President Trump on Saturday ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County to assist immigration agents who were clashing with demonstrators protesting workplace raids, saying that any protest or act of violence that impeded officials would be considered a “form of rebellion.”
Mr. Trump’s order was an extraordinary escalation that puts Los Angeles squarely at the center of tensions over his administration’s immigration crackdown. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California described the order as “purposefully inflammatory,” saying that the federal government was mobilizing the National Guard “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.”
Mr. Trump issued the order as law enforcement officers faced off with hundreds of protesters for a second consecutive day in the Los Angeles area, in some cases using rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
As of early Sunday morning, there were no signs of any National Guard troops on the streets in the area as several demonstrations appeared to be winding down. President Trump praised the National Guard for their work in Los Angeles, but Mayor Karen Bass reminded residents that the troops had not arrived.
Protests against immigration raids were scheduled to continue on Sunday, including one at City Hall at 2 p.m. Separately, the Trump administration’s top law enforcement official in Southern California said in an interview on Saturday night that National Guard troops would arrive in Los Angeles County within 24 hours.
The Los Angeles Police Department said that demonstrations in the city on Saturday were peaceful. Some of the protests that broke out in other areas, including Compton and Paramount, south of downtown Los Angeles, were more confrontational.
Demonstrators near a freeway entrance threw fireworks and rocks at police officers, who responded with volleys of rubber projectiles. Some took over an intersection after setting a car ablaze, while others hurled glass bottles filled with a substance that smelled like gasoline at a police line, as fires burned in the street.
Protests had broken out in the L.A. area on Friday and Saturday as federal agents mounted raids on workplaces in search of undocumented immigrants.
Here’s what else to know:
- Workplace raids: The recent raids appeared to be part of a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will increasingly focus on workplaces.
- Trading blame: Some of California’s Democratic lawmakers blasted President Trump’s order as an inappropriate use of power, while Republicans criticized the state’s political leadership over protests there against recent immigration raids.
- Arrests: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 121 immigrants across Los Angeles on Friday, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
As President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County on Saturday, some of the most active protests against immigration raids in the area were taking place near a Home Depot in Paramount, a small city some 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign. Law enforcement officers used flash-bang grenades and fired rubber bullets at demonstrators.
The mood had been tense in the city ever since Mr. Trump took office for the second time with promises to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants.
