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The White House appeared poised on Wednesday to send dozens of law enforcement personnel to the Bay Area region for a significant crackdown on immigration, sparking outrage from state officials.

Details of the Mission

Details of the operation were continuing to unfold, but it will allegedly feature approximately 100+ law enforcement personnel, according to reports. The personnel are scheduled to begin utilizing the Coast Guard facility in across the bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It remained unclear whether state soldiers would join the operation.

Official Reaction

The deployment comes after an extended period of warnings by the president to target the Democratic-run city. California’s governor Gavin Newsom condemned the move, calling it “taken directly from the autocrat's manual”.

“He sends out masked men, he sends out customs officers, he deploys federal agents, he instills concern and apprehension in the neighborhood so that he can lay claim for addressing that by sending in the state troops,” Newsom said. “This mirrors the incendiary fighting the fire.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the latest major city focused on by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is likely to cause a showdown between the federal government and city officials who have committed to prevent militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for an extended period for Trump to make good on frequent statements to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s municipal chief reiterated that the city was equipped.

“During this period, we have been expecting the possibility of an impending federal deployment in our city,” declared the leader, noting that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s assistance to our immigrant communities, and make certain our offices are prepared before any federal deployment.”

Judicial Framework

In spite of legal challenges to deployments in a multiple urban areas, including Illinois, Portland and LA, Trump has claimed “absolute authority” to deploy the national guard in cities, pointing to the federal statute which permits presidents limited power to deploy troops on US soil.

Community Reaction

Newsom – who was formerly as San Francisco’s city leader – had vowed to take action “without delay” to a operation in the city. “The notion that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no justification supported by evidence, no oversight, no responsibility, no respect for state sovereignty – it constitutes an attack on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Public associations, including civil rights groups created during the previous presidential term, have organized to swiftly gather a public demonstration in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.

Community Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic neighborhood, city supervisor told reporters last week she and her residents had been anticipating this moment. “The moment that people stop going to work, when minority individuals cannot move about freely without the concern of Trump’s federal agents racially profiling and detaining them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, grow too frightened to go to the supermarket or physician,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is essentially a closure the likes of which we haven’t seen since the pandemic.”

State Troops Situation

Approximately three hundred out of 4,000 state national guard troops continue under national command under an command from Trump. About two hundred of them had been transferred to the Pacific Northwest, where they were waiting in limbo during a legal battle over their deployment.

This time, Newsom said he had summoned the state military personnel under his authority to staff charity kitchens amid the government shutdown.