only left her beloved East Bay once, to attend Pomona College.More by Natalie Orenstein

Esther Kaplan

esther@oaklandside.org

Esther Kaplan was most recently the investigations editor at Business Insider. Before that, she was executive editor at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she oversaw a reporting team that led investigations for a national podcast, and editor-in-chief at the New York City nonprofit Type Investigations. She launched the Ida B. Wells Fellowship, a program dedicated to diversifying the field of investigative reporting.More by Esther Kaplan

Darwin BondGraham

darwin@oaklandside.org

Before joining The Oaklandside as News Editor, Darwin BondGraham was a freelance investigative reporter covering police and prosecutorial misconduct. He has reported on gun violence for The Guardian and was a staff writer for the East Bay Express. He holds a doctorate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara and was the co-recipient of the George Polk Award for local reporting in 2017. He is also the co-author of The Riders Come Out at Night, a book examining the Oakland Police Department’s history of corruption and reform.More by Darwin BondGraham