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The White House seemed ready on Wednesday to deploy scores of government officers to the northern California for a large-scale crackdown on immigration, sparking outrage from local politicians.

Specifics of the Deployment

Details of the deployment were continuing to unfold, but it will allegedly feature more than 100 federal agents, according to reports. The agents are expected to begin using the Coast Guard facility in the East Bay, opposite San Francisco. It remained unclear whether military personnel would join the operation.

Official Reaction

The operation comes after months of threats by Donald Trump to target the progressive municipality. The state's leader Gavin Newsom condemned the action, labeling it “straight from the autocrat's manual”.

“He dispatches masked men, he dispatches Border Patrol, he dispatches ICE, he generates anxiety and fear in the population so that he can lay claim for solving that by dispatching the state troops,” he declared. “This mirrors the incendiary fighting the inferno.”

City Readiness

San Francisco is the latest metropolitan center singled out by Donald Trump’s campaign of mass immigration arrests. The deployment is anticipated to provoke a confrontation between the White House and local leaders who have committed to prevent armed border control in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for weeks for Trump to make good on ongoing warnings to deploy forces to the city. At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, San Francisco’s city leader emphasized that the city was ready.

“For months, we have been preparing for the chance of some kind of national intervention in our city,” said the mayor, noting that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “enhance the city’s assistance to our immigrant communities, and guarantee our departments are prepared prior to any federal deployment.”

Legal Framework

In spite of legal challenges to deployments in a number of cities, including Chicago, Oregon and Los Angeles, Trump has asserted “unquestioned power” to deploy the national guard in cities, referencing the presidential authority which enables presidents certain rights to send forces on US soil.

Community Preparation

Newsom – who once held office as San Francisco’s city leader – had committed to intervene “immediately” to a operation in the city. “The concept that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no justification grounded in reality, no monitoring, no responsibility, no respect for local authority – it’s a direct assault on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including social justice nonprofits created during the first Trump administration, have prepped to quickly mobilize a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at community centers.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission district, a largely Hispanic community, elected official informed journalists last week she and her voters had been preparing for this moment. “The time that workers cease employment, when anyone Black or brown are afraid to go outdoors without the apprehension of government officers racially profiling and detaining them, the time when families keep children home, are too scared to go to the supermarket or doctor,” she said. “What we have been preparing for in the Mission is basically a halt the scale of which we have not experienced since Covid.”

Military Situation

Approximately 300 out of 4,000 California state soldiers remain federalized under an command from Trump. Approximately two hundred of them had been sent to the Pacific Northwest, where they were staying in standby during a judicial dispute over their mission.

This period, Newsom said he had requested the California national guard troops under his command to staff distribution centers during the federal closure.