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The White House seemed ready on Wednesday to send dozens of government officers to the San Francisco Bay Area for a significant immigration enforcement operation, prompting condemnation from state officials.

Specifics of the Deployment

Information of the mission were still emerging, but it will allegedly feature over a hundred government officers, as reported. The agents are expected to begin utilizing the US Coast Guard base in the East Bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Government Backlash

The mission follows weeks of threats by Donald Trump to take action against the liberal city. Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action, labeling it “right out of the authoritarian playbook”.

“He dispatches covered agents, he dispatches Border Patrol, he deploys immigration officials, he creates worry and terror in the community so that he can claim credit for solving that by sending in the national guard,” he declared. “This mirrors the arsonist fighting the inferno.”

Municipal Planning

San Francisco is the most recent metropolitan center targeted by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is expected to trigger a confrontation between the White House and municipal authorities who have vowed to block militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for an extended period for Trump to carry out ongoing warnings to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s mayor stated again that the city was ready.

“During this period, we have been expecting the likelihood of a potential national intervention in our city,” said the mayor, explaining that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s support for our newcomer populations, and guarantee our offices are organized ahead of any national intervention.”

Legal Framework

In spite of court battles to missions in a several municipalities, including Chicago, Portland and Southern California, Trump has claimed “unquestioned power” to deploy the state troops in cities, citing the federal statute which permits presidents limited power to send forces on American territory.

Local Reaction

Newsom – who previously served as San Francisco’s city leader – had vowed to take action “immediately” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the federal government can deploy troops into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no oversight, no accountability, no consideration of regional control – it represents an infringement on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits formed in the initial federal leadership, have prepared to rapidly assemble a large protest in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at community centers.

Local Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a mostly Latin American population, city supervisor told reporters last week she and her constituents had been anticipating this situation. “The moment that people stop going to work, when anyone Black or brown cannot move about freely without the apprehension of national personnel targeting based on race and apprehending them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, are too scared 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 Situation

Approximately three hundred out of 4,000 California national guard troops stay under federal control under an command from Trump. About two hundred of them had been dispatched to the Pacific Northwest, where they were remaining in uncertainty in the midst of a judicial dispute over their deployment.

This time, Newsom said he had called the state military personnel under his command to staff food banks amid the administrative stoppage.