White House backs off—for the moment—but the community is organized and ready

By JJ Lansing, 48hills

Labor leaders and community organizations stood together at City Hall Thursday to discuss the threat of federal invasion of San Francisco and offer a community response plan.

Behind a “We Keep Us Safe” banner, Bianca Polovina, president of IFPTE Local 21, told us how residents of San Francisco can keep each other safe.

anti ICE activists at SF city hall

“It can be as simple as, ‘I’m going to sign up to adopt the corner that I live on’, whether it’s here in San Francisco County or in Alameda County,” Polovina said. “‘I’m going to take care of my neighbors, I’m going to buy extra groceries, I’m going to buy additional goods from street vendors, buy them out so that they can go home.’ They don’t have to worry about vending goods where they might have concern that ICE would be coming for them.”

In a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, President Trump said, after speaking with “friends of [his] in the area” (he name-dropped NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, who retracted his support for deploying the National Guard to San Francisco after backlash), as well as Mayor Lurie, he has decided to “not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”

 

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