The first of at least 2,000 National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, ordered in by President Donald Trump to deal with protests against workplace immigration raids after two days of unrest.
Any demonstration that got in the way of immigration officials would be considered a “form of rebellion,” Trump said in his order, issued Saturday.
The dispatch of troops was an extraordinary escalation that put Los Angeles squarely at the center of tensions over his administration’s immigration crackdown. An expert said it was the first time since 1965 that a president had bypassed a state governor to activate that state’s National Guard force for law enforcement or civil unrest purposes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called Trump’s order “purposefully inflammatory.” He said there was no shortage of law enforcement resources to deal with the protests and that the federal government was sending the troops because it wanted “a spectacle.”
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have called on the Trump administration to rescind the order federalising the National Guard and return it to the governor’s command.
Protests broke out in Los Angeles on Friday against a series of raids that appeared to be part of a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will focus increasingly on workplaces. Protesters continued demonstrating downtown and in nearby cities Saturday as law enforcement officers made arrests and in some cases used crowd-control munitions, tear gas and flash-bang grenades against the protesters.
Hundreds of National Guard troops had arrived in Los Angeles by Sunday afternoon, and protests flared up again in the city’s downtown. Here’s what to know:
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How have the Los Angeles protests developed?
The demonstrations began Friday after camouflage-clad federal agents began combing the garment district in Los Angeles in search of people suspected of being immigrants in the country without legal permission. The raid, which spread alarm among workers in the city, incited chaotic scenes between protesters, who chanted and threw eggs, and law enforcement officers, who fired pepper spray and crowd-control munitions.
Demonstrations continued Saturday, both downtown and in the greater Los Angeles area, including the largely Latino and working-class city of Paramount, about 15 miles to the south. Protests there were some of the most volatile in the region, with law enforcement officers using flash-bang grenades and firing crowd-control munitions.
Bill Essayli, the Trump administration’s top law enforcement official in Southern California, said more than 100 people were arrested Friday and at least 20 more were arrested Saturday, mostly in Paramount.
A Department of Homeland Security official added Sunday that US officials had arrested eight people in Paramount on Saturday on federal obstruction charges. Two of the eight were minors and have been released from custody, the official said.
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The streets of Los Angeles were largely quiet Sunday morning as the first National Guard troops began to arrive downtown at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where the Los Angeles Police Department had detained a number of protesters Saturday.
By early Sunday afternoon, hundreds of demonstrators outside the detention center were facing off with federal law-enforcement officials in riot gear. The officials — including from DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — fired canisters of tear gas into the crowd.
National Guard troops were also gathered in Paramount, near a Home Depot where protesters had clashed with agents Saturday.
Who calls in the National Guard?
The National Guard is the only branch of the military that can be deployed both by state governors and by the president. Governors almost always control deployment in their states.
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The Guard operates similarly to the Army Reserve force. Most of its members do not serve full time. They generally hold civilian jobs and attend regular training sessions, and are called into active service only when needed.
The National Guard is most often called upon during extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods and wildfires. Troops have sometimes been used to quell civil disturbances at the state governor’s request. One example was in 1992, when Gov. Pete Wilson of California asked President George H.W. Bush to deploy the Guard after riots erupted in Los Angeles over the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a Black man.
Before Trump’s move, the last time a president activated a state’s National Guard troops for such a purpose without being asked to do so by the state’s governor was in 1965, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. On that occasion, she said, President Lyndon B. Johnson used troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama.
What have officials said?
Trump administration officials have criticized the state’s political leadership over their handling of the protests, while California’s Democratic leaders blasted Trump’s order as unnecessary and an inappropriate use of power.
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Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement Saturday night that Trump was deploying the National Guard in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.
Trump described the demonstrations, which have been largely peaceful, as “insurrectionist” on social media Sunday. He did not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the U.S. military domestically, and told reporters that there were “violent people” at the protests and that “we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
State and local authorities in California and Los Angeles County have not indicated any need for federal assistance. The state attorney general, Rob Bonta, said on social media that local law enforcement “have the resources they need to meet the moment” and that Trump’s order was “counterproductive.”
In a post on the social platform X on Sunday, Newsom said the deployment order was “unlawful” and called on the Trump administration to return the command of the guard to his office. “Rescind the order,” Newsom wrote. “Return control to California.”
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Bass, who said deploying federalized troops was “dangerous escalation,” also appealed to the administration to return control of the National Guard to the governor’s office.
