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The White House was preparing on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of law enforcement personnel to the San Francisco Bay Area for a large-scale border security initiative, triggering condemnation from California leaders.

Information of the Operation

Details of the mission were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly involve more than 100 law enforcement personnel, as reported. The officers are expected to begin using the Coast Guard facility in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether military personnel would join the operation.

Official Backlash

The operation follows weeks of warnings by the president to target the Democratic-run city. Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action, labeling it “taken directly from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He deploys unidentified officers, he sends out border agents, he sends out ICE, he generates concern and apprehension in the community so that he can take credit for addressing that by deploying the state troops,” the governor stated. “This is no different than the firestarter fighting the blaze.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the most recent metropolitan center focused on by Donald Trump’s campaign of widespread apprehensions. The deployment is expected to trigger a showdown between the federal government and local leaders who have vowed to block armed border control in the city.

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

“During this period, we have been anticipating the possibility of some kind of government operation in our city,” said the mayor, explaining that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s support for our foreign-born residents, and ensure our offices are coordinated before any national intervention.”

Legal Background

Despite judicial disputes to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Illinois, Portland and Los Angeles, Trump has asserted “absolute authority” to deploy the state troops in cities, referencing the Insurrection Act which allows presidents certain rights to deploy troops on American territory.

Community Response

The governor, who once held office as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to step in “right away” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the national administration can deploy troops into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no monitoring, no accountability, disregard for state sovereignty – it constitutes an attack on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Public associations, including social justice nonprofits established during the first Trump administration, have prepared to rapidly assemble a mass rally in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at community centers.

Community Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a largely Hispanic neighborhood, elected official informed journalists last week she and her voters had been anticipating this moment. “The point that employees avoid workplaces, when people of color cannot move about freely without the fear of national personnel racially profiling and apprehending them, the point when students avoid classrooms, grow too frightened to go to the supermarket or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a closure the scale of which we have not witnessed since the health crisis.”

National Guard Situation

About several hundred out of several thousand state military personnel stay under federal control under an directive from Trump. Roughly two hundred of them had been transferred to Oregon, where they were remaining in uncertainty amid a legal battle over their mission.

This period, Newsom said he had summoned the state military personnel under his control to manage distribution centers during the government shutdown.