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The Trump administration was preparing on Wednesday to dispatch dozens of federal agents to the Bay Area region for a large-scale crackdown on immigration, triggering outrage from California leaders.

Specifics of the Deployment

Specifics of the operation were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve over a hundred government officers, based on information. The agents are scheduled to begin using the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It was not confirmed whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Official Reaction

The deployment comes after months of warnings by Donald Trump to focus on the liberal city. The state's leader Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, calling it “taken directly from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He dispatches unidentified officers, he deploys border agents, he deploys federal agents, he generates anxiety and fear in the neighborhood so that he can take credit for addressing that by dispatching the state troops,” the governor stated. “This is no different than the arsonist fighting the fire.”

Local Planning

San Francisco is the most recent major city focused on by Donald Trump’s campaign of mass immigration arrests. The mission is anticipated to provoke a confrontation between the administration and local leaders who have pledged to block militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for an extended period for Trump to carry out repeated threats to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was ready.

“Over recent weeks, we have been anticipating the possibility of some kind of national intervention in our city,” stated the official, noting that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “bolster the city’s support for our newcomer populations, and ensure our agencies are coordinated prior to any government operation.”

Judicial Framework

Regardless of court battles to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Chicago, Oregon and Los Angeles, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to send the national guard in cities, referencing the federal statute which allows presidents limited power to deploy troops on American territory.

Public Response

Newsom, who once held office as San Francisco’s city leader – had pledged to intervene “right away” to a operation in the city. “The notion that the White House can dispatch personnel into our cities with no legitimate cause grounded in reality, no oversight, no accountability, no consideration of local authority – it’s a direct assault on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including civil rights groups formed in the initial federal leadership, have organized to rapidly assemble a large protest in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at public spaces.

Neighborhood Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a predominantly Latino neighborhood, city supervisor told reporters last week she and her constituents had been anticipating this situation. “The point that people stop going to work, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the apprehension of national personnel racially profiling and apprehending them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the grocery store or doctor,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the likes of which we have not experienced since Covid.”

State Troops Situation

About three hundred out of four thousand regional military personnel continue under national command under an order from Trump. Roughly several hundred of them had been sent to Oregon, where they were waiting in limbo in the midst of a court case over their deployment.

This week, Newsom said he had summoned the California national guard troops under his authority to manage distribution centers amid the government shutdown.