As more than 5,000 people marched in the Mission tonight to protest Donald Trump’s ICE raids, and three supes held a rally on the steps of City Hall, Mayor Daniel Lurie remains largely invisible.
The Mission protest was announced less than 24 hours ago, after police arrested almost 150 people in downtown SF yesterday and Trump called out the National Guard and the Marines to confront protests in Los Angeles.
It was remarkable to see how many showed up on such short notice: The crowd started gathering at 6pm at 24th and Mission, and within half an hour, it stretched for blocks.
When the group began to march down Mission Street, I estimated close to 5,000 people were participating.
Two hours earlier, Sups. Jackie Fielder, Bilal Mahmood, and Shamann Walton stood on the steps of City Hall to make clear that this city is not supporting the ICE raids. “As a sanctuary city, San Francisco will not stand for ICE in our communities,” Fielder said. “We need our city leaders to do more.”
The day before, Lurie met with labor leaders and some immigrant rights advocates. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was also there. According to at least one participant, it didn’t amount to much: Lurie said he wanted protests to be nonviolent, and Jenkins said nobody would be charged with a crime for peaceful civil disobedience—but the mayor didn’t take much of a stand against Trump’s crackdown.
In fact, almost every activist I’ve spoken to at the rallies today was somewhere between stunned and deeply disturbed that Lurie wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Even Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been cozying up to the right wing on his podcast, made a strong statement about Trump threatening cuts to the state, saying that California pays $80 billion more in federal taxes than it gets back, and “maybe we should cut that off.”
So where is Lurie?
His statements so far have been very, very cautious and limited. But if ICE moves into San Francisco on a much larger level, as it has in LA, it’s going to be hard for the mayor to walk the fine line of not offending Trump but also defending the city.
Not when 5,000 people—a diverse group, with a lot of young people as well as older folks—show up on a moment’s notice to march through the Mission.
