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The White House seemed ready on Wednesday to send dozens of law enforcement personnel to the San Francisco Bay Area for a major crackdown on immigration, triggering outrage from California leaders.

Details of the Mission

Details of the deployment were still emerging, but it will reportedly include approximately 100+ federal agents, as reported. The personnel are scheduled to begin using the Coast Guard facility in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. It was not confirmed whether national guard troops would also be involved.

Official Backlash

The operation comes after weeks of warnings by the administration to take action against the liberal city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, calling it “taken directly from the autocrat's manual”.

“He deploys covered agents, he sends out border agents, he sends out immigration officials, he creates worry and terror in the neighborhood so that he can take credit for solving that by sending in the military forces,” the governor stated. “This is no different than the incendiary putting out the inferno.”

Local Planning

San Francisco is the newest major city targeted by Donald Trump’s campaign of large-scale detentions. The deployment is expected to trigger a confrontation between the federal government and local leaders who have pledged to block armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for months for Trump to fulfill frequent statements to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s mayor emphasized that the city was prepared.

“For months, we have been anticipating the chance of some kind of national intervention in our city,” declared the leader, noting that he had implemented additional measures on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s support for our newcomer populations, and make certain our departments are organized prior to any federal deployment.”

Constitutional Background

In spite of legal challenges to missions in a number of cities, including the Windy City, Oregon and LA, Trump has claimed “complete control” to deploy the national guard in cities, citing the Insurrection Act which enables presidents limited power to dispatch personnel on American territory.

Community Preparation

The governor, who previously served as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to take action “right away” to a deployment in the city. “The idea that the federal government can send forces into our cities with no valid reason based on facts, no oversight, no accountability, no respect for local authority – it’s a direct assault on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including advocacy organizations formed in the previous presidential term, have prepared to rapidly assemble a public demonstration in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at community centers.

Local Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic population, elected official stated to media last week she and her residents had been anticipating this situation. “The point that people stop going to work, when people of color cannot move about freely without the concern of Trump’s federal agents targeting based on race and apprehending them, the time when families keep children home, grow too frightened to go to the food market or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the scale of which we have not witnessed since the health crisis.”

National Guard Status

Roughly several hundred out of 4,000 California military personnel remain federalized under an order from Trump. Approximately several hundred of them had been sent to Oregon, where they were waiting in limbo amid a judicial dispute over their assignment.

This time, Newsom said he had called the local soldiers under his command to operate charity kitchens during the federal closure.