National Guard troops have been deployed in Los Angeles on orders from President Donald Trump in response to clashes between US federal immigration authorities and protesters seeking to block them from carrying out deportations.
Members of California’s National Guard were seen staging yesterday at the federal complex in Los Angeles that includes the Metropolitan Detention Centre, one of several sites that have seen confrontations involving hundreds of people in last two days.
The troops included members of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a social media post from the Department of Defence that showed dozens of Guard members with long guns and an armoured vehicle.
Trump has said he is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests, which he called ‘a form of rebellion’.
US Vice President J D Vance declared, “Time to pass President Trump’s beautiful bill and further secure the border.”
In a post on X, Vance slammed protesters. “One of the main technical issues in the immigration judicial battles is whether Biden’s border crisis counted as an ‘invasion’,” he said.
“Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers, while one half of America’s political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil.”
The deployment follows clashes near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles.
As protesters sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, federal agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls. A car was set on fire by the protesters in neighbouring Compton.
In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty Marines ‘if violence continues’ in the region.
The move came over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom, marking the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.
Newsom, a Democrat, said Trump’s decision to call in the National Guard was ‘purposefully inflammatory’. He described Hegseth’s threat to deploy Marines on American soil as ‘deranged behaviour’.
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