The National Guard will be deployed to Los Angeles after "riots" in response to immigration raids extended into a second day.

California Governor Gavin Newsom confirmed that the Trump administration is deploying "2,000 soldiers" to Los Angeles after local police used tear gas, stun guns, and riot shields to push back immigration protesters in Paramount on Saturday.

Demonstrations began outside the Los Angeles Federal Building in the downtown area of LA on Friday after officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out raids in the area. On Saturday, several dozen protesters were involved in police stand-offs in Paramount, a city south of LA.

Mr Newsom warned in a post on X: "The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilized country behaves."

"The guard has been admirably serving LA throughout recovery [from wildfires]. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust," he added in a statement. "That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions."

President Donald Trump hit back at Mr Newsom in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday. "If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!," he wrote.

Reports the guard would be deployed to LA came earlier on Saturday, from Donald Trump's border tsar Tom Homan on Fox News.

44 arrested in Friday raids

At least 44 people were arrested on suspicion of immigration violations during raids on Friday, with crowds of around "1000 rioters" forming around the building before some "assaulted law enforcement officers, slashed tires, and defaced taxpayer-funded property", according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The raids saw street vendors and day workers rounded up across Home Depots, a clothing factory, and a warehouse, Salas of Chirla (The Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles) said.

On Saturday, protests spread to the Paramount area, where there is a significant Latino population, after demonstrators spotted ICE employees in a Home Depot car park they appeared to be using as a base.

Law enforcement officers faced off protesters at a road junction at around 5pm on Saturday where a car had been set on fire earlier in the day.

The roads were pictured strewn with trolleys and rubbish bins set on fire, as gas cannisters and fireworks were also set off.

Commenting on Saturday's protests, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office said: "It appeared that federal law enforcement officers were in the area, and that members of the public were gathering to protest."

Head of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a post on X on Saturday: "A message to the LA rioters: you will not stop us or slow us down."

Her warning comes amid Trump's nationwide crackdown on illegal migration. As soon as he was re-elected in January he set a target of 3,000 arrests of suspected illegal migrants per day - and promised to lock down the US-Mexico border.

Mr Newsom described Friday's arrests as "chaotic federal sweeps" aimed at fulfilling the president's "arbitrary arrest quota".

Mr Trump's deputy chief of staff, immigration hardliner Stephen Miller, described the subsequent demonstrations as a "violent insurrection… against the laws and sovereignty of the United States".

Source: Sky News.