SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters shouted down House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, on Monday morning, denouncing her for negotiating with President Donald Trump as she tried to hold a news conference advocating for the Dream Act.
About 40 young protesters, including undocumented immigrants, surrounded her as she started an event at College Track, an education nonprofit in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, shouting at the top of their lungs for 30 minutes straight.
The protesters harangued Pelosi for using Dreamers as “bargaining chips” in negotiations with Trump, and for being “complicit” with stepped-up deportations under the eight years of the Obama administration.
“You met with Trump and you call that resistance?” they chanted. “This is what resistance looks like!”
In recent weeks, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have held several meetings with Trump, and last week announced that they were making progress toward a deal that would involve passing the Dream Act — which would protect young undocumented people brought to the U.S. illegally as children — in exchange for some border security measures.
Many of the protesters said they opposed that deal, and others said that they opposed the Dream Act because it didn’t cover enough undocumented immigrants. The bill would essentially replace provisions of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program put in place by Obama.
Pelosi, who looked on uncomfortably from the middle of the protest, tried several times to talk with the demonstrators, telling them, “I totally agree with you.” But she barely got a few words in as they continued their call-and-response chanting
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