Donald Trump orders immigration raids in ‘Democratic Power Center' cities
President Donald Trump is threatening to ramp up deportation raids and target cities led by Democrats, following days of protests over deportation raids in Los Angeles, during which he seized control of the California National Guard.
In a Sunday evening social media post, Trump said he had directed his administration to carry out mass deportations — one of his core campaign promises — in metropolitan areas 'at the core of the Democrat Power Center' like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. While those cities are led by Democratic mayors, New York Mayor Eric Adams has sided with the administration over immigration crackdowns after it dismissed a federal corruption case against him.
Trump's post came two days before a federal hearing to decide if a temporary injunction can go forward blocking him from taking over the California National Guard and sending U.S. Marines to put down anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hold a remote hearing Tuesday at noon. Congressional Republicans have also ordered an investigation into Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's response to the protests.
The White House directed a request for comment to Trump's post, and said the administration stood by 'the President's TRUTH.' An ICE spokesperson said in an unsigned email that they did not confirm or discuss operations to ensure officers' safety.
Trump said in his post that he was ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officials to 'FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities,' where he said local leaders were using 'Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.'
Trump's rhetoric has roots in Great Replacement Theory, a debunked far-right conspiracy that claims liberals are 'replacing' white people with non-white people via mass immigration and demographic change, according to Lafayette College political theorist Michael Feola. Mass shooters in New York, Pennsylvania and Texas have cited their belief in it, and it has gained traction among mainstream GOP politicians.
Trump's success in mainstreaming this type of grievance has been in capitalizing on populist anger towards entrenched institutions and elitism, as well as backlash against immigration, Feola said. And while Trump has long run on an anti-immigration platform, Feola said his approach during his second term has been much more 'disciplined,' citing the administration's willingness to confront or ignore the courts.
'What strikes me, and a lot of people now is how he's expanding and how he's using this long trend of messaging that he's long relied upon, but now it's being matched by the internal discipline within the administration to carry this out in a far more effective manner than was ever possible for him before,' Feola said.
Coincidentally, Monday was the tenth anniversary of when Trump launched his first campaign, during which the future president told attendees at Trump Tower in New York he was running to ensure Mexico was held to account for sending people who 'brought crime' to the United States.
While Newsom sued Trump and sparred with him during his first administration, he recently told the Wall Street Journal that the president has been more 'vindictive' in his second term. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds if California lawmakers didn't bar trans athletes from competitions or overhaul its immigration and environmental policies. California has, in turn, sued the White House 24 times since Trump took office 20 weeks ago.
'His plan is clear: Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law and consolidate power,' Newsom said on Monday. 'It's illegal and we will not let it stand.'
Leslie Gielow Jacobs, a constitutional law expert at the McGeorge School of Law, said the legal conflict between California and the White House was 'highly unusual,' but not without precedent.
Lyndon B. Johnson was the last president to activate National Guard troops over a governor's objections in 1965, when Alabama Gov. George Wallace refused to protect civil rights activists planning to march from Selma to Montgomery.
Gielow Jacobs said it was likely Tuesday's hearing would end up with the appeals court placing some sort of constraint on Trump's ability to nationalize California National Guard members, but not outright restrain him. She expects the case to quickly reach the Supreme Court, citing Newsom's use of an emergency order to block Trump.
'It's a conflict between the president and the judicial branch with the state in the middle of it,' Gielow Jacobs said.
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