Trump sends Marines to Los Angeles on 4th day of immigration protests
The Trump administration is deploying a battalion of 700 Marines to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel, the U.S. Northern Command said Monday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California quickly condemned the deployment as a “provocation”, saying in an interview with The New York Times that there was no need for Marines, that the National Guard troops President Donald Trump had deployed were not all being put to work and that the president was acting to sow “more fear, more anger, and to further divide.”
A few hundred of the 2,000 National Guard troops called up to serve in Los Angeles are there, potentially intensifying tensions after several days of clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators protesting the administration’s immigration crackdown. As of Monday afternoon, the day’s protests there largely remained orderly and peaceful.
Trump labelled the protesters “insurrectionists”, and California officials said they intended to sue him for taking control of the state’s National Guard without following the legal process. Trump violated the Constitution and inflamed tensions, they said, by deploying National Guard troops to quell demonstrations against the administration’s immigration crackdown.
There were concerns that the tension might spread to other cities. In San Francisco, police said that more than 150 arrests had been made at solidarity protests late Sunday, though all but one person had been cited and released. Other protests were held across the country to oppose the arrest of a union leader, David Huerta, who made an initial court appearance and was released on a $50,000 bond Monday afternoon.
The protests in other cities remained small by midafternoon, although police in New York City appeared to be preparing for the possibility of a larger demonstration later in the day. In Los Angeles, about 150 people have been arrested since Friday, during protests following an immigration enforcement raid.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles told CNN that while she condemned the violence, it had been limited. “This is not citywide civil unrest,” she said.
Here’s what else to know:
— Trump rhetoric: By calling the protesters “insurrectionists,” Trump appeared to be adopting a rationale that could allow him to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and use active-duty U.S. military personnel to deal with violent protests. So far, the vast majority of protests have remained peaceful, and videos taken Sunday show that National Guard troops largely avoided clashing with demonstrators.
— Marine deployment: It was unclear exactly what grounds Trump and the Defense Department were using to send the Marines, based in Twentynine Palms, California, to American streets. Federal law generally bars active-duty forces from domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the little-used Insurrection Act — a step Trump has not taken so far. It was also unclear whether deployment of the Marines, first reported by CNN, meant that Marines have begun to physically move into Los Angeles.
— Marching in solidarity: Some of the people demonstrating in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday said they were first- or second-generation immigrants showing solidarity with their neighbors or family members. During a news conference Monday morning, several family members of the detained held photos of their loved ones and said that they have not been able to communicate with them.
— Mexican flags: Latin American flags emerged as emblems in the weekend protests. Trump officials have cast flag wavers as insurrectionists and seemed to assume they are not U.S. citizens. But for many protesters who are American citizens, the flag signifies pride in their roots.
