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The Trump administration was preparing on Wednesday to send scores of law enforcement personnel to the Bay Area region for a significant border security initiative, sparking criticism from state officials.

Specifics of the Operation

Information of the deployment were continuing to unfold, but it will allegedly feature approximately 100+ federal agents, according to reports. The agents are reportedly set to begin occupying the Coast Guard facility in across the bay, opposite San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Political Backlash

The mission follows weeks of threats by the administration to take action against the liberal city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom criticized the decision, calling it “straight from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He dispatches unidentified officers, he dispatches border agents, he deploys federal agents, he instills worry and terror in the community so that he can take credit for solving that by deploying the state troops,” Newsom said. “This mirrors the firestarter fighting the inferno.”

City Planning

San Francisco is the latest large urban area focused on by the federal effort of large-scale detentions. The mission is anticipated to provoke a standoff between the federal government and city officials who have vowed to stop armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for months for Trump to make good on repeated threats to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s municipal chief emphasized that the city was prepared.

“For months, we have been preparing for the possibility of some kind of government operation in our city,” stated the official, noting that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s support for our foreign-born residents, and ensure our agencies are coordinated before any federal deployment.”

Judicial Context

In spite of legal challenges to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Illinois, Portland and Southern California, Trump has claimed “complete control” to deploy the national guard in cities, referencing the Insurrection Act which allows presidents specific authority to send forces on domestic land.

Community Preparation

Newsom, who was formerly as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to take action “right away” to a operation in the city. “The concept that the federal government can send forces into our cities with no valid reason based on facts, no oversight, no responsibility, no respect for state sovereignty – it’s a direct assault on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including social justice nonprofits established during the first Trump administration, have organized to quickly mobilize a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at community centers.

Community Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic population, local representative informed journalists last week she and her voters had been bracing for this time. “The point that workers cease employment, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the fear of Trump’s federal agents discriminating against and apprehending them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, are too scared to go to the food market or doctor,” she said. “The readiness efforts in the Mission is fundamentally a closure the likes of which we have not experienced since the health crisis.”

Military Status

About several hundred out of four thousand California state soldiers continue under national command under an command from Trump. Approximately several hundred of them had been dispatched to the Pacific Northwest, where they were waiting in limbo in the midst of a court case over their deployment.

This period, Newsom said he had summoned the local soldiers under his command to staff distribution centers throughout the federal closure.