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The Trump administration was preparing on Wednesday to deploy dozens of federal agents to the San Francisco Bay Area for a significant border security initiative, prompting criticism from state officials.

Specifics of the Deployment

Details of the deployment were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly include approximately 100+ government officers, according to reports. The personnel are scheduled to begin utilizing the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, opposite San Francisco. It remained unclear whether state soldiers would participate.

Political Reaction

The mission is the result of weeks of threats by the president to focus on the Democratic-run city. The state's leader Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, describing it as “straight from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He sends out covered agents, he deploys border agents, he deploys federal agents, he generates worry and terror in the population so that he can take credit for solving that by sending in the military forces,” the governor stated. “This is exactly like the incendiary putting out the blaze.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the latest major city singled out by the administration's initiative of widespread apprehensions. The mission is anticipated to provoke a standoff between the administration and municipal authorities who have vowed to block militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for an extended period for Trump to carry out ongoing warnings to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was equipped.

“Over recent weeks, we have been preparing for the chance of a potential government operation in our city,” declared the leader, adding that he had implemented additional measures on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s support for our foreign-born residents, and ensure our agencies are prepared before any federal deployment.”

Legal Framework

Despite legal challenges to missions in a number of cities, including the Windy City, Portland and Southern California, Trump has claimed “unquestioned power” to dispatch the state troops in cities, pointing to the Insurrection Act which permits presidents certain rights to deploy troops on American territory.

Public Reaction

Newsom – who once held office as San Francisco’s chief executive – had committed to intervene “immediately” to a deployment in the city. “The idea that the federal government can deploy troops into our cities with no justification supported by evidence, no oversight, no responsibility, no respect for regional control – it represents an infringement on the legal system,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits established during the previous presidential term, have prepared to rapidly assemble a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a largely Hispanic population, local representative informed journalists last week she and her constituents had been bracing for this situation. “The moment that people stop going to work, when minority individuals are afraid to go outdoors without the fear of government officers discriminating against and detaining them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the food market or doctor,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is basically a shutdown the likes of which we have not witnessed since the pandemic.”

State Troops Status

Approximately three hundred out of several thousand state national guard troops stay under federal control under an command from Trump. Roughly several hundred of them had been sent to the Pacific Northwest, where they were waiting in limbo in the midst of a court case over their deployment.

This period, Newsom said he had called the California national guard troops under his authority to staff food banks during the administrative stoppage.