San Mateo County leaders react to immigration crackdown, national guard deployment in Los Angeles 

“This is an emotional crisis, them seeing what’s happening on the news and seeing what’s happening on Spanish media,” she said. “The reality of deportation is it’s not criminals that are being rounded up. It’s literally mothers being separated from children, fathers, even youth being taken.” 

In the Bay Area, Hernandez Arriaga said, around 20 individuals have been taken or deported during immigration hearings in San Francisco in the past week, further stoking flames of fear in immigrant communities around participating in day-to-day activities like attending court or going to school or work. 

In addition, around 100 immigrants in the Los Angeles area have been arrested in the past week, according to the Associated Press, and tallies of immigrant arrests across the United States are reaching 2,000 per day, a spokesperson for Homeland Security said. 

More than 40 protesters were arrested in Los Angeles on Friday and 150 individuals were arrested at a solidarity protest in San Francisco on Sunday. California lawmakers disavowed Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom — the first time such a decision has been made since the 1965 defense of civil rights protesters — and encouraged protesters to stay nonviolent and “not take the bait.” 

“In any protest, you have 99% of people there trying to exercise their constitutional rights, and there will be some very small fraction looking to stir things up, damage property, create chaos,” U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, said. “It’s going to be incumbent on all of us that we don’t allow those individuals to draw us closer and closer to the precipice.” 

State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, had a similar message. 

“They’re going after hardworking people, essential workers — we were so proud of them four years ago [during COVID], and now he’s going after them with military-style force. It’s provocation,” he said. “Unfortunately, some have taken the bait and protested in nonpeaceful ways. We condemn that. It’s also unhelpful.” 

At the same time, local electeds emphasized the danger created by Trump’s purported infringement on California’s state sovereignty through sending in National Guard troops. 

“People throughout our community are deeply and appropriately concerned and furious that the reckless mobilization of military forces into a city would be taken in this way, and it’s dangerous and legally murky at best,” Liccardo said. 

Other local representatives, like state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, put it more bluntly. 

“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles — and now other parts of California — is straight-up police state fascism. Trump is a president, bound by the rule of law, but he is acting like a king,” Wiener said in a statement. “San Francisco stands united with our brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, arm in arm, against Trump’s brutal, fascist tactics.” 

Trump’s actions over the past weekend are making the situation in L.A. much worse, U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, said in a statement. 

“We need peace and calm in Los Angeles, but instead President Trump’s actions have only escalated and inflamed tensions by design. Now, the president is preparing to mobilize active duty marines on U.S. soil,” he said. “Trump is putting innocent civilians and our own troops at risk by manufacturing further chaos.” 

Supervisor Ray Mueller, who represents the coastside on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, questioned the timing of the escalation. 

“The timing of the raids and the quick intervention of the federal government without a request from state or local law enforcement, that really fanned the flames, seems to me to be suspect given that it comes at a time when the president is having difficulty getting his big wonder of a bill passed,” Mueller said. 

Ultimately, local law enforcement and residents will unnecessarily suffer from the military mobilization, he said. 

“It seems that he’s creating a reality television theater to rally his base around him focusing on the biggest blue state in the country,” Mueller said. “I feel terrible for residents in Southern California and law enforcement officers are being put in harm’s way by the president basically throwing flames on these protests.” 

Hernandez Arriaga referred to Trump’s general approach to the country’s immigrant community as “psychological warfare.” 

“This is putting fear into the psyche of our country, particularly the immigrant community,” she said. “Also those people that are protesting peacefully — I know protests have escalated, but we do have a right in this country to protest.”