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The Trump administration seemed ready on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of government officers to the San Francisco Bay Area for a large-scale crackdown on immigration, prompting outrage from California leaders.

Details of the Mission

Details of the deployment were gradually becoming clear, but it will allegedly feature over a hundred federal agents, based on information. The officers are scheduled to begin using the Coast Guard facility in Alameda, opposite San Francisco. It remained unclear whether military personnel would participate.

Official Response

The mission is the result of months of threats by the president to focus on the progressive municipality. The state's leader Gavin Newsom criticized the action, labeling it “straight from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He deploys unidentified officers, he deploys Border Patrol, he deploys federal agents, he generates concern and apprehension in the community so that he can lay claim for solving that by sending in the state troops,” he declared. “This is no different than the arsonist fighting the inferno.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the latest large urban area targeted by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The operation is likely to cause a standoff between the federal government and municipal authorities who have pledged to prevent armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for months for Trump to fulfill frequent statements to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s municipal chief stated again that the city was ready.

“During this period, we have been expecting the possibility of a potential national intervention in our city,” said the mayor, explaining that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and guarantee our offices are prepared ahead of any national intervention.”

Constitutional Context

Despite court battles to deployments in a number of cities, including Illinois, Portland and LA, Trump has declared “complete control” to send the national guard in cities, referencing the federal statute which allows presidents limited power to send forces on domestic land.

Local Response

Newsom, who was formerly as San Francisco’s city leader – had committed to step in “without delay” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the national administration can deploy troops into our cities with no legitimate cause based on facts, no monitoring, no responsibility, no respect for state sovereignty – it constitutes an attack on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits formed in the first Trump administration, have organized to quickly mobilize a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at public spaces.

Community Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a mostly Latin American neighborhood, city supervisor told reporters last week she and her residents had been anticipating this time. “The moment that employees avoid workplaces, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the concern of national personnel discriminating against and arresting them, the moment when families keep children home, grow too frightened to go to the food market or physician,” she said. “What we have been preparing for in the Mission is basically a shutdown the scale of which we have not witnessed since the pandemic.”

State Troops Status

About 300 out of 4,000 California military personnel stay under federal control under an order from Trump. Approximately two hundred of them had been dispatched to Oregon, where they were remaining in uncertainty during a court case over their assignment.

This time, Newsom said he had summoned the state military personnel under his control to staff food banks throughout the federal closure.