Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass echoed Newsom’s comments. “What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “This is about another agenda, this isn’t about public safety.” Their admonishments did not deter the administration. “It’s a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement in response.
By midday in Los Angeles on Sunday (5am on Monday AEST), hundreds of people had gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown Los Angeles, where people were detained after earlier immigration raids. Protesters directed chants of “shame” and “go home” at members of the National Guard, who stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields. After some protesters closely approached the guard members, a different set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street. National Guard troops stand their line at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: AP Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway, a major thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles. Police said arrests were under way. Video footage showed the National Guard troops were largely refraining from clashing with the demonstrators, The New York Times reported.
Trump called the demonstrators “violent, insurrectionist mobs” in a social media post on Sunday and said he was directing his cabinet officers “to take all such action necessary” to stop what he called “riots”. Speaking to reporters in New Jersey, he threatened violence against demonstrators who spit on police or National Guard troops, saying, “They spit, we hit.” He did not cite any specific incidents. President Donald Trump attends a mixed martial arts event in New Jersey on Saturday as UFC head Dana White looks on. Credit: AP “If we see danger to our country and to our citizens, it will be very, very strong in terms of law and order,” Trump said as he headed to Camp David. “We’re going to have troops everywhere, we’re not going to let this happen to our country.
“Last night in Los Angeles, we watched it very closely, there was a lot of violence there – there was a lot of violence and it could have gotten much worse.” National Guard troops were also seen in Paramount, in south-east Los Angeles, near a Home Depot that was the site of altercations between protesters and police on Saturday after immigration raids.
Why did Trump send in the National Guard?
The National Guard arrived in Los Angeles early on Sunday (Monday AEST) after Trump ordered their deployment on Saturday night – the first time in six decades that a state’s National Guard has been activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice. Trump border tsar Tom Homan told NBC News that Newsom and Bass, the mayor, should be thanking the president for helping restore order, and warned the leaders they could be arrested if they obstructed immigration enforcement efforts.
Trump’s decision to send in troops and bypass Newsom keeps with promises he made during last year’s election campaign to deploy the military more aggressively in the nation’s cities. During his first term of office, in the summer of 2020, Trump pushed to send active-duty military troops to quell racial protests across the US, former defence secretary Mark Esper told a House committee years later. Esper said that he and others had to convince Trump there was no predicate for that use of the military. Protesters in the street as tear gas is fired at them on Sunday. Credit: AP At the time Trump felt that the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota made the US look weak, Esper told the committee. During an election campaign event in Iowa in 2023, Trump labelled several big cities “crime dens” and said he had previously held back from sending in the military.
“You’re supposed to not be involved in that – you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in. The next time, I’m not waiting,” Trump said at the Iowa event. To deploy the National Guard, Trump invoked a legal provision that allows him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States”. Protesters clash with National Guard troops and police in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: AP The White House cited what Trump described as credible threats of violence that could obstruct enforcement efforts and “constitute a form of rebellion” against the US government. But the legal basis for the decision could face challenges. Federal law strictly limits the deployment of federal troops within US borders.
The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, along with amendments and supporting regulations, generally bars the use of the active-duty US military – the army, navy, air force and marines – from carrying out domestic law enforcement. The law doesn’t apply to state-controlled National Guard forces. Trump directed US Northern Command to assume control of the National Guard and dispatch 2000 soldiers to the area “for 60 days or at the discretion of the secretary of defence”, the White House said in a statement. About 300 soldiers have since been deployed to three locations in greater Los Angeles, according to US Northern Command. The deployed troops are part of the California National Guard’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, primarily a combat unit, although it has previously been called up to support civilian authorities, and a unit that most recently responded to the wildfires in LA this year. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday (Sunday AEST) that Marines could be sent next if protests intensify. Newsom called Hegseth’s suggestion of deploying the Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton “deranged”. Hegseth countered overnight that Newsom had allowed violence to get out of hand. “Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked,” Hegseth said in a post on X. “There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job.”
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said the order by Trump to deploy the Guard reflected “a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism” and “usurping the powers of the United States Congress”.
Why are there protests in Los Angeles?
The protests were triggered in part by federal immigration raids that swept through the city from late on Friday. Demonstrators gathered outside the federal building downtown, including outside a detention centre. Other protests broke out in Compton and in Paramount, a Latino area south of the city, where a crowd formed near a Home Depot store as raids were reportedly under way.
Tensions escalated when demonstrators sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, prompting the Los Angeles Police Department to declare an unlawful assembly and order the crowd to disperse, local media reported. Riot police used tear gas and flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls. Los Angeles police said on Sunday that officers were monitoring protests and guarding civic buildings alongside the National Guard. Police Chief Jim McDonnell has stressed that his officers are not working with federal agents on civil immigration enforcement and the department follows a long-standing policy that bars officers from stopping people solely to determine their immigration status. “Everyone has the right to peacefully assemble and voice their opinions,” the department said in a statement on X. “However, vandalising property and attempting to seriously injure officers, whether Federal or LAPD, is not peaceful.”
Loading What is ICE?
Facing mounting pressure from the White House, US agency ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – has ramped up immigration arrests in recent weeks, averaging about 2000 detentions a day nationwide, but still falling short of the administration’s goal of at least 3000 daily arrests. The stepped-up enforcement is part of Trump’s vow to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history. In the Los Angeles area, ICE reported 118 arrests last week, though the agency had not released updated figures on Sunday morning. Congresswoman Nanette Barragan, a Democrat whose district includes Paramount and other parts of Los Angeles County, said ICE agents were stopping “anybody at a bus stop that’s going to shop” and she had been warned to expect 30 days of stepped-up enforcement.
Source: The Age.
