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President Donald Trump has called off a “surge” of federal agents and troops in San Francisco planned for this weekend after speaking with local officials.
“The Federal Government was preparing to ‘surge’ San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night, and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.”
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie also confirmed the move. He said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in a morning conversation, FOX 2 San Francisco reported.
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“I am profoundly grateful to all the San Franciscans who came together over the last several days,” Lurie said. “Our city leaders have been united behind the goal of public safety. And our values have been on full display — this is the best of our city.”
Lurie said he will monitor the situation and remain “prepared for any scenario.” Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Trump said he told Lurie that he thought the mayor was making “a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove.”
“I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?’” Trump wrote. “The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject.”
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He said that internet entrepreneurs like Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff called him to say “the future of San Francisco was bright.”
“They want to give it a ‘shot,’” Trump said. “Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”
FOX 2 initially reported that roughly 100 U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were conducting an operation with “pre-identified” targets, which could include visiting Home Depot locations around the Bay Area.
Meanwhile, about 200 to 300 protesters were seen singing and chanting Thursday morning in front of the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda.
Trump had threatened to send federal agents and National Guard troops to San Francisco to conduct immigration enforcement operations similar to missions in Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago.
The move was heavily criticized by California officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who threatened to sue the administration if Trump followed through with his plans for San Francisco.
“Donald Trump, himself a convicted felon who pardoned felons convicted of assaulting federal law enforcement officers, is misleading the public with his false narrative that America, and especially California, is some lawless wasteland,” Newsom said Tuesday. “But California is proving him wrong — in the courts and on the facts.”
“The notion that the federal government can deploy troops into our cities with no justification grounded in reality, no oversight, no accountability, no respect for state sovereignty — it’s a direct assault on the rule of law,” he added. “We’re drawing a line: California will always defend the Constitution, our people and our values from authoritarian overreach.”
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