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The Trump administration seemed ready on Wednesday to dispatch scores of government officers to the San Francisco Bay Area for a major crackdown on immigration, triggering outrage from local politicians.

Specifics of the Operation

Details of the operation were continuing to unfold, but it will reportedly include approximately 100+ government officers, according to reports. The officers are reportedly set to begin using the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether state soldiers would join the operation.

Government Reaction

The operation follows an extended period of threats by Donald Trump to target the Democratic-run city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, describing it as “taken directly from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He dispatches unidentified officers, he deploys Border Patrol, he dispatches ICE, he creates concern and apprehension in the population so that he can claim credit for handling that by deploying the military forces,” he declared. “This is no different than the incendiary fighting the blaze.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the most recent major city targeted by the administration's initiative of widespread apprehensions. The mission is anticipated to provoke a showdown between the administration and city officials who have vowed to stop armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying 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 reiterated that the city was equipped.

“For months, we have been anticipating the chance of an impending federal deployment in our city,” said the mayor, adding that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s support for our newcomer populations, and ensure our agencies are organized ahead of any national intervention.”

Judicial Background

In spite of court battles to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles, Trump has declared “absolute authority” to dispatch the military forces in cities, pointing to the federal statute which allows presidents limited power to dispatch personnel on domestic land.

Public Reaction

The governor, who was formerly as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to take action “immediately” to a operation in the city. “The concept that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no justification grounded in reality, no supervision, no responsibility, no consideration of regional control – it constitutes an attack on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including advocacy organizations created during the previous presidential term, have prepared to rapidly assemble a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at public spaces.

Local Effect

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a mostly Latin American neighborhood, local representative told reporters last week she and her constituents had been anticipating this situation. “The time that people stop going to work, when people of color can’t freely walk outside without the concern of Trump’s federal agents targeting based on race and detaining them, the time when families keep children home, grow too frightened to go to the supermarket or physician,” she said. “The readiness efforts in the Mission is essentially a closure the scale of which we have not witnessed since Covid.”

National Guard Situation

Approximately several hundred out of several thousand California national guard troops stay under federal control under an order from Trump. Approximately 200 of them had been transferred to the neighboring state, where they were waiting in limbo in the midst of a court case over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had called the local soldiers under his command to manage food banks amid the federal closure.