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The Trump administration was preparing on Wednesday to deploy dozens of law enforcement personnel to the San Francisco Bay Area for a major border security initiative, triggering condemnation from local politicians.

Details of the Deployment

Information of the mission were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve more than 100 government officers, based on information. The officers are scheduled to begin using the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It remained unclear whether state soldiers would join the operation.

Government Backlash

The mission follows weeks of statements by Donald Trump to take action against the liberal city. Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, labeling it “taken directly from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He dispatches masked men, he deploys border agents, he dispatches immigration officials, he instills concern and apprehension in the population so that he can lay claim for addressing that by deploying the national guard,” Newsom said. “This mirrors the incendiary fighting the fire.”

Municipal Readiness

San Francisco is the newest major city singled out by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is likely to cause a standoff between the administration and local leaders who have committed to stop paramilitary operations in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for months for Trump to make good on ongoing warnings to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s municipal chief stated again that the city was prepared.

“For months, we have been expecting the possibility of an impending federal deployment in our city,” said the mayor, noting that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and make certain our agencies are organized before any federal deployment.”

Constitutional Background

In spite of legal challenges to missions in a multiple urban areas, including Chicago, the Pacific Northwest and Los Angeles, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to send the military forces in cities, pointing to the federal statute which permits presidents limited power to deploy troops on domestic land.

Community Preparation

The governor, who once held office as San Francisco’s city leader – had pledged to step in “immediately” to a deployment in the city. “The concept that the national administration can dispatch personnel into our cities with no justification based on facts, no monitoring, no answerability, no consideration of regional control – it represents an infringement on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including social justice nonprofits created during the initial federal leadership, have prepped to rapidly assemble a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at community centers.

Community Effect

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic neighborhood, city supervisor stated to media last week she and her voters had been preparing for this moment. “The time that employees avoid workplaces, when people of color cannot move about freely without the fear of government officers targeting based on race and detaining them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the food market or physician,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is essentially a shutdown the extent of which we have not witnessed since Covid.”

National Guard Condition

Roughly 300 out of four thousand state state soldiers stay under federal control under an command from Trump. Roughly 200 of them had been sent to the neighboring state, where they were staying in standby in the midst of a judicial dispute over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had summoned the local soldiers under his control to staff food banks throughout the federal closure.