Trump floats sending federal agents to San Francisco to tackle crime

President Donald Trump was once again floating the idea of sending federal agents to San Francisco to tackle crime.

It happened during a cabinet meeting on Thursday. The president praised Mayor Daniel Lurie’s efforts to lower crime but said he can do it more effectively.

“San Francisco, I know, they have a mayor who’s trying very hard. He’s a Democrat, but he’s trying very hard, but we can do it much more effectively, because he can’t do what we do. He can’t take people out from the city and bring them to back to the country, from where they came, where they were in prisons,” Trump said.

“He’s trying. He’s doing okay, but we could do much better. We could make it a lot safer than it is. San Francisco, a great city, was a great city, could quickly become a great city again. But, you know, they’re going very slowly,” he continued.

The president implied that the mayor needs federal help to battle crime, saying immigrants are responsible for the lawlessness. However, according to a 2025 study by researches at UCLA and Northwestern, arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants was not associated with reduced crime rates.

Gabriel Medina, executive director of La Raza Community Resource Center In San Francisco agrees.

“I think we need to make sure that our city does not also try to play this game of making up ideas about always associating crime with immigrants, when immigrants commit less crime, so that’s really bad,” Medina said.

In response to the president comments, the mayor released a statement that reads: “In San Francisco, crime is down 30%, encampments are at record lows, and our city is on the rise. Public safety is my number one priority, and we are going to stay laser focused on keeping our streets safe and clean.”

This isn’t the first time President Trump has mused with the idea of sending federal agents to the Bay Area; last October, agents were staged at a military base in Alameda, but Trump called off the plan after talking with Lurie and Bay Area tech leaders.

“We cannot normalize what this president is saying from San Francisco, that crime is associated with immigration. We need to stop conflating that,” Medina said.