Marines to deploy on LA streets within two days with authority to detain civilians
US marines will join national guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles within two days, officials said on Wednesday, and would be authorized to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents, reports Reuters.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployments over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom, causing a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city’s downtown area.
The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids. Trump in turn called in the national guard on Saturday, then summoned the marines on Monday.
“If I didn’t act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,” said Trump at an event at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
According to Reuters, the US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 marines had concluded training specific to the LA mission, including de-escalation and crowd control. They would join national guard under the authority of a federal law known as Title 10 within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said.
“Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,” the northern command said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement:
“If any rioters attack Ice law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest.”
US army Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who commands the taskforce of marines and guardsmen, told reporters the marines will not carry live ammunition in their rifles, but they will carry live rounds.
More on this story in a moment, but first here is a summary of the latest developments:
-
A curfew came into effect for the second consecutive night on Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles, where police used horses and munitions to disperse protesters. Police declared the gathering near city hall unlawful shortly before the curfew, and began firing and charging at protesters shortly afterward.
-
Donald Trump was booed and cheered while attending the opening night of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center, his first appearance there since becoming president and appointing himself chair.
-
All 12 members of the prestigious Fulbright program’s board resigned in protest of what they describe as unprecedented political interference by the Trump administration, which has blocked scholarships for nearly 200 American academics.
-
David Hogg will not run again for a vice-chair position at the Democratic National Committee, after members voted to void and re-do his election. The move ends months of internal turmoil over Hogg’s outside activism, particularly his vow to primary “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.
-
Los Angeles county district attorney Nathan Hochman said media and social media had grossly distorted the scale of protest violence. “There are 11 million people in this county; 4 million of which live in Los Angeles city. We estimate that there’s probably thousands of people who have engaged in legitimate protest, let’s say 4,000 people,” Hochman said.
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump was met with boos, cheers and a heavy dose of irony as he took in Les Mis at the Kennedy Center against the backdrop of continuing protests in LA last night, my colleague David Smith writes.
It was Trump’s first production at the Kennedy Center, the performing arts complex where he pulled a Viktor Orbán and seized control in February. He pushed out the centre’s former chair, fired its longtime president and pledged to overhaul an institution that he criticized as too woke.
But ticket sales have fallen since and some performers have cancelled shows. On Wednesday, as he took his seat, 78-year-old Trump was greeted with a high-octane mix of cheers and boos that stopped after a round of “USA” chants.
Several drag queens in full regalia sat in the audience, presumably in response to Trump’s criticism of the venue for hosting drag shows. One person shouted “Viva Los Angeles!” as Trump stepped out of the presidential box at the intermission.
The president’s appearance was meant to boost fundraising for the Kennedy Center and he said donors raised more than $10m. But Maga’s efforts to break into the thespian world went about as well as Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
Here are some pictures from the protests in downtown LA yesterday.
‘This isn’t an isolated incident’: Trump’s show of military force in LA was years in the making
Rachel Leingang and Lauren Gambino in Los Angeles
Donald Trump is targeting Los Angeles, the biggest city in deep-blue California – a sprawling metropolis shaped by immigrant communities that the president described on Tuesday as a “trash heap” – with a show of force many years in the making.
After his first term, Trump expressed regret for not taking a more heavy-handed approach to the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder by police. So when demonstrations against his immigration crackdown erupted last week in Los Angeles, he turned to the playbook he wished he had used then – federalizing the national guard and deploying hundreds of US marines to confront what Democratic officials insist was a manageable situation, escalated by a president who the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has warned is increasingly behaving like a “dictator”.
It’s the made-for-TV clash Trump has been waiting for: visually gripping scenes of unrest in a Democratic-run city furious over his administration’s mass deportation agenda.
“Chaos is exactly what Trump wanted, and now California is left to clean up the mess,” Newsom said on X.
The showdown in Los Angeles brings together longtime overlapping goals of the Trump regime: bringing state and local officials to heel; trying to tap as many resources as possible for his deportation program; and going after protesters who speak or act against him, all while stretching the boundaries of legality.
