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The White House seemed ready on Wednesday to deploy scores of law enforcement personnel to the northern California for a major immigration enforcement operation, sparking criticism from California leaders.

Specifics of the Deployment

Specifics of the deployment were continuing to unfold, but it will reportedly include over a hundred federal agents, as reported. The personnel are scheduled to begin using the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, facing San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Government Reaction

The mission is the result of weeks of threats by the president to target the progressive municipality. California’s governor Gavin Newsom denounced the decision, describing it as “straight from the dictator’s handbook”.

“He deploys covered agents, he sends out Border Patrol, he deploys immigration officials, he instills worry and terror in the community so that he can take credit for solving that by deploying the national guard,” he declared. “This is exactly like the firestarter putting out the fire.”

Local Preparation

San Francisco is the newest metropolitan center focused on by the federal effort of large-scale detentions. The deployment is likely to cause a showdown between the federal government and municipal authorities who have pledged to prevent militarized immigration enforcement in the city.

San Franciscans have been readying for months for Trump to make good on ongoing warnings to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday public announcement, San Francisco’s city leader stated again that the city was equipped.

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

Constitutional Background

Despite legal challenges to deployments in a number of cities, including Chicago, the Pacific Northwest and LA, Trump has asserted “unquestioned power” to dispatch the military forces in cities, referencing the Insurrection Act which enables presidents certain rights to deploy troops on US soil.

Public Response

Newsom, who was formerly as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to step in “without delay” to a mission in the city. “The idea that the White House can send forces into our cities with no justification supported by evidence, no oversight, no answerability, no consideration of state sovereignty – it represents an infringement on the judicial framework,” he said on Wednesday.

Public associations, including civil rights groups formed in the initial federal leadership, have prepared to rapidly assemble a large protest in the city, as well as peaceful assemblies at public spaces.

Local Impact

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a largely Hispanic population, city supervisor stated to media last week she and her residents had been anticipating this moment. “The moment that workers cease employment, when people of color cannot move about freely without the fear of government officers discriminating against and apprehending them, the time when parents stop sending kids to school, are too scared to go to the supermarket or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is basically a shutdown the extent of which we have not experienced since the health crisis.”

National Guard Situation

Roughly three hundred out of 4,000 California military personnel stay under federal control under an directive from Trump. Approximately 200 of them had been transferred to the Pacific Northwest, where they were staying in standby amid a legal battle over their mission.

This week, Newsom said he had called the local soldiers under his control to staff food banks throughout the government shutdown.