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The White House seemed ready on Wednesday to send scores of federal agents to the northern California for a major border security initiative, sparking criticism from California leaders.

Details of the Mission

Details of the mission were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly involve over a hundred federal agents, as reported. The personnel are reportedly set to begin occupying the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, facing San Francisco. It was not confirmed whether state soldiers would join the operation.

Political Backlash

The operation is the result of weeks of statements by the president to focus on the progressive municipality. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the move, describing it as “straight from the autocrat's manual”.

“He sends out covered agents, he deploys border agents, he sends out federal agents, he instills worry and terror in the neighborhood so that he can take credit for handling that by dispatching the state troops,” Newsom said. “This mirrors the arsonist extinguishing the inferno.”

Local Readiness

San Francisco is the latest metropolitan center focused on by the federal effort of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is expected to trigger a confrontation between the White House and local leaders who have vowed to block armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for an extended period for Trump to fulfill repeated threats to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s city leader reiterated that the city was ready.

“Over recent weeks, we have been expecting the chance of a potential government operation in our city,” declared the leader, noting that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s protection of our immigrant communities, and make certain our offices are prepared ahead of any national intervention.”

Constitutional Background

Regardless of court battles to deployments in a number of cities, including the Windy City, Oregon and LA, Trump has declared “unquestioned power” to dispatch the state troops in cities, pointing to the presidential authority which allows presidents limited power to deploy troops on American territory.

Local Response

The governor, who once held office as San Francisco’s mayor – had pledged to step in “immediately” to a operation in the city. “The idea that the national administration can dispatch personnel into our cities with no legitimate cause grounded in reality, no monitoring, no accountability, no consideration of local authority – it’s a direct assault on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including advocacy organizations formed in the first Trump administration, have prepped to rapidly assemble a public demonstration in the city, as well as vigils at public spaces.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, a largely Hispanic population, elected official stated to media last week she and her constituents had been anticipating this situation. “The time that people stop going to work, when people of color are afraid to go outdoors without the apprehension of Trump’s federal agents targeting based on race and arresting them, the moment when students avoid classrooms, are too scared to go to the food market or physician,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is essentially a halt the scale of which we have not witnessed since Covid.”

State Troops Situation

Approximately 300 out of four thousand regional national guard troops continue under national command under an order from Trump. Roughly two hundred of them had been transferred to the neighboring state, where they were remaining in uncertainty during a legal battle over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had called the California national guard troops under his control to staff charity kitchens during the government shutdown.