LOS ANGELES: Security forces clashed with protesters outside a detention center in Los Angeles on Sunday as National Guard troops deployed by President Donald Trump fanned out across the city following two days of unruly protests over raids by immigration agents.
Trump on Sunday vowed the troops would ensure “very strong law and order,“ while appearing to leave the door open to deploying soldiers in other cities.
The US military said 300 soldiers from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team had been sent to three separate locations in the greater Los Angeles area, and were “conducting safety and protection of federal property & personnel.”
Helmeted troops in camouflage gear and carrying guns were stationed at a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where they joined Department of Homeland Security forces.
Pepper spray and tear gas were fired into a small crowd — including journalists — as forces moved protesters back to allow a convoy of vehicles to enter the detention center.
Trump, asked about the use of troops, appeared to leave the door open to a more widespread deployment in other parts of the country.
“You have violent people, and we are not going to let them get away with it,“ he told reporters. “I think you’re going to see some very strong law and order.”
Responding to a question about invoking the Insurrection Act — which would allow the military to be used as a domestic police force — Trump said: “We’re looking at troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country.”
The deployment in California — the first over the head of a state governor since the Civil Rights era — was “purposefully inflammatory,“ Governor Gavin Newsom said.
“Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County — not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis,“ Newsom posted on X Sunday.
“He’s hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control. Stay calm. Never use violence. Stay peaceful.”
Newsom’s warning came after Los Angeles was rocked by two days of confrontations that saw federal agents firing flash-bang grenades and tear gas toward crowds angry at the arrests of dozens of migrants.
‘Intimidation’
Republicans lined up behind Trump to dismiss the pushback by Newsom and other local officials against the National Guard deployment.
“I have no concern about that at all,“ Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC’s “This Week”, accusing Newsom of “an inability or unwillingness to do what is necessary”.
As for threats by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday to send in active-duty Marines on top of the Guard troops, Johnson said he did not see that as “heavy-handed.”
“We have to be prepared to do what is necessary,“ he argued.
Demonstrators told AFP the purpose of the troops was not necessarily to keep order.
“I think it’s an intimidation tactic,“ Thomas Henning said.
“These protests have been peaceful. There’s no one trying to do any sort of damage right now and yet you have the National Guard with loaded magazines and large guns standing around trying to intimidate Americans from exercising our first amendment rights.”
Estrella Corral said demonstrators were angry that hard-working migrants who have done nothing wrong were being snatched by masked immigration agents.
“This is our community, and we want to feel safe,“ she told AFP.
“Trump deploying the National Guard is ridiculous. I think he’s escalating, he’s trying to make a show for his agenda.”
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said the move demonstrated “Trump’s authoritarianism in real time.”
“Conduct massive illegal raids. Provoke a counter-response. Declare a state of emergency. Call in the troops,“ he wrote on social media, adding: “Unacceptable.”
‘Good men and women’
The National Guard — a reserve military — is frequently used in natural disasters, and occasionally in instances of civil unrest, but almost always with the consent of local authorities.
Trump has delivered on a promise to crack down hard on undocumented migrants — who he has likened to “monsters” and “animals” — since taking office in January.
Raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in other US cities have triggered small-scale protests in recent months, but the Los Angeles unrest is the biggest and most sustained against Trump’s immigration policies so far.
A CBS News poll taken before the Los Angeles protests showed a slight majority of Americans still approved of the immigration crackdown.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum on Sunday defended migrants living north of the border.
“Mexicans living in the United States are good men and women, honest people who went to the United States to seek a better life for themselves and to support their families. They are not criminals! They are good men and women!” she said.
