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The Trump administration seemed ready on Wednesday to deploy dozens of government officers to the San Francisco Bay Area for a large-scale crackdown on immigration, triggering condemnation from local politicians.

Specifics of the Mission

Details of the deployment were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve over a hundred government officers, according to reports. The officers are expected to begin utilizing the military installation in Alameda, facing San Francisco. It was still uncertain whether military personnel would join the operation.

Official Response

The deployment follows months of warnings by Donald Trump to target the progressive municipality. Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action, labeling it “right out of the authoritarian playbook”.

“He dispatches unidentified officers, he sends out customs officers, he sends out federal agents, he creates concern and apprehension in the population so that he can claim credit for addressing that by sending in the national guard,” Newsom said. “This is no different than the firestarter putting out the blaze.”

City Readiness

San Francisco is the latest major city targeted by the administration's initiative of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is likely to cause a showdown between the administration and city officials who have vowed to prevent militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been preparing for weeks for Trump to carry out frequent statements to send troops to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s municipal chief reiterated that the city was prepared.

“Over recent weeks, we have been expecting the possibility of some kind of national intervention in our city,” declared the leader, noting that he had implemented additional measures on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and ensure our departments are organized ahead of any government operation.”

Constitutional Background

Regardless of court battles to operations in a number of cities, including the Windy City, Portland and LA, Trump has asserted “absolute authority” to send the national guard in cities, pointing to the federal statute which allows presidents specific authority to send forces on US soil.

Local Reaction

Newsom, who was formerly as San Francisco’s mayor – had committed to take action “right away” to a mission in the city. “The concept that the White House can dispatch personnel into our cities with no justification supported by evidence, no supervision, no answerability, no respect for local authority – it’s a direct assault on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including civil rights groups established during the initial federal leadership, have prepped to swiftly gather a large protest in the city, as well as candlelight gatherings at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a mostly Latin American neighborhood, local representative told reporters last week she and her voters had been bracing for this situation. “The moment that employees avoid workplaces, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the concern of national personnel targeting based on race and apprehending them, the time when students avoid classrooms, grow too frightened to go to the food market or doctor,” she said. “The readiness efforts in the Mission is fundamentally a shutdown the likes of which we have not witnessed since Covid.”

Military Situation

About several hundred out of several thousand regional national guard troops stay under federal control under an directive from Trump. Roughly two hundred of them had been sent to the Pacific Northwest, where they were remaining in uncertainty amid a legal battle over their assignment.

This week, Newsom said he had called the state military personnel under his control to staff distribution centers throughout the administrative stoppage.