By TERRY CHEA and CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press

ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — Protesters gathered Thursday outside a U.S. Coast Guard base in the San Francisco Bay Area, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began arriving to support federal efforts to track down immigrants in the country illegally.

A few hundred people, many singing hymns and carrying signs saying “No ICE or troops in the Bay,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gathered shortly after dawn outside Coast Guard Island in Alameda. Police used at least one flash-bang grenade to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance as CBP vehicles drove through.

Organizers urged protesters to remain peaceful, as a line of Coast Guard officers in helmets watched from just outside the entrance.

The

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