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The Trump administration seemed ready on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of federal agents to the Bay Area region for a significant immigration enforcement operation, triggering criticism from local politicians.

Information of the Operation

Specifics of the deployment were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly include over a hundred federal agents, according to reports. The personnel are expected to begin occupying the Coast Guard facility in across the bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether military personnel would join the operation.

Political Reaction

The deployment comes after an extended period of statements by the administration to focus on the progressive municipality. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the action, describing it as “taken directly from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He sends out unidentified officers, he deploys customs officers, he deploys immigration officials, he generates anxiety and fear in the population so that he can claim credit for solving that by dispatching the military forces,” he declared. “This mirrors the incendiary putting out the inferno.”

Municipal Readiness

San Francisco is the most recent large urban area focused on by the administration's initiative of large-scale detentions. The mission is expected to trigger a confrontation between the federal government and local leaders who have pledged to block militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for an extended period for Trump to carry out repeated threats to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s city leader emphasized that the city was ready.

“Over recent weeks, we have been expecting the likelihood of an impending government operation in our city,” declared the leader, explaining that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s support for our newcomer populations, and guarantee our offices are coordinated before any government operation.”

Legal Background

In spite of judicial disputes to operations in a multiple urban areas, including the Windy City, the Pacific Northwest and Los Angeles, Trump has claimed “complete control” to deploy the state troops in cities, pointing to the federal statute which allows presidents specific authority to deploy troops on American territory.

Local Preparation

Newsom, who was formerly as San Francisco’s city leader – had pledged to intervene “immediately” to a mission in the city. “The notion that the White House can send forces into our cities with no legitimate cause based on facts, no oversight, no responsibility, no consideration of local authority – it represents an infringement on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including social justice nonprofits created during the previous presidential term, have organized to quickly mobilize a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a mostly Latin American population, elected official stated to media last week she and her voters had been anticipating this situation. “The moment that workers cease employment, when minority individuals cannot move about freely without the concern of Trump’s federal agents discriminating against and arresting them, the moment when students avoid classrooms, grow too frightened to go to the supermarket or doctor,” she said. “The readiness efforts in the Mission is essentially a closure the scale of which we have not experienced since Covid.”

State Troops Status

Approximately 300 out of four thousand California national guard troops remain federalized under an order from Trump. About 200 of them had been dispatched to the neighboring state, where they were waiting in limbo during a court case over their assignment.

This period, Newsom said he had requested the local soldiers under his command to staff food banks during the federal closure.