Sending troops into an American city to stifle largely peaceful protests is a “test case” that, depending on how it plays out in Los Angeles, could be a strategy the administration replicates in other cities, said Sarah Mehta, the deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU.
This isn’t an isolated incident.
I think what we’re seeing in Los Angeles is this culmination of several weeks of incredibly aggressive immigration policing, the federal government asking the military to get further involved in immigration enforcement, including the transportation of unaccompanied children and attention and riot control, and then on top of that, again, these really targeted attacks against cities and states that are not going along with Trump’s aggressive deportation regime.
Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said her city was being used as a proving ground for how the federal government might exert its authority over other local governments that resist the president’s agenda. “I feel like we are part of an experiment that we did not ask to be a part of,” she said, speaking at a press conference in downtown LA on Monday.
While Trump sows chaos in the streets, the mayor said, the city’s immigrant communities were gripped by a “level of fear and terror” over the administration’s escalating enforcement efforts, with some undocumented workers staying home and mixed-status families afraid to attend school graduation ceremonies.
Joanna Walters
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has further criticized Donald Trump’s decision to order troops into LA, in an interview today with the New York Times podcast.
The president a number of days ago commanded 2,000 National Guard. I want to put that in perspective. In California I command 18,000. Two days later there were about 315 [federalised National Guard] who were mission-tasked, the rest were sitting around, about 1,700, for days, you saw them sitting quite literally on the ground, with out fuel, without food, without training. Last night we had 1,600 local law enforcement … that are trained for these activities, they are the ones making arrests [of protesters], not the National Guard.
Newsom said of the National Guard: “I revere these guys.” He said he had several hundred “down at the border doing counter-drug operations” and others known as rattlesnake crews.
These are the ones doing forest management, they are raking the forest, preparing for wildfire season, these are men and women … working for local police enforcement agencies in many instances, they are police officers in their day job….[many] have now been redeployed [to LA].
Newsom then said:
The first night they were deployed our police officers had to protect the National Guard. They became a destination for the protests and it was local police that had to protect them. This is how ridiculous this whole thing is … I’ve said it’s immoral, it puts people’s lives at risk, they are using these men and women as pawns.
Joanna Walters
Gavin Newsom has made fresh comments condemning the use of federal troops in Los Angeles, called into action by Donald Trump over the Democratic state governor’s explicit objections in a very rare move.
“It’s theatre, it’s madness, it’s unconstitutional,” the California governor said on Thursday morning in an interview with the New York Times podcast The Daily.
The governor said that the more than 1,600 police he had ordered to control the streets of Los Angeles were more than capable of handling the limited-area protests.
He has accused the US president of not just escalating but provoking the situation in LA, where protesters first came out on to the streets in some areas to demonstrate against aggressive immigration raids but then further protested against the federal government taking charge of National Guard troops and also ordering US Marines to go to LA.
Newsom told the outlet that he had had to take state-controlled troops away from the US-Mexico border, where they fight drug smuggling, and state forests, where they are clearing brush to prevent wildfire, and add them to enforcement in LA – not to deal with protests per se but to protect the federalised troops from the protesters.
California will face off with Washington in court on Thursday over Donald Trump’s deployment of US troops in Los Angeles after demonstrators again took to the streets in major cities to protest Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Some 700 US Marines will be on the streets of Los Angeles by Thursday or Friday, the military said, to support up to 4,000 National Guard troops in protecting federal property and federal agents, including on immigration raids, Reuters reported.
Trump’s decision to dispatch troops to Los Angeles over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom has sparked a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and further polarized the country.
Street protests have broken out in multiple cities besides Los Angeles including New York, Chicago, Washington and San Antonio, Texas.
A federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments Thursday as part of California’s lawsuit against Trump. The state is requesting a temporary restraining order to block the troops’ participation in law enforcement activities.
California ultimately wants a court ruling that returns its National Guard to the state’s control and declares that Trump’s action was illegal.
A woman defiantly dances near police officers as protesters continue to march and chant in an approximately one-square mile area of downtown Los Angeles in response to a series of immigration raids.
Nerves are frayed in Los Angeles, as the second largest city in the US is flooded with more than 2,000 federal troops tasked with protecting immigration enforcement officials after thousands of people hit the streets to protest deportation raids.
That this weekend’s immigration enforcement actions sparked a fierce response in LA will not come as a surprise to many Californians. LA’s immigrant roots, and its deep ties to neighboring Mexico, are central to the region’s identity.
Long before it was part of the US, LA was Indigenous Tongva and Chumash land. It later came under Spanish and then Mexican rule. The name “California” itself comes from a Spanish novel, Las sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), and appeared on maps as early as 1541. But it wasn’t until 2 August 1769, that Spaniard Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest accompanying the first European land expedition through California, described in his journal a “beautiful river from the northwest”. He named the river, which would later become the LA River, Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula (Our Lady of the Angels of the Porciuncula). Twelve years later, in 1781, the settlement would emerge with the shortened and anglicized name of Los Angeles.
After Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles – indeed the whole region– remained Mexican territory until it was ceded to the US in 1848 after the Mexican-American War. California became the 31st state in 1850, entering the Union as a free state.
Today, one in three people of LA county’s more than 10 million residents are immigrants, and 1.6 million children in the region have at least one immigrant parent. They come from countries around the world. It’s common for Angelenos to have been born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines, China and Hong Kong – but also Russia, France, the UK and elsewhere.
‘Morale is not great’: troops and marines deeply troubled by LA deployment
Andrew Gumbel
California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
“Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”
Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network, whose stated mission is to “mobilize and empower veterans to protect democracy”, said he had heard similar things from half a dozen national guard members. “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said.
The marines and the California national guard did not respond to invitations to comment.
The US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 marines had concluded training specific to the LA mission, including de-escalation and crowd control.
They would join National Guard under the authority of a federal law known as Title 10 within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said.
“Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,” the Northern Command said.
Three prominent Democratic US governors face a grilling on Thursday from a Republican-led US House of Representatives panel over immigration policy, as president Donald Trump steps up a crackdown on people living in the country illegally, Reuters reported.
The governors of New York, Illinois and Minnesota are due to testify to the House Oversight Committee after days of protests in downtown Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s aggressive ramping up of arrests of migrants.
Tensions escalated as Trump ordered the National Guard and marines into California to provide additional security.
Trump’s immigration crackdown has become a major political flashpoint between the White House and national Democrats. California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, seen as a contender for the party’s presidential nomination in 2028, in a Tuesday night video speech accused Trump of choosing “theatrics over public safety.”
Minnesota’s Tim Walz, who ran unsuccessfully for vice-president last year; Illinois’ JB Pritzker, also seen a 2028 hopeful, and New York’s Kathy Hochul, walked a careful line in their prepared testimony for Thursday’s hearing, voicing support for immigration enforcement, if not Trump’s tactics.
“If they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country,” Pritzker said.
At the same time, Pritzker lashed out against “any violations of the law or abuses of power” and said, “Law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying people who have been in this country for years should have a path to citizenship.”
Reuters/Ipsos polls show Trump getting more support for his handling of immigration than any other policy area.
Maanvi Singh
As federal agents rushed to arrest immigrants across Los Angeles, they confined detainees – including families with small children – in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water, according to immigration lawyers.
One family with three children were held inside a Los Angeles-area administrative building for 48 hours after being arrested on Thursday immediately after an immigration court hearing, according to lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which is providing non-profit legal services in the region.
The children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family’s first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share. The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers.
“Because it was primarily men held in these facilities, they didn’t have separate quarters for families or for women,” said Yliana Johansen-Méndez, chief program officer at ImmDef. Clients explained that “eventually they set up a makeshift tent in an outside area to house the women and children. But clearly, there were no beds, no showers.”
They have since been transferred to a “family detention” center in Dilley, Texas, a large-scale holding facility retrofitted to hold children with their parents that was reopened under the Trump administration. Lawyers, who had been largely blocked from communicating with immigrants arrested amid the ramped-up raids in LA, said family members were able to recount the ordeal only after they were moved out of state.
Dani Anguiano
Hilda Solis, an LA county supervisor, said on Wednesday evening she was concerned about a “deeply disturbing incident” in the city’s Boyle Heights neighborhood involving two unmarked vehicles operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents crashing in to a civilian car with two children inside and deploying teargas to apprehend an individual. She said she had also learned of an incident of Ice attempting to detain a member of the press.
The nearly 5,000 US military personnel in the city now exceeds the number of US troops in both Iraq and Syria.
The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set by Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff. The city has seen days of protest over Trump’s immigration crackdown and the subsequent military deployment.
US immigration officials raid California farms as Trump ramps up conflict
Dani Anguiano
US immigration officials carried out further “enforcement activity” in California’s agricultural heartland and the Los Angeles area as the conflict between the state and Donald Trump’s administration intensified on Wednesday.
Immigrant advocacy groups reported multiple actions across the state, where an estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented, and said agents pursued workers through blueberry fields and staged operations at agricultural facilities.
The raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activities targeting immigrant families”.
“When our workforce’s lives are in fear, the fields will go unharvested, the impact is felt not only at the local level, but it will also be felt at the national level,” said Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, the mayor of Ventura, a coastal city just north of Los Angeles. “Everything will be affected and every American who is here and relies on the labor of these individuals will be affected.”
Immigration activities have continued in the Los Angeles area as well, where officials say people have been detained outside Home Depots and in front of churches. Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, said the raids have created a deep sense of fear in the region and that the White House has provoked unrest. The night-time curfew she put in place this week will stay in place as long as needed, including while there are ongoing raids and a military presence in the city, Bass said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Here is a Guardian graphic showing where the curfew in Los Angeles has been imposed.
Marines to deploy on LA streets within two days with authority to detain civilians
US marines will join national guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles within two days, officials said on Wednesday, and would be authorized to detain anyone who interferes with immigration officers on raids or protesters who confront federal agents, reports Reuters.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployments over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom, causing a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and animating protests that have spread from Los Angeles to other major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
Los Angeles on Wednesday endured a sixth day of protests that have been largely peaceful but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks of the city’s downtown area.
The protests broke out last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids. Trump in turn called in the national guard on Saturday, then summoned the marines on Monday.
“If I didn’t act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,” said Trump at an event at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
According to Reuters, the US military said on Wednesday that a battalion of 700 marines had concluded training specific to the LA mission, including de-escalation and crowd control. They would join national guard under the authority of a federal law known as Title 10 within 48 hours, not to conduct civilian policing but to protect federal officers and property, the military said.
“Title 10 forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances such as to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,” the northern command said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement:
“If any rioters attack Ice law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest.”
US army Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who commands the taskforce of marines and guardsmen, told reporters the marines will not carry live ammunition in their rifles, but they will carry live rounds.
More on this story in a moment, but first here is a summary of the latest developments:
-
A curfew came into effect for the second consecutive night on Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles, where police used horses and munitions to disperse protesters. Police declared the gathering near city hall unlawful shortly before the curfew, and began firing and charging at protesters shortly afterward.
-
Donald Trump was booed and cheered while attending the opening night of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center, his first appearance there since becoming president and appointing himself chair.
-
All 12 members of the prestigious Fulbright program’s board resigned in protest of what they describe as unprecedented political interference by the Trump administration, which has blocked scholarships for nearly 200 American academics.
-
David Hogg will not run again for a vice-chair position at the Democratic National Committee, after members voted to void and re-do his election. The move ends months of internal turmoil over Hogg’s outside activism, particularly his vow to primary “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.
-
Los Angeles county district attorney Nathan Hochman said media and social media had grossly distorted the scale of protest violence. “There are 11 million people in this county; 4 million of which live in Los Angeles city. We estimate that there’s probably thousands of people who have engaged in legitimate protest, let’s say 4,000 people,” Hochman said.