PARAMOUNT, Calif. (AP) — Against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom, President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of 2,000 troops from the California National Guard to Los Angeles. This action follows a second day of intense confrontations between protesters and federal immigration officers equipped in riot gear.
On Saturday, skirmishes erupted near a Home Depot in the predominantly Latino city of Paramount, located south of Los Angeles. Federal agents were gathering at a nearby Department of Homeland Security office when tensions flared. The agents resorted to deploying tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls, while protesters retaliated by throwing rocks and cement at Border Patrol vehicles. Smoke drifted through the streets from small fires started by burning debris.
The situation intensified after immigration officials conducted a series of raids the day before in various locations, including LA’s fashion district and a Home Depot. As the number of immigration-related arrests in the city surged beyond 100 within the week, a well-known union leader was taken into custody for reportedly obstructing law enforcement actions during the demonstrations.
The White House announced that Trump would deploy the Guard to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.” It wasn’t clear when the troops would arrive.
Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post on the social platform X that it was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.” He later said the federal government wants a spectacle and urged people not to give them one by becoming violent.
In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to deploy the U.S. military.
“If violence continues, active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert,” Hegseth said on X.
Trump’s order came after clashes in Paramount and neighboring Compton, where a car was set on fire. Protests continued into the evening in Paramount, with several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities holding up barbed wire to keep the crowd back.
Crowds also gathered again outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles, including a detention center, where local police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people.
Standoff in Paramount
Earlier in Paramount, immigration officers faced off with demonstrators at the entrance to a business park, across from the back of a Home Depot. They set off fireworks and pulled shopping carts into the street, broke up cinder blocks and pelted a procession of Border Patrol vans as they departed and careened down a boulevard.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said federal agents made more arrests of people with deportation orders on Saturday, but none at the Home Depot. The Department of Homeland Security has a building next door and agents were staging there as they prepared to carry out operations, he said on Fox11 Los Angeles. He didn’t say how many people were arrested Saturday or where.
Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons told multiple news outlets that community members showed up in response because people are fearful about activity by immigration agents.
“When you handle things the way that this appears to be handled, it’s not a surprise that chaos would follow,” Lemons said.
Some demonstrators jeered at officers while recording the events on smartphones.
“ICE out of Paramount. We see you for what you are,” a woman said through a megaphone. “You are not welcome here.”
More than a dozen people were arrested and accused of impeding immigration agents, Essayli posted on X, including the names and mug shots of some of those arrested. He didn’t say where they were protesting.
Trump calls up the Guard
Trump federalized part of California’s National Guard under what is known as Title 10 authority, which places him, not the governor, atop the chain of command, according to Newsom’s office.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the work the immigration authorities were doing when met with protests is “essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens.”
The president’s move came shortly after he issued a threat on his social media network saying that if Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did not “do their jobs,” then “the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
Trump signed the order shortly before he went to attend a UFC fight in New Jersey, where he sat ringside with boxer Mike Tyson.
Newsom said in his statement that local authorities “are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” and “there is currently no unmet need.”
The California Highway Patrol said Newsom directed it to deploy additional officers to “maintain public safety.”
Speaking on ABC7, Bass said that “we certainly want to make the opportunities available for people to exercise their First Amendment rights, but the minute that things turn to violence … that is not acceptable and people are going to be held accountable.”
She said she had spoken with members of the Trump administration and insisted that she and Newsom were in control and there was no need for the National Guard to be deployed.
In 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to quell protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Many agreed and sent troops.
Trump also threatened at the time to invoke the Insurrection Act for those protests — an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”
Trump did not invoke the act during his first term, and he did not do so Saturday, according to Leavitt and Newsom.
Arrests in Los Angeles
Protests kicked off a day earlier in Los Angeles after federal authorities arrested 44 people for violating immigration law Friday.
DHS later said recent ICE operations in Los Angeles resulted in the arrest of 118 immigrants, including five people linked to criminal organizations and people with prior criminal histories.
David Huerta, regional president of the Service Employees International Union, was also arrested Friday while protesting. The Justice Department confirmed that he was being held Saturday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles ahead of a scheduled Monday court appearance.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for his immediate release, warning of a “disturbing pattern of arresting and detaining American citizens for exercising their right to free speech.”
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Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Price from Bridgewater, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Eric Tucker in Washington and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.
