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The federal government seemed ready on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of government officers to the Bay Area region for a significant border security initiative, sparking condemnation from state officials.

Information of the Operation

Specifics of the mission were still emerging, but it will reportedly include approximately 100+ federal agents, according to reports. The personnel are expected to begin utilizing the US Coast Guard base in the East Bay, opposite San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether national guard troops would participate.

Government Reaction

The mission comes after months of statements by the president to focus on the progressive municipality. The state's leader Gavin Newsom condemned the decision, describing it as “taken directly from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He deploys masked men, he dispatches Border Patrol, he deploys federal agents, he generates worry and terror in the community so that he can claim credit for solving that by sending in the state troops,” Newsom said. “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the inferno.”

Municipal Readiness

San Francisco is the newest large urban area focused on by Donald Trump’s campaign of large-scale detentions. The operation is expected to trigger a confrontation between the federal government and city officials who have vowed to stop militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for months for Trump to carry out repeated threats to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, San Francisco’s mayor stated again that the city was prepared.

“For months, we have been preparing for the likelihood of an impending government operation in our city,” stated the official, noting that he had implemented additional measures on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and guarantee our offices are prepared before any national intervention.”

Constitutional Context

Despite court battles to deployments in a number of cities, including Illinois, Oregon and LA, Trump has asserted “unquestioned power” to dispatch the military forces in cities, referencing the Insurrection Act which permits presidents specific authority to deploy troops on US soil.

Community Response

Newsom – who previously served as San Francisco’s mayor – had committed to take action “without delay” to a deployment in the city. “The notion that the White House can dispatch personnel into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no supervision, no responsibility, no consideration of regional control – it represents an infringement on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits established during the initial federal leadership, have prepped to swiftly gather a large protest in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a predominantly Latino population, city supervisor informed journalists last week she and her residents had been preparing for this time. “The time that people stop going to work, when anyone Black or brown cannot move about freely without the apprehension of government officers discriminating against and apprehending them, the time when families keep children home, are too scared to go to the food market or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is basically a halt the extent of which we haven’t seen since the pandemic.”

Military Condition

Approximately three hundred out of 4,000 state state soldiers stay under federal control under an command from Trump. Roughly 200 of them had been dispatched to the neighboring state, where they were staying in standby in the midst of a court case over their deployment.

This period, Newsom said he had requested the state military personnel under his authority to manage charity kitchens amid the administrative stoppage.