
Trump and California Governor Newsom clash over deployment of National Guard in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom after a second day of clashes between hundreds of protesters and federal immigration authorities in riot gear.
Newsom wrote on social media: 'The federal government is creating chaos so it can have an excuse to escalate things. This is not the way any civilized country behaves'.
He described the decision to deploy the National Guard as a 'deliberate and cowardly' action, adding that it would 'only escalate tensions.'
Trump reacted to Gavin Newsom in a posting on his 'Truth Social' platform on Saturday, writing, 'If Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles can't fulfill their duties that everyone knows they can't, then the federal government will step in and solve the problem of rioters and looters the way it needs to be solved!!!'
Confrontations broke out on Saturday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles, where federal agents were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office nearby. Agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls, and protesters hurled rocks and cement at Border Patrol vehicles. Smoke wafted from small piles of burning refuse in the streets.
Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, including in LA's fashion district and at a Home Depot, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed past 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.
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.
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.
US 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.
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!!!'
Speaking on TV station 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.
Arrests in Los Angeles
Protests kicked off a day earlier in Los Angeles after federal authorities arrested 44 people for violating immigration law Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security 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.'
The Trump administration's continued warnings and threats come as the Los Angeles Police Department says protests across the city are now proceeding 'peacefully.' — Euronews
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Asharq Al-Awsat
an hour ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Protests Intensify in Los Angeles after Trump Deploys Hundreds of National Guard Troops
Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump's extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who don't leave. Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover. Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents. The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention center where protesters concentrated. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were "overwhelmed" by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who show up at demonstrations to cause trouble. Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted "shame" and "go home." After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street. Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon. Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles. Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening. Governor says Guard not needed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a "serious breach of state sovereignty." He was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials. The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Trump's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to enflame tensions. They have both urged protesters to remain peaceful. "What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration," she said in an afternoon press conference. "This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety." But McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days. He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said. Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Trump a "stone cold liar." The admonishments did not deter the administration. "It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. Deployment follows days of protest The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton. Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot. The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement. The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops. The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Trump says there will be 'very strong law and order' In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States." He said he had authorized the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard. Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were "violent people" in Los Angeles "and they're not gonna get away with it." Asked if he planned to send US troops to Los Angeles, Trump replied: "We're gonna have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country." He didn't elaborate. About 500 Marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Los Angeles were in a "prepared to deploy status" Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.


Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Scuffles erupt in Los Angeles as soldiers sent by Trump fan out
Demonstrators torched cars and scuffled with security forces in Los Angeles on Sunday as police kept protesters away from the National Guard troops President Donald Trump sent to the streets of America's second-biggest city. Unrest broke out for a third day, with protesters angry at action by immigration officials that has resulted in dozens of arrests of what authorities say are illegal migrants and gang members. The raids -- which began in broad daylight on Friday in a city with a large Latino population -- were always likely to spark reaction among the public in the liberal city. But opponents say Trump, who has made clamping down on illegal migration a key plank of his second term, was deliberately stoking tensions with his deployment of California's National Guard, a stand-by military usually controlled by the state's governor, Gavin Newsom. 'We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' Newsom wrote on X. 'This is a serious breach of state sovereignty -- inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they're actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California,' he added. At least three self-driving Waymo cars were burned on Sunday, with two others vandalized as protesters roamed around a limited area in downtown Los Angeles. Traffic was halted on a key freeway for over an hour while scores of people thronged the roadway. They were moved off by California Highway Patrol officers, who used flash-bangs and smoke grenades. But after a limited early confrontation between federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security and a few dozen protesters at a detention center, the clashes all involved local law enforcement. By early afternoon LAPD officers established containment lines some distance from federal buildings, preventing contact between angry demonstrators and the scores of armed National Guardsmen from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, who had gathered in helmets and camouflage gear. As night fell a few dozen people -- many wearing masks and hoodies -- remained in hotspots, with some lobbing projectiles and fireworks. Law enforcement have arrested at least 56 people over two days, and three officers have suffered minor injuries, LAPD said. 'Troops everywhere' Trump, asked about the use of troops, was unrepentant, hinting instead at a more widespread deployment in other parts of the country. 'You have violent people, and we are not going to let them get away with it,' he told reporters. 'I think you're going to see some very strong law and order.' Responding to a question about invoking the Insurrection Act -- which would allow the military to be used as a domestic police force -- Trump said: 'We're looking at troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country.' US Northern Command, part of the Department of Defense responsible for national defense, said 'approximately 500 Marines... are in a prepared-to-deploy status should they be necessary to augment and support' the ongoing federal operations. The National Guard is frequently used in natural disasters, and occasionally in instances of civil unrest, but almost always with the consent of local authorities. Trump's deployment of the force -- the first over the head of a state governor since 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement -- was criticized by Democrats, including former vice president Kamala Harris who called it 'a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos.' 'Intimidation' But Republicans lined up behind Trump to dismiss the pushback. 'I have no concern about that at all,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson, accusing Newsom of 'an inability or unwillingness to do what is necessary.' Demonstrators told AFP the purpose of the troops did not appear to be to keep order. 'I think it's an intimidation tactic,' Thomas Henning said. 'These protests have been peaceful. There's no one trying to do any sort of damage right now and yet you have the National Guard with loaded magazines and large guns standing around trying to intimidate Americans from exercising our First Amendment rights.' Marshall Goldberg, 78, told AFP that deploying Guardsmen made him feel 'so offended.' 'We hate what they've done with the undocumented workers, but this is moving it to another level of taking away the right to protest and the right to just peaceably assemble,' he said. Raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in other US cities have triggered small-scale protests in recent months, but the Los Angeles unrest is the biggest and most sustained against Trump's immigration policies so far. A CBS News poll taken before the Los Angeles protests showed a slight majority of Americans still approved of the crackdown.


Asharq Al-Awsat
2 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Iran Says No Sanctions Relief in US Nuclear Proposal
Iran's parliament speaker said on Sunday that the latest US proposal for a nuclear deal does not include the lifting of sanctions, state media reported as negotiations appeared to have hit a roadblock. The two foes have held five rounds of Omani-mediated talks since April, seeking to replace a landmark agreement between Tehran and world powers that set restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief, before US President Donald Trump abandoned the accord in 2018 during his first term, said AFP. In a video aired on Iranian state TV, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that "the US plan does not even mention the lifting of sanctions". He called it a sign of dishonesty, accusing the Americans of seeking to impose a "unilateral" agreement that Tehran would not accept. "The delusional US president should know better and change his approach if he is really looking for a deal," Ghalibaf said. On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received "elements" of a US proposal, with officials later taking issue with "ambiguities" in the draft text. The US and its Western allies have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a charge Iran has consistently denied, insisting that its atomic program was solely for peaceful purposes. Key issues in the negotiations have been the removal of biting economic sanctions and uranium enrichment. Tehran says it has the right to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while the Trump administration has called any Iranian enrichment a "red line". Trump, who has revived his "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions on Iran since taking office in January, has repeatedly said it will not be allowed any uranium enrichment under a potential deal. On Tuesday, Iran's top negotiator, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said the country "will not ask anyone for permission to continue enriching uranium". IAEA meeting According to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state in the world that enriches uranium up to 60 percent -- close to the 90 percent threshold needed for a nuclear warhead. Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected the latest US proposal and said enrichment was "key" to Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA Board of Governors is scheduled to meet in Vienna starting Monday and discuss Iran's nuclear activities. On Sunday the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran warned it could reduce its level of cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog if it adopts a resolution against it. "Certainly, the IAEA should not expect the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue its broad and friendly cooperation," the Iranian agency's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV. Araghchi on Friday accused European powers of "opting for malign action against Iran at the IAEA Board of Governors", warning on X that "Iran will react strongly against any violation of its rights". A quarterly report from the IAEA issued last week cited a "general lack of cooperation" from Iran and raised concerns over undeclared nuclear material. Tehran has rejected the report as politically motivated and based on "forged documents" it said had been provided by its arch foe Israel.