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The White House appeared poised on Wednesday to dispatch scores of federal agents to the Bay Area region for a large-scale border security initiative, prompting condemnation from state officials.

Details of the Deployment

Information of the deployment were gradually becoming clear, but it will reportedly involve over a hundred law enforcement personnel, according to reports. The agents are reportedly set to begin using the Coast Guard facility in Alameda, facing San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would join the operation.

Government Response

The mission follows an extended period of threats by Donald Trump to target the progressive municipality. California’s governor Gavin Newsom criticized the move, calling it “right out of the dictator’s handbook”.

“He sends out covered agents, he deploys customs officers, he deploys federal agents, he instills concern and apprehension in the neighborhood so that he can claim credit for solving that by dispatching the military forces,” Newsom said. “This is exactly like the incendiary fighting the inferno.”

City Readiness

San Francisco is the most recent large urban area 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 prevent paramilitary operations in the city.

San Franciscans have been gearing up for weeks for Trump to carry out ongoing warnings to dispatch personnel to the city. At a Wednesday media briefing, San Francisco’s city leader reiterated that the city was ready.

“During this period, we have been preparing for the chance of an impending government operation in our city,” stated the official, adding that he had taken further executive actions on Wednesday to “strengthen the city’s protection of our foreign-born residents, and make certain our offices are prepared before any government operation.”

Constitutional Framework

Despite judicial disputes to deployments in a number of cities, including Illinois, Portland and Los Angeles, Trump has claimed “absolute authority” to send the state troops in cities, citing the federal statute which allows presidents specific authority to dispatch personnel on American territory.

Public Reaction

Newsom – who once held office as San Francisco’s chief executive – had vowed to take action “without delay” to a operation in the city. “The idea that the national administration can send forces into our cities with no valid reason grounded in reality, no monitoring, no accountability, no consideration of state sovereignty – it’s a direct assault on the rule of law,” he said on Wednesday.

Local organizations, including advocacy organizations formed in the initial federal leadership, have organized to swiftly gather a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.

Local Consequences

In San Francisco’s Mission area, a mostly Latin American population, local representative informed journalists last week she and her constituents had been bracing for this situation. “The moment that employees avoid workplaces, when minority individuals cannot move about freely without the fear of government officers discriminating against and detaining them, the moment when families keep children home, are too scared to go to the food market or medical provider,” she said. “Our ongoing preparations in the Mission is basically a halt the extent of which we have not experienced since the health crisis.”

Military Situation

Approximately several hundred out of four thousand state state soldiers stay under federal control under an command from Trump. About two hundred of them had been dispatched to the neighboring state, where they were staying in standby amid a court case over their assignment.

This period, Newsom said he had summoned the state military personnel under his command to staff food banks amid the government shutdown.