LOS ANGELES – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has vowed to persist with the Trump administration’s stringent approach to immigration enforcement, despite widespread unrest erupting across America.
Shortly after her statement on Thursday, a judge ruled that the president should return control over the National Guard troops to California, who had been deployed in response to protests against the immigration crackdown. However, an appeals court swiftly intervened, temporarily halting the judge’s order, which was set to take effect on Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arranged for a hearing on the issue to take place on Tuesday.
The federal judge’s temporary restraining order declared that the deployment of the National Guard was unlawful, breaching the Tenth Amendment and overstepping President Donald Trump’s legal authority. This order specifically addressed the National Guard troops, excluding the Marines who had been dispatched to the Los Angeles protests as they had not yet engaged in street operations, prompting the judge to withhold ruling on their involvement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom who had asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids, had praised the order before it was blocked saying “today was really about a test of democracy, and today we passed the test” and had said he would be redeploying Guard soldiers to “what they were doing before Donald Trump commandeered them.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the president acted within his powers and that the federal judge’s order “puts our brave federal officials in danger. The district court has no authority to usurp the President’s authority as Commander in Chief.”
The developments unfolded as protests continued in cities nationwide and the country braced for major demonstrations against Trump over the weekend.
‘This is only going to continue,’ DHS chief says of raids
Noem said the immigration raids that fueled the protests would move forward and agents have thousands of targets.
“This is only going to continue until we have peace on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said during a news conference that was interrupted by shouting from U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was forcibly removed from the event.
Newsom has warned that the military intervention is part of a broader effort by Trump to overturn norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy. He also said sending Guard troops on the raids has further inflamed tensions in LA.
So far the protests have been centered mostly in downtown near City Hall and a federal detention center where some immigrants are being held. Much of the sprawling city has been spared from the protests.
On the third night of an 8 p.m. curfew, Los Angeles police arrested several demonstrators who refused orders to leave a street downtown. Earlier in the night, officers with the Department of Homeland Security deployed flash bangs to disperse a crowd that had gathered near the jail, sending protesters sprinting away.
Those incidents were outliers. As with the past two nights, the hours-long demonstrations remained peaceful and upbeat, drawing a few hundred attendees who marched through downtown chanting, dancing and poking fun at the Trump administration’s characterization of the city as a “war zone.”
Elsewhere, demonstrations have picked up across the U.S., emerging in more than a dozen major cities. Some have led to clashes with police and hundreds have been arrested.
Noem calls action in LA a blueprint
The immigration agents conducting the raids in LA are “putting together a model and a blueprint” for other communities, Noem said.
She pledged that federal authorities “are not going away” even though, she said, officers have been hit with rocks and bricks and assaulted. She said people with criminal records who are in the country illegally and violent protesters will “face consequences.”
“Just because you think you’re here as a citizen, or because you’re a member of a certain group or you’re not a citizen, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected and not face consequences from the laws that this country stands for,” she said.
Noem criticized the Padilla’s interruption, calling it “inappropriate.” A statement from her agency said the two met after the news conference for about 15 minutes, but it also chided him for “disrespectful political theater.”
Padilla said later that he was demanding answers about the “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions” and only wanted to ask Noem a question. He said he was handcuffed but not arrested.
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community,” he said.
Military involvement escalates in LA
The administration has said it is willing to send troops to other cities to assist with immigration enforcement and controlling disturbances — in line with what Trump promised during last year’s campaign.
Some 2,000 Guard soldiers were in the nation’s second-largest city and were soon to be joined by 2,000 more, along with about 700 Marines, said Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who is in charge of the operation.
About 500 of the Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, Sherman said Wednesday. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement.
States face questions on deploying troops
With more demonstrations expected over the weekend, and the possibility that Trump could send troops to other states for immigration enforcement, governors are weighing what to do.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has put 5,000 National Guard members on standby in cities where demonstrations are planned. In other Republican-controlled states, governors have not said when or how they may deploy troops.
A group of Democratic governors earlier signed a statement this week calling Trump’s deployments “an alarming abuse of power.”
Hundreds arrested in LA protests
There have been about 470 arrests since Saturday, the vast majority of which were for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement, according to the police department.
There have been a handful of more serious charges, including for assault against officers and for possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injuries.
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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego, Jesse Bedayn in Denver, and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
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