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The federal government seemed ready on Wednesday to deploy dozens of government officers to the Bay Area region for a major crackdown on immigration, triggering condemnation from California leaders.

Details of the Mission

Specifics of the mission were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve approximately 100+ law enforcement personnel, based on information. The officers are scheduled to begin occupying the military installation in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether state soldiers would also be involved.

Government Reaction

The operation comes after an extended period of warnings by the president to focus on the liberal city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action, calling it “taken directly from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He deploys covered agents, he dispatches Border Patrol, he dispatches ICE, he generates worry and terror in the population so that he can lay claim for addressing that by sending in the state troops,” Newsom said. “This is no different than the incendiary extinguishing the fire.”

Local Planning

San Francisco is the newest metropolitan center focused on by the administration's initiative of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is likely to cause a confrontation between the administration and local leaders who have vowed to prevent armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for weeks for Trump to carry out repeated threats to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s city leader emphasized that the city was equipped.

“For months, we have been anticipating the likelihood of a potential federal deployment 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 guarantee our departments are organized ahead of any national intervention.”

Constitutional Background

In spite of judicial disputes to missions in a several municipalities, including Illinois, Portland and Los Angeles, Trump has asserted “unquestioned power” to send the military forces in cities, pointing to the presidential authority which allows presidents specific authority to dispatch personnel on American territory.

Community Preparation

The governor, who once held office as San Francisco’s mayor – had pledged to take action “immediately” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the White House can dispatch personnel into our cities with no justification grounded in reality, no oversight, no responsibility, no consideration of local authority – it’s a direct assault on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including social justice nonprofits established during the initial federal leadership, have prepped to swiftly gather a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at local libraries.

Local Effect

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a mostly Latin American community, local representative informed journalists last week she and her residents had been anticipating this situation. “The point that employees avoid workplaces, when people of color cannot move about freely without the concern of Trump’s federal agents racially profiling and arresting them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the supermarket or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the likes of which we haven’t seen since the health crisis.”

State Troops Status

About several hundred out of 4,000 state state soldiers stay under federal control under an directive from Trump. About 200 of them had been sent to the Pacific Northwest, where they were remaining in uncertainty amid a legal battle over their deployment.

This time, Newsom said he had called the state military personnel under his control to staff food banks amid the government shutdown.