Trump deploys National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell pro-immigration protests
California Governor Newsom called the decision ‘purposefully inflammatory’ as ICE agents clashed with crowds following immigration raids in the city
US President Donald Trump’s administration said it would deploy 2,000 National Guard troops on Saturday as federal agents in Los Angeles faced off against demonstrators for a second day following immigration raids.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that the Pentagon was prepared to mobilise active-duty troops “if violence continues” in Los Angeles, saying the Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were “on high alert”.
Federal security agents on Saturday confronted protesters in the Paramount area in southeast Los Angeles, where some demonstrators displayed Mexican flags. A second protest in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night attracted some 60 people, who chanted slogans including “ICE out of L.A.!”
Trump signed a presidential memorandum to deploy the National Guard troops to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” the White House said in a statement. Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, told Fox News that the National Guard would be deployed in Los Angeles on Saturday evening.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called the decision “purposefully inflammatory”.
Newsom said it was “deranged behavior” for Hegseth to be “threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens”.