🔗 Share this article

The White House was preparing on Wednesday to send numerous of law enforcement personnel to the Bay Area region for a large-scale immigration enforcement operation, triggering condemnation from California leaders.

Details of the Operation

Information of the operation were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve approximately 100+ government officers, based on information. The agents are expected to begin using the military installation in across the bay, across the bay from San Francisco. It remained unclear whether state soldiers would participate.

Political Backlash

The mission follows weeks of warnings by the administration to take action against the liberal city. Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the move, describing it as “straight from the authoritarian playbook”.

“He sends out masked men, he deploys border agents, he sends out federal agents, he generates concern and apprehension in the population so that he can claim credit for addressing that by deploying the state troops,” the governor stated. “This mirrors the firestarter extinguishing the fire.”

Municipal Readiness

San Francisco is the latest major city singled out by Donald Trump’s campaign of widespread apprehensions. The deployment is likely to cause a showdown between the federal government and local leaders who have vowed to block armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for weeks for Trump to fulfill frequent statements to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s municipal chief stated again that the city was equipped.

“For months, we have been expecting the chance of an impending federal deployment in our city,” said the mayor, adding that he had enacted new policies on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s assistance to our immigrant communities, and ensure our offices are organized ahead of any government operation.”

Legal Background

Despite judicial disputes to operations in a multiple urban areas, including the Windy City, the Pacific Northwest and Los Angeles, Trump has asserted “absolute authority” to deploy the national guard in cities, citing the federal statute which enables presidents limited power to send forces on US soil.

Local Response

Newsom, who previously served as San Francisco’s city leader – had vowed to intervene “without delay” to a operation in the city. “The notion that the White House can dispatch personnel into our cities with no legitimate cause grounded in reality, no supervision, no answerability, no respect for state sovereignty – it represents an infringement on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Community groups, including social justice nonprofits formed in the previous presidential term, have organized to swiftly gather a mass rally in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at community centers.

Community Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic community, local representative told reporters last week she and her voters had been bracing for this time. “The point that people stop going to work, when people of color can’t freely walk outside without the apprehension of Trump’s federal agents targeting based on race and apprehending them, the time when students avoid classrooms, are too scared 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 the health crisis.”

State Troops Status

Approximately 300 out of 4,000 California military personnel stay under federal control under an command from Trump. About several hundred of them had been sent to Oregon, where they were staying in standby in the midst of a legal battle over their assignment.

This time, Newsom said he had called the state military personnel under his authority to staff charity kitchens throughout the federal closure.