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The federal government appeared poised on Wednesday to send scores of law enforcement personnel to the Bay Area region for a major immigration enforcement operation, prompting criticism from California leaders.

Information of the Deployment

Specifics of the mission were continuing to unfold, but it will reportedly include more than 100 government officers, based on information. The officers are expected to begin utilizing the Coast Guard facility in across the bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It was not confirmed whether state soldiers would participate.

Government Reaction

The operation follows months of warnings by Donald Trump to target the liberal city. Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the move, labeling it “right out of the autocrat's manual”.

“He sends out masked men, he sends out border agents, he sends out immigration officials, he creates worry and terror in the community so that he can lay claim for solving that by dispatching the state troops,” Newsom said. “This is no different than the incendiary extinguishing the fire.”

Local Planning

San Francisco is the most recent major city targeted by the federal effort of large-scale detentions. The deployment is anticipated to provoke a confrontation between the White House and municipal authorities who have pledged to stop paramilitary operations in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for an extended period for Trump to make good on ongoing warnings to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s mayor reiterated that the city was ready.

“During this period, we have been expecting the possibility of a potential federal deployment in our city,” stated the official, explaining that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s assistance to our foreign-born residents, and ensure our agencies are prepared ahead of any government operation.”

Legal Framework

Despite court battles to deployments in a number of cities, including the Windy City, Oregon and Southern California, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to deploy the state troops in cities, pointing to the federal statute which permits presidents specific authority to dispatch personnel on American territory.

Public Preparation

Newsom – who once held office as San Francisco’s chief executive – had pledged to intervene “immediately” to a deployment in the city. “The notion that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no valid reason supported by evidence, no supervision, no answerability, disregard for regional control – it constitutes an attack on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including advocacy organizations formed in the first Trump administration, have prepped to quickly mobilize a public demonstration in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a largely Hispanic population, local representative told reporters last week she and her constituents had been preparing for this situation. “The time that employees avoid workplaces, when anyone Black or brown are afraid to go outdoors without the apprehension of national personnel racially profiling and apprehending them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, grow too frightened to go to the food market or doctor,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the scale of which we haven’t seen since the health crisis.”

National Guard Situation

Roughly 300 out of several thousand California state soldiers continue under national command under an order from Trump. About two hundred of them had been dispatched to the Pacific Northwest, where they were staying in standby during a legal battle over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had summoned the local soldiers under his authority to operate food banks during the government shutdown.