Lawmakers condemn Trump's use of Guard, active-duty troops in LA
Congressional Democrats and administration critics condemned President Donald Trump's decision this weekend to federalize National Guard troops in California as a serious breach of standards for the involvement of the military in domestic affairs.
'Such unilateral action, taken without consultation with local leaders, risks escalating tensions rather than calming them,' Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Sunday night. 'This move sets a troubling precedent for military intervention in local law enforcement.
'It is crucial that decisions of this magnitude are made with transparency, restraint, and respect for constitutional balance.'
Over the weekend, Trump announced plans to deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests over immigration policies and enforcement. About 300 have already arrived in the city to help with peacekeeping activities.
The move came over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the move 'a serious breach of state sovereignty' in a social media post Sunday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a statement called Trump's decision 'an abuse of power and a dangerous escalation. It's what you would see in authoritarian states and it must stop.'
Officials from the veterans organization Common Defense said the moves 'undermine civil rights and betray the principles we swore to uphold.' Newsom and others promised to file legal actions in coming days to challenge the president's decision.
In addition to the Guard actions, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to social media late Saturday night to say that if violence in the Los Angeles region continues, 'active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized.' Officials said about 500 active-duty personnel are preparing to deploy if needed.
Trump has cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.'
But critics have called his interpretation of the law an overreaction, and noted that the recent moves were the first time in decades that a state's National Guard was activated without a request from its governor.
Hegseth is scheduled to testify before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Tuesday, where he will likely face additional questions about the military deployments.
The Los Angeles protests were sparked by the arrest of more than 40 individuals in immigration raids across the city Friday. Since then, nearly 60 more have been charged with vandalism and violence for attempts to block federal officials from conducting additional operations.
Trump on social media said the individuals objecting to the immigration raids 'are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists.' He also repeatedly criticized Newsom and local Democratic leaders for not taking a stronger stance against the violence.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
14 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Is Elon Musk right to oppose the budget bill? What Americans said in a new poll
During his public falling out with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk slammed the president's proposed spending bill — dubbed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' — claiming it will balloon the deficit. It turns out, most Americans agree with his critique, new polling reveals. In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, half of respondents were asked to react to a statement from Musk on the GOP-backed spending bill, which passed in the House without a single Democratic vote. The legislation, Musk wrote on X on June 3, 'will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion and burden (American) citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.' A majority of respondents, 56%, said they agreed with this statement, while just 17% said they disagreed. More than one-quarter, 27%, said they were unsure. The answers were largely linked to partisan affiliation, with Democrats largely siding with Musk for a change. Seventy-two percent of Democrats said they concurred with the billionaire's statement about the spending bill, as did 55% of independents. Among Republicans, a plurality, 44%, said they agreed. The poll — which sampled 1,533 U.S. adults June 6-9 — posed the same statement before the other half of respondents, but this time, it did not attribute it to Musk. Without reference to Musk, a slightly smaller share, 49%, said they agreed with the statement, while 23% said they disagreed. Smaller shares of Republicans, independents and Democrats agreed, though Democrats saw the largest decrease in support — from 72% to 60%. The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. More on the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' The spending bill, which provides funding for fiscal year 2025, passed in the House in a 215-214 vote in late May and is now under consideration in the Senate. It contains many pieces of Trump's agenda, including a road map to extend the 2017 tax cuts, as well as an increase in funding for the Pentagon and border security, according to previous reporting from McClatchy News. At the same time, it slashes funding for social programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Further — to Musk's point — it would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency. In addition to Musk, the bill has received criticism from several other prominent conservatives in Congress. One of the most vocal opponents has been Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who wrote on X that 'the spending proposed in this bill is unsustainable, we cannot continue spending at these levels if we want to truly tackle our debt.' Other Republican lawmakers have come out in defense of the bill, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said the legislation will deliver 'historic tax relief, ensure our border stays secure, strengthen our military, and produce historic savings.' Meanwhile, Democrats have been united in their opposition. In a statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries labeled the bill 'the GOP Tax Scam' and said it would rip 'healthcare and food assistance away from millions of people in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected.'
Washington Post
14 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Sending the National Guard is bad. Arresting 3,000 a day is worse.
ICE agents making arrests in the parking lot of a Home Depot helped set off mass protests in Los Angeles. But that wasn't an isolated incident. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly taking actions at courthouses, restaurants and other spaces it previously stayed away from. President Donald Trump and his top aides have long favored harsh immigration policies. But what's shifted in recent weeks is that the administration has set a specific goal of ICE arresting at least 3,000 people per a quota may help Trump accomplish his goals, but it is leading to overly aggressive tactics that are deeply unsettling Americans across the country. It was perhaps inevitable that a president who promised to deport more people than his predecessors would implement an arrest quota. In the first months of Trump's tenure, the number of deportations and ICE arrests wasn't that much higher than when President Joe Biden was in office. That reportedly frustrated Trump administration officials, particularly Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. So last month, Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem privately gave ICE leaders — and then publicly confirmed — the goal of making 3,000 arrests per day. The administration also replaced ICE's leadership with people it felt would be more aggressive. That's a huge increase: The agency was making between 700 and 900 arrests per day at the end of Biden's term and the start of Trump's. And it appears this new policy is being carried out. ICE officials say they arrested 2,267 people on June 3 and 2,368 on June 4. It's possible these numbers are being inflated by the agency to please Trump and Miller. But there are articles in news outlets across the country about unprecedented ICE enforcement actions in their communities, so I believe the agency is going beyond its usual moves. But this policy is misguided. Quotas are problematic in many contexts. I support increased gender and racial diversity but am wary of organizations trying to hire a set number of women and people of color. In law enforcement, they are more troublesome. Police officers operating under quota systems feel pushed to make arrests for minor offenses. They sometimes target not the most dangerous people but those who are easiest to apprehend. That's what's happening now. Undocumented immigrants showing up to court hearings, working at clothing stores or looking to get Home Depot customers to hire them for day labor are probably not leading human trafficking organizations on the side. I am deeply concerned that ICE will soon start making arrests at schools and hospitals, since those are other places where you can arrest lots of people at once — few of whom will be armed or dangerous. I am opposed to these arrests in part because I don't support Trump's overarching goals of deporting 1 million immigrants a year and creating a climate in which other undocumented immigrants return to their native countries on their own. But you could argue that while Trump did not specifically campaign on 3,000 arrests per day, he promised to crack down on undocumented immigrants, and Americans elected him, so the public wants this. It's hard to determine why people voted for a candidate and what kind of mandate that gives them. But even if Trump campaigned explicitly on arresting 3,000 people a day, we should be wary of that policy — and not just because quotas generally aren't smart. This particular quota is excessive. If ICE arrested 3,000 a people a day, that would add up to about 1.1 million arrests after a year. There are about 11.7 million undocumented people in the United States. So if no individual was arrested more than once, about 9 percent of undocumented immigrants would be arrested in a given year under this policy. Arresting 9 percent of any group would almost certainly result in the other 91 percent being constantly worried about being arrested or jailed. And because about three quarters of undocumented immigrants are from Central or South America, some U.S. citizens and authorized residents who are Brown almost certainly will be unjustly arrested or questioned by ICE. This arrest quota echoes stop-and-frisk policies many police departments used to employ. At the height of that approach, there were about 350,000 stops of the 1.9 million Black New Yorkers. Basically every Black New Yorker had to be on guard for being stopped and frisked, and a judge invalidated the program on the grounds