Federal immigration agents may soon be booking conference rooms right next to your startup's stand-up meeting. The Department of Homeland Security is shopping for coworking space in San Francisco and eight other California cities to house its rapidly expanding ICE workforce — and the reaction locally has been roughly what you'd expect.

DHS posted a solicitation on SAM.gov seeking vendors who can provide coworking offices for more than 300 workers across 90 cities nationwide, with California and Florida topping the list. San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Long Beach, and five other Golden State locations are all on the wish list. Each site needs a mix of workstations and private offices on a 12-month term.

The why isn't complicated. ICE has roughly doubled its workforce since President Trump took office, ballooning from about 10,000 to 22,000 employees. A DHS spokesman put it bluntly: "Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country. That's a 120% increase in our workforce." More people, more desks. That's just math.

But math and San Francisco have a complicated relationship. As one local put it: "Yeah so listen, I'm not working at the next desk from ICE guys. You can keep the deposit." Others raised practical questions — most coworking spaces and their landlords have strict policies prohibiting weapons on-premises, which could make housing armed federal agents a logistical headache, to say the least.

Here's the thing: federal law enforcement agencies have every right to lease office space. That's not authoritarian — it's administrative. And if your position is that the federal government shouldn't enforce immigration law at all, that's a policy argument, not a real estate one.

The more interesting question is fiscal. Coworking space is expensive, especially in San Francisco. WeWork-style setups can run $500-$800 per desk per month in the city. Multiply that across thousands of agents in 90 cities, and you're looking at serious taxpayer money flowing to private office vendors. Is that the most cost-effective way to house a federal workforce? Or is DHS just speed-running expansion without bothering to negotiate proper lease terms?

We're all for enforcing the law. We're also for not lighting money on fire. DHS should be transparent about what this coworking shopping spree is going to cost — and whether a hot desk at a trendy flex space is really the best use of the public purse.