No Kings protests Bay Area: Crowds gather early at ICE building in San Francisco

San Francisco Chronicle​

18 hours ago

No Kings demonstrations are planned in over 2,000 cities across the nation today, on President Donald Trump's birthday and coinciding with his military parade in Washington, D.C. After days of increasingly tense protests over immigration raids and Trump's deployment of military troops to Los Angeles, today's protests are expected to be among the largest seen in Trump's second term.
Massive crowds are expected to gather in San Francisco, Oakland and other cities across the Bay Area — possibly causing traffic delays in some areas. To help snuff out any violence or disorder, organizers of the Bay Area's No Kings rallies have enlisted some of their participants as peacekeeping marshals.
Chronicle reporters are at protests across the Bay Area and in Los Angeles and we will be providing live updates from the scene, as well as rounding up news happening across the country. Follow this live updating page for the latest developments all day.
Crowds gather outside SoMa ICE building to 'shut it down'
About 200 protesters marched outside 478 Tehama Street in San Francisco at 7 a.m. after immigrants received texts Friday ordering them to check in with immigration officials this weekend.
'We believe there's very high likelihood that means that they're planning to detain people on that site,' Sanika Mahajan with Mission Action said.
Mahajan said immigrants were told to check in at the building that houses the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which is run by ICE. This building has seen fewer detentions — and protests — in the past couple weeks than has the ICE building on Sansome Street or the San Francisco Immigration Court on Montgomery Street.
Mahajan said demonstrators were trying to shut down the building, similar to immigration courts that closed early on Tuesday during protests.
'We are still going to show up and if they're going to try to abduct our community members from the city, they'll have to answer to the people,' Mahajan said.
No Kings protest locations in the Bay Area
Demonstrations are planned in many Bay Area cities, with large gatherings anticipated in Oakland and San Francisco.
San Francisco: Protesters will gather around 11:30 a.m. at Mission Dolores Park before marching to Civic Center Plaza, where there will be speakers from community organizations. Organizers have said there will be a short speech at the park before a truck of organizers will lead chants and play music while leading demonstrators to the plaza for speeches beginning around 1 p.m., Soroceanu said. Speakers will include Alex U. Inn of the People's March, Tanisha Humphrey of the ACLU of Northern California, constitutional law attorney Mauni Jalali and Sanika Mahajan of Mission Action.
Other protesters in San Francisco will gather at Ocean Beach at 10 a.m. to create a human banner spelling out 'No Kings.'
Berkeley: 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., Berkeley Bike and Pedestrian Bridge over Interstate 80, south of University Avenue
Palo Alto: The '7x7k Palo Alto to Sunnyvale Rally' will feature thousands of people lined up across seven miles to form a line between the Palo Alto and Sunnyvale Tesla showrooms. A parade is also planned at the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Dozens of other protests are planned in the East Bay, the South Bay and in Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties, a map on the No Kings website showed.
Timeline: No Kings protests happening around the country
Here's a look at some of the largest protests planned around the country, with a timeline on when they will all kick off. All times listed are in Pacific Time.
Boston: The city's Pride celebration is on Saturday; Mass 50501, part of the movement organizing protests across the country, encouraged people to join Pride with protest signs. The parade will begin at 8 a.m. and run until 9:30 a.m.
Philadelphia: National organizers said they intend for this to be the largest of the No Kings protests in a nod to the city's role in the country's founding. It's set to begin at LOVE Park at 9 a.m. Pacific Time and to end at 12 p.m.
Dallas: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., Akard Plaza
Los Angeles: At least a dozen groups have planned protests in the L.A. area, with some starting as early as 9 a.m. and some as late as 4 p.m. The protest in downtown L.A. is scheduled to go from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Phoenix: 9 a.m., Arizona state Capitol
Chicago: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Daley Plaza
Sacramento: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in downtown Sacramento, on the west steps of the state Capitol building
San Diego: 10 a.m. to noon at Waterfront Park
New York City: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Bryant Park
Seattle: 11 a.m., University of Washington's Red Square, ahead of the school's commencement ceremony; 12 p.m., Cal Anderson Park
Denver: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Lincoln Veterans Memorial Park,
There is no protest scheduled in Washington D.C. Organizers have said that they did not want it to appear the protests were directly opposing Trump's military parade.
What happens if Waymos are lit on fire?
Firefighters in San Francisco are bracing for one dramatic form of protest theater today: The torching of Waymo robotaxis.
Burning the driverless cars became a fraught symbol of the moment during protests in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday, which tipped off a week of escalating tension between President Donald Trump and California's major blue cities. Photos of the charred, smoldering, graffiti-scrawled cars instantly went viral on social media, transforming a manicured Southern California boulevard into an apparent war zone. If it happens in San Francisco, Fire Chief Dean Crispen said at a recent meeting, it might be better to let the cars burn.
'In a period of civil unrest, we will not try to extinguish those fires unless they are up against a building,' Crispen told members of the San Francisco Fire Commission on Wednesday. He explained that since the electric Waymo SUVs run on lithium ion batteries, they burn 'incredibly hot' and tend to explode when ignited.
Such blazes are challenging to put out, and become dangerous due to the rapidly rising temperatures of the cars' batteries, a phenomenon called 'thermal runaway,' Crispen said. These sudden spikes can lead to sporadic eruptions.
Quelling a Waymo fire would require connecting to a fire hydrant and essentially tethering firefighters to a single area, in a situation where they need to be mobile and agile.
Why are people protesting?
'The protest is a manifestation of our displeasure — the American people — with the Trump regime, and Trump specifically,' said Liliana Soroceanu, an organizer with Indivisible SF.
Indivisible SF and 50501 are working alongside other local activist organizations to organize San Francisco's No Kings protest.
Organizers called Trump a 'would-be king' and hope to draw a contrast between protesters voicing concerns and the military parade Saturday, which marks the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, as well as Trump's 79th birthday.
'We're not gathering to feed his ego,' the event's website said. 'We're building a movement that leaves him behind.'
Soroceanu said the protest also falls on Flag Day and offers protesters a chance to bring American flags to celebrate the country and the right to protest.
'The flag doesn't belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to us,' the event's website says.
Organizers from various organizations involved in planning San Francisco's demonstrations have received more than 4,000 RSVPs to the event, which she expects will be bigger than the Hands Off rally in April, which brought thousands to Civic Center Plaza, Soroceanu said.