The US military will temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles until more national guard troops can arrive, marking another escalation in Donald Trump’s response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a battalion would be sent on temporary duty until more national guard troops could reach the scene. For now, the Trump administration was not invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement.
The official added the situation was fluid and could change.
Marines have been deployed domestically for major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11th, 2001, attacks, but it is extremely rare for troops to be used for domestic policing matters. Doing so is certain to raise further objections from Democrats, who have accused Mr Trump of unnecessarily escalating tensions in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass accused the Trump administration of using her city as a “test case” for the federal government taking over from local and state authorities and said the intervention was completely unwarranted.
She told a press conference on Monday that the city had been peaceful before Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids began last week, adding “this is chaos that was started in Washington, DC” and that “nothing warranted the raids, nothing was happening”.
Also on Monday, Mr Trump said he would support the arrest of California’s governor Gavin Newsom, after Mr Newsom vowed to sue the federal government over the deployment of the national guard to California, calling it an illegal act.
Mr Trump deployed the troops after street protests on Friday that turned violent over the weekend. He said on Monday he felt he had no choice but to order the deployment to prevent the violence from spiraling out of control.
He said he made “a great decision” sending in troops to handle unrest.
“If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” Mr Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
He also suggested he would support the arrest of Mr Newsom, who opposed the move.
Mr Newsom later said he plans to sue Mr Trump in response to the administration’s move. “Commandeering a state’s national guard without consulting the governor of that state is illegal and immoral,” he said.
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, threatened last weekend to arrest anyone who obstructs immigration enforcement efforts in the state, including Mr Newsom and Ms Bass.
“I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity but I think it would be a great thing,” Mr Trump said on Monday. “I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows.”
Mr Newsom, a Democrat, responded that he hoped he would never see the day that a president called for the arrest of a sitting governor. “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” he said in a post on X. “We are suing Donald Trump. This is a manufactured crisis. He is creating fear and terror to take over a state militia and violate the US constitution.”
Mr Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 national guard to Los Angeles on Saturday night following two days of clashes between demonstrators and immigration authorities.
Tensions in Los Angeles had begun on Friday, when protesters clashed with law enforcement officials conducting immigration raids on multiple locations in the sprawling city’s downtown.
[ Analysis: Trump tests limits of presidential authorityOpens in new window ]
[ Trump’s US travel ban on citizens from 12 countries comes into effectOpens in new window ]
On Sunday night, police declared all of downtown Los Angeles to be an unlawful assembly area and ordered protesters to go home.
Federal agents had earlier clashed with demonstrators in the city as police used tear gas and “less-lethal munitions” to disperse massive crowds.
Thousands of people swamped the streets around city hall, the federal courthouse and a detention centre where protesters arrested during the days before were being held. They also brought a major motorway to a standstill.
The crowd for large parts of the day was mostly peaceful. But tensions flared several times.
On Sunday afternoon, police used tear gas to disperse groups of protesters gathered near the detention centre, and in the evening, officers fired round after round of flash-bangs in an attempt to push them back.
LA police leaders said officers had been shot at with commercial grade fireworks, and had rocks thrown at them.
Elsewhere, about 60 people, including juveniles, were arrested and three police officers injured following unrest in San Francisco on Sunday, the city’s police force said.
Mr Trump’s federalisation of the national guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots. At that time widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating black motorist Rodney King.
Mr Newsom and Ms Bass had urged protesters throughout the weekend to stay peaceful, and doubled down on their plea on Sunday evening.
“Protest is appropriate to do, but it is just not appropriate for there to be violence,” Ms Bass said.
LA police chief Jim McDonnell on Sunday evening called the violence “disgusting”.
He said those engaged in violence were not among the people demonstrating against the immigration raids, but are “people who do this all the time”.
Ms Bass said the national guard deployment was “the last thing Los Angeles needs”, adding that she had discouraged the Trump administration from doing so.
“We do not need to see our city torn apart,” she said, adding that people are “terrified”.
Earlier, Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump’s defence secretary, had raised the possibility of deploying US marines on to the streets of LA.
Mr Newsom called the potential deployment of US marines “deranged”.
– Guardian/Reuters
