The US military confirmed that hundreds of active-duty marines will be deployed to Los Angeles, fulfilling Donald Trump’s threat to send additional troops to the city to suppress protests against government immigration raids and deportations.
US Northern Command announced that a battalion of 700 marines had been activated to work alongside roughly 2,100 National Guard troops mobilised by the Trump administration to help protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents.
The marines are moving from their base at Twentynine Palms in southern California to the Los Angeles area. The deployment risks dramatically escalating tensions in a city on edge after four days of protests against the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Monday afternoon’s demonstrations had remained largely peaceful.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was no expectation that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act for now, as some critics had suggested. However, the person added that the situation was “fluid” and might change.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office called the marine mobilisation “completely unwarranted, uncalled for, and unprecedented”.
“Trump is escalating this situation even further – deploying active duty Marines, the ‘best of the best,’ against their own countrymen in an American city,” the office wrote. “Completely unnecessary and only inflames the situation more”.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the department had not received “any formal notification” of the marines’ activation and stated that the “arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles – absent clear coordination – presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city”.
ABC News reported the troops would be “tasked with a support role, helping law enforcement only”, whilst Reuters quoted an official saying they would be “protecting federal property and facilities”.
Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles on Saturday following three days of protests over Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency raids.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth stated the same day that marines from Camp Pendleton, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles, were on “high alert” and ready for mobilisation.
Trump said on Monday he would not hesitate to send more troops amid a dispute with Newsom over the legality of such action.
“If I didn’t get involved, if we didn’t bring the guard in – and we would bring more in if we needed it, because we have to make sure there’s going to be law and order – you had a disaster happening,” Trump said at a White House business investment roundtable.
Newsom called Trump’s National Guard deployment in response to largely peaceful protests an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism” and “illegal and immoral”.
“Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach,” he said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the state would file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for “unlawfully” federalising the state’s National Guard and deploying troops to quell protests.
Some veterans have criticised Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops, warning he risked turning the traditionally neutral US military into a partisan political force.
“This is the politicisation of the armed forces,” Major General Paul Eaton said. “It casts the military in a terrible light”.
US military personnel are prohibited from performing law enforcement activities domestically unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act, an 1807 Congressional act permitting federalisation of National Guard troops and deployment of standing armed forces units.
The act was most recently invoked by President George HW Bush in May 1992 to suppress riots following the acquittal of Los Angeles police officers for beating Black motorist Rodney King.
(information from The Guardian)
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