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The White House appeared poised on Wednesday to send dozens of federal agents to the San Francisco Bay Area for a significant immigration enforcement operation, triggering condemnation from California leaders.

Specifics of the Deployment

Specifics of the operation were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly involve over a hundred government officers, as reported. The personnel are scheduled to begin utilizing the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Official Backlash

The mission follows an extended period of statements by the president to target the progressive municipality. The state's leader Gavin Newsom condemned the decision, calling it “right out of the dictator’s handbook”.

“He sends out covered agents, he sends out customs officers, he deploys immigration officials, he instills anxiety and fear in the neighborhood so that he can claim credit for addressing that by sending in the national guard,” the governor stated. “This mirrors the firestarter putting out the blaze.”

Local Planning

San Francisco is the most recent large urban area targeted by the administration's initiative of mass immigration arrests. The mission is expected to trigger a showdown between the administration and local leaders who have pledged to block militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for months for Trump to fulfill ongoing warnings to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was equipped.

“For months, we have been anticipating the chance of a potential national intervention in our city,” stated the official, explaining that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s support for our foreign-born residents, and guarantee our offices are prepared before any federal deployment.”

Legal Framework

In spite of court battles to operations in a number of cities, including the Windy City, the Pacific Northwest and LA, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to send the military forces in cities, citing the presidential authority which enables presidents limited power to deploy troops on domestic land.

Community Response

The governor, who previously served as San Francisco’s city leader – had committed to step in “right away” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no monitoring, no answerability, disregard for local authority – it represents an infringement on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Public associations, including advocacy organizations established during the first Trump administration, have prepared to swiftly gather a mass rally in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at local libraries.

Community Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a largely Hispanic neighborhood, elected official stated to media last week she and her constituents had been anticipating this situation. “The time that employees avoid workplaces, when people of color are afraid to go outdoors without the fear of government officers targeting based on race and detaining them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, grow too frightened to go to the food market or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is essentially a halt the scale of which we have not witnessed since the health crisis.”

State Troops Condition

Roughly 300 out of several thousand California state soldiers stay under federal control under an directive from Trump. Roughly two hundred of them had been sent to the neighboring state, where they were staying in standby amid a court case over their assignment.

This period, Newsom said he had summoned the California national guard troops under his command to staff distribution centers amid the administrative stoppage.