Hundreds of US Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area yesterday under orders from President Donald Trump, who defended the deployment as he sought to quell protests in the city despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local leaders.
The president has also activated 4,000 National Guard troops.
The city has seen days of public protests since the Trump administration launched a series of immigration raids on Friday. State officials said Trump’s response was an overreaction to mostly peaceful demonstrations.
About 700 Marines were in a staging area awaiting deployment to specific locations, a US official said.
The Marines do not have arrest authority and will protect federal property and personnel, according to military officials. There were approximately 2,100 Guard troops in greater Los Angeles yesterday, with more on the way, the official said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told KABC that more than 100 people had been arrested on Monday but that the majority of protesters were non-violent.
“Let me be clear: Anyone who vandalised Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,” Bass later wrote on X. “You will be held accountable.”
Trump has justified his decision to deploy active military troops to Los Angeles by describing the protests as a violent occupation, a characterisation that Newsom and Bass have said is grossly exaggerated.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office yesterday, the president said Los Angeles would be ‘burning right now’ if not for the deployments, and that Guard troops would remain until there is no danger.
Trump also left open the possibility of invoking the centuries-old Insurrection Act, which would allow the military to take part directly in civilian law enforcement, saying one could argue that parts of the city were already seeing an insurrection.
Newsom accused Trump of sending troops to deliberately inflame the situation for political reasons.
“It’s a blatant abuse of power,” the governor wrote on X.
The protests since Friday have been largely peaceful and mostly concentrated in downtown Los Angeles. But there have been clashes, with some demonstrators throwing rocks and other objects at officers, blocking an interstate highway and setting cars ablaze.
Several businesses were looted, including an Apple store and a CVS pharmacy. Police have responded by firing projectiles such as pepper balls, as well as flash-bang grenades and tear gas.
The Los Angeles Police Department said it arrested at least 50 people on charges including attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail and assaulting an officer.
Trump’s Marine deployment escalated his confrontation with Newsom, who filed a lawsuit on Monday asserting that Trump’s activation of Guard troops without the governor’s consent was illegal. The Guard deployment was the first time in decades that a president did so without a request from a sitting governor.
The use of active military to respond to civil disturbances is extremely rare.
“This isn’t about public safety,” Newsom wrote on X on Monday. “It’s about stroking a dangerous President’s ego.”
The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, said he was ‘gravely troubled’ by Trump’s deployment of active-duty Marines.
“Since our nation’s founding, the American people have been perfectly clear: we do not want the military conducting law enforcement on US soil.”
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