Protesters destroy a mobile police surveillance post during a clash with federal agents after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Paramount, California. Photograph: EPA
Donald Trump on Saturday ordered the deployment of 2,000 national guard troops to Los Angeles, after an immigration crackdown sparked mass protests for a second day and police in riot gear used tear gas on bystanders.
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on X that the federal government was “moving to take over” the California national guard.
Mr Newsom said the mobilisation was “purposefully inflammatory” and warned that it would “only escalate tensions”.
“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles – not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” he said later. “Don’t give them one.”
The defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, wrote on X that national guard troops were being mobilised “IMMEDIATELY” and threatened to send “active duty Marines” if the unrest continued.
Tensions this week started on Friday, when protesters clashed with law enforcement officials conducting immigration raids on multiple locations in the city’s downtown. On Saturday, US immigration authorities extended enforcement action into Paramount, a majority Latino area southeast of Los Angeles, and were met with more protests outside an industrial park.
Police and protesters mostly stayed at a distance, kicking tear gas canisters back and forth amid streams of white gas. Among several hundred protesters, a handful were bloodied by projectiles.
More than a dozen people were arrested and accused of impeding immigration agents, according to the US attorney’s office for the central district of California.
A Los Angeles sheriff’s department spokesperson said their office arrested two people for assaulting an officer, that one demonstrator threw a Molotov cocktail, and that three deputies had been struck, with minor injuries.
The sheriff’s office said the department “was focused solely on traffic management and crowd control” and was not involved in any federal law enforcement operations.
By Saturday evening, protests in Paramount had dwindled from their peak on Saturday afternoon, but some protesters and authorities were engaged in a tense standoff.
Protesters had also gathered in nearby Compton, amid reports that a few were hurling glass bottles at police, and police were deploying tear gas.
On its end, the Trump administration moved aggressively.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Saturday evening accused California’s Democratic leaders of having “completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens”.
“The Trump administration has a zero-tolerance policy for criminal behaviour and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs,” she said in a statement, announcing that Mr Trump had signed a memo late Saturday night ordering the national guard deployment.
The memo asserts that the demonstrations impeded “execution of laws” and therefore “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”.
Mr Trump, according to the memo, federalised the state’s national guard troops under what is known as Title 10 authority, which places them under federal, rather than state, control.
Mr Newsom said there was no such need. On Saturday afternoon, he made assurances that the Los Angeles police department was available to authorities and that his administration was in close contact with city and county officials. “There is currently no unmet need,” he said.
Police form up behind a burned car during a clash with protesters after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Paramount, California. Photograph: EPA
Mr Newsom directed the California highway patrol to deploy additional officers to maintain public safety on state highways and roads and work to keep the peace.
“The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilised country behaves,” Mr Newsom also said.
In a tweet, the governor called Mr Hegseth’s threats to deploy active-duty Marines against American citizens “deranged”.
Writing on Truth Social, Mr Trump insulted Mr Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s handling of the protests and said the federal government would “step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
Earlier on Saturday, Tom Homan, the White House “border tsar”, was the first to say the administration would mobilise the national guard.
It is not the first time the national guard has been deployed in Los Angeles. Troops also were sent in during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, but their deployment at the time came at the request of the California governor and, unlike this time, amid widespread unrest.
Ms Bass called reports of civil unrest across the Los Angeles area “deeply concerning” and said the city was in “direct contact” with law enforcement and officials in Washington.
On Friday, Ice officers had arrested dozens of people as they executed search warrants at multiple locations, including outside a clothing warehouse, where a tense scene unfolded as a crowd tried to block agents from driving away.
Advocates for immigrant rights say people were also detained outside Home Depot stores and a doughnut shop.
During afternoon protests at a federal detention facility in downtown LA on Friday, David Huerta, the president of the California branch of the Service Employees International Union, was arrested amid a police response that included tear gas and flash-bangs.
Mr Huerta, who was injured and detained, released a statement to the Los Angeles Times from the hospital, saying: “What happened to me is not about me. This is about something much bigger.”
“This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice,” he added.
DHS said in a statement that recent Ice operations in Los Angeles had resulted in the arrest of 118 immigrants.
California leaders were quick to condemn the raids. Ms Bass said the activity was meant to “sow terror” in the nation’s second-largest city.
“I am deeply angered by what has taken place,” she said. “These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. We will not stand for this.”
Mr Newsom said: “Continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel. Donald Trump’s chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industries that power America’s economy.”
Mr Newsom also condemned Huerta’s arrest, saying: “David Huerta is a respected leader, a patriot, and an advocate for working people. No one should ever be harmed for witnessing government action.”
The arrests by immigration authorities in Los Angeles come as Mr Trump and his administration push to fulfil promises to carry out mass deportations across the country. – Guardian
Source: The Irish Times.
