More than 200 protesters demonstrated and tried to block the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda, Calif., on Thursday morning. The base is being used as an operations center for federal immigration raids that are expected to start Friday in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Around 7:30 a.m., federal authorities at the scene used crowd-control munitions that caused two loud bangs, sending the crowd scattering momentarily from the roadway where Border Patrol vehicles were trying to enter. At least one man appeared to be injured by what protesters described as a pepper bomb.
Protesters marched in the road intersection and held signs that said “No ICE or Troops in the Bay” and “No Hate No Fear, Immigrants are Welcome Here.” A line of U.S. Coast Guard police officers stood facing the demonstrators outside the entrance to the base, which is on an island linked to the mainland by a bridge.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Coast Guard could be immediately reached for comment.
As the Alameda protest grew on Thursday morning, the playful spirit that has animated recent anti-ICE protests in Portland, Ore., was also on display. While protesters circled the intersection singing peace songs, a woman in a clown outfit made balloon animals, a folk singer strummed a guitar and an artist set up an easel to paint the gathering.
Protesters said that they wanted the Trump administration to know that the region did not want the planned federal operation.
“Many of us believe our faith is calling us to be here,” said Gala King, an organizer with the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, a religious coalition that helped to organize the demonstration. “They’re trying to wreak havoc and fear and economic hardship in the Bay Area, and we’re not going to let them do that.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began arriving in the Bay Area on Wednesday for the immigration enforcement operation, which is expected to begin Friday, federal officials said. There has been no indication so far that National Guard troops will be involved.
President Trump has said several times that he wanted to send federal forces to San Francisco.
“San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world,” he said most recently in an interview that aired on Sunday on Fox News. “And then 15 years ago it went wrong, it went woke.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Wednesday that he believed Mr. Trump was sending Customs and Border Protection agents primarily to draw protests and create chaos, manufacturing a pretext for a military deployment. He suggested that Mr. Trump would follow by deploying the National Guard and then claiming credit for making the region safer.
“It’s absolutely predictable,” Mr. Newsom said Wednesday at an economic event in Stockton, about 80 miles east of San Francisco. “It’s a script that’s been written for centuries, the authoritarian playbook.”
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
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