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Border Patrol agents are being sent to a U.S. Coast Guard base in Alameda, Calif., ahead of an immigration operation in the San Francisco region.
Oct. 22, 2025Updated 5:01 p.m. ET
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are heading to the San Francisco Bay Area starting Wednesday for an immigration enforcement operation, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and three officials familiar with the plan.
The agents are planning to gather at the U.S. Coast Guard base in Alameda, a military installation near Oakland and across the bay from San Francisco. There has been no indication so far that National Guard troops will be involved.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that its property would serve as a base for Department of Homeland Security agencies starting on Wednesday.
“Through a whole-of-government approach, we are leveraging our unique authorities and capabilities to detect, deter and interdict illegal aliens, narco-terrorists and individuals intent on terrorism or other hostile activity before they reach our border,” the Coast Guard said.
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.”
Similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles have caused consternation among city leaders and led to protests that in turn were cited as a rationale for military intervention. At one point, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois referred to the operations as an “unconstitutional invasion of Illinois by the federal government.”
Bay Area residents have been on higher alert since Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said on Monday that troops were heading to San Francisco.
Word of an imminent operation began circulating this week among immigrant rights groups, public-school teachers and activists in San Francisco as they encouraged people to spread the word to their friends and neighbors and develop a safety plan. The San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report on Wednesday about agents being sent to Alameda.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
