Hundreds of US Marines were undergoing refresher training in riot and crowd control just outside of Los Angelesand will move into the city soon, a military official said, as protests over President Donald Trump’s immigration raids spread from California to other parts of the country.
Trump’s decision to dispatch National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor has sparked a national debate on the use of the military on US soil.
The Marines will be in Los Angeles “soon” but not on Wednesday, US Army Major General Scott Sherman, who is commanding the troops, told reporters at a news briefing.
The governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, said he will deploy the National Guard on Wednesday ahead of planned protests in San Antonio and other parts of the state, making him the first governor to take that step. Police in Austin, Texas, fired tear gas and pepper balls in a standoff with demonstrators on Monday.
Protesters marched in New York, Atlanta and Chicago on Tuesday night, chanting anti-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement slogans and at times clashing with law enforcement, while downtown Los Angeles spent its first night under a mandatory curfew after five days of demonstrations.
The protests are likely to expand on Saturday, when several activist groups have planned hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrations across the country. That day, tanks and other armoured vehicles will rumble down the streets of Washington, D.C., in a military parade marking the US Army’s 250th anniversary and coinciding with Trump’s 79th birthday.
Trump says the military deployment in Los Angeles prevented the violence from raging out of control, an assertion California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local officials have decried as untrue.
“This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That’s when the downward spiral began,” Newsom, a Democrat widely expected to mount a presidential run in 2028, said in a video address on Tuesday.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the deployments were not necessary and that local police could manage the protests, which have been largely peaceful and limited to about five downtown streets.
But the mayor imposed a curfew over one square mile of the city’s downtown starting on Tuesday night after some businesses were looted. Police said multiple groups stayed on the streets in some areas despite the curfew, and “mass arrests” were made.
Newsom sued Trump and the Defence Department on Monday, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops. Trump, in turn, has suggested Newsom should be arrested.
The 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops that Trump has mobilised are assigned to protect government personnel and buildings and do not have arrest authority.
The Pentagon has said the Marines, along with National Guard troops, will also be used to safeguard ICE officers during immigration raids.
ICE posted photos online on Tuesday of National Guard troops standing guard with weapons in hand as ICE officers handcuffed apparent migrants against the side of a car in Los Angeles.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Reuters that allowing federal troops to protect personnel could violate an 1878 law that generally forbids the US military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement.
“Protecting personnel likely means accompanying ICE, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into communities and neighbourhoods, and protecting functions could mean protecting the ICE function of enforcing the immigration law,” Bonta said.
Sherman, the troops’ commanding officer, said they are authorised to detain individuals temporarily until law enforcement can arrest them if it becomes necessary to protect federal personnel.
The last time the military was used for direct police action under the Insurrection Act was in 1992, when the California governor at the time asked President George H.W. Bush for help responding to the Los Angeles riots over the acquittal of police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King.
The standoff in Los Angeles has become the most intense flashpoint in the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants living in the country illegally.
Trump centred much of his campaign last year on his promise to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, said on Monday that ICE had arrested 2,000 immigration offenders per day recently, far above the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024 under former President Joe Biden.
An immigration raid on Tuesday at a meat production plant in Omaha, Nebraska, was the “largest worksite enforcement operation” in the state during the Trump presidency, DHS said. Republican Congressman Don Bacon told local media that 75 to 80 people were detained.
The company, Glenn Valley Foods, said it was surprised by the raid and had followed the rules regarding immigration status.
A coalition calling itself “No Kings” has planned demonstrations and other events in over 1,800 locations across the US on Saturday as a counterpoint to Trump’s military parade in Washington.
Trump has warned that any protesters at the parade will be met by “very big force.” Thousands of agents, officers and specialists are being deployed from law enforcement agencies across the country for the parade.
The No Kings coalition includes over 100 civil rights and other groups and says it is planning peaceful protests against Trump and his administration’s policies.
The aim is for “a mass, nationwide protest rejecting authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarisation of our democracy,” according to a No Kings press release.
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