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The Trump administration appeared poised on Wednesday to send numerous of government officers to the northern California for a large-scale immigration enforcement operation, triggering criticism from California leaders.

Details of the Operation

Specifics of the operation were continuing to unfold, but it will allegedly feature over a hundred law enforcement personnel, according to reports. The agents are expected to begin utilizing the US Coast Guard base in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Official Reaction

The deployment is the result of an extended period of threats by the president to focus on the liberal city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the action, labeling it “straight from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He sends out masked men, he deploys border agents, he sends out federal agents, he creates concern and apprehension in the neighborhood so that he can claim credit for solving that by dispatching the national guard,” Newsom said. “This is no different than the firestarter fighting the inferno.”

Municipal Preparation

San Francisco is the newest large urban area focused on by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The mission is expected to trigger a showdown between the federal government and municipal authorities who have vowed to prevent militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for months for Trump to carry out repeated threats to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was ready.

“For months, we have been anticipating the possibility of an impending government operation in our city,” stated the official, adding that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s assistance to our immigrant communities, and guarantee our departments are prepared ahead of any federal deployment.”

Legal Framework

In spite of court battles to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Illinois, Oregon and Los Angeles, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to send the state troops in cities, referencing the Insurrection Act which enables presidents specific authority to send forces on US soil.

Local Response

Newsom, who once held office as San Francisco’s city leader – had pledged to take action “right away” to a deployment in the city. “The notion that the White House can deploy troops into our cities with no legitimate cause based on facts, no monitoring, no accountability, no respect for local authority – it constitutes an attack on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits created during the initial federal leadership, have prepared to rapidly assemble a large protest in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at public spaces.

Neighborhood Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a mostly Latin American community, elected official informed journalists last week she and her constituents had been bracing for this time. “The time that workers cease employment, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the fear of national personnel targeting based on race and apprehending them, the time when students avoid classrooms, become too afraid to go to the supermarket or medical provider,” she said. “What we have been preparing for in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the scale of which we haven’t seen since the pandemic.”

State Troops Status

Roughly 300 out of four thousand state state soldiers stay under federal control under an command from Trump. About 200 of them had been sent to the neighboring state, where they were staying in standby during a judicial dispute over their assignment.

This time, Newsom said he had summoned the local soldiers under his control to manage food banks amid the government shutdown.