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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 major crackdown on immigration, prompting condemnation from California leaders.

Details of the Mission

Specifics of the deployment were still emerging, but it will allegedly feature approximately 100+ federal agents, based on information. The agents are reportedly set to begin utilizing the US Coast Guard base in the East Bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It was not confirmed whether state soldiers would also be involved.

Official Reaction

The deployment comes after months of threats by the administration to target the Democratic-run city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom criticized the action, calling it “straight from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He dispatches covered agents, he dispatches customs officers, he dispatches ICE, he generates worry and terror in the neighborhood so that he can claim credit for handling that by dispatching the military forces,” he declared. “This is no different than the firestarter fighting the inferno.”

City Readiness

San Francisco is the newest large urban area targeted by the administration's initiative of large-scale detentions. The mission is expected to trigger a standoff between the federal government and local leaders who have vowed to stop militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for weeks for Trump to make good on ongoing warnings to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s municipal chief reiterated that the city was equipped.

“During this period, we have been preparing for the likelihood of some kind of federal deployment in our city,” declared the leader, adding that he had implemented additional measures on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and guarantee our agencies are coordinated prior to any federal deployment.”

Constitutional Framework

Despite legal challenges to missions in a multiple urban areas, including the Windy City, Oregon and Southern California, Trump has claimed “absolute authority” to send the military forces in cities, citing the presidential authority which permits presidents limited power to deploy troops on US soil.

Community Reaction

Newsom – who previously served as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to take action “without delay” to a deployment in the city. “The notion that the White House can deploy troops into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no monitoring, no responsibility, no respect for regional control – it’s a direct assault on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Public associations, including social justice nonprofits created during the initial federal leadership, have organized to quickly mobilize a mass rally in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at local libraries.

Neighborhood Effect

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a mostly Latin American community, city supervisor stated to media last week she and her constituents had been preparing for this situation. “The time that employees avoid workplaces, when people of color cannot move about freely without the apprehension of government officers discriminating against and detaining them, the time when students avoid classrooms, grow too frightened to go to the supermarket or medical provider,” she said. “The readiness efforts in the Mission is essentially a closure the scale of which we haven’t seen since Covid.”

Military Situation

Roughly three hundred out of 4,000 regional national guard troops remain federalized under an directive from Trump. About two hundred of them had been sent to the Pacific Northwest, where they were staying in standby in the midst of a judicial dispute over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had called the California national guard troops under his command to operate food banks amid the administrative stoppage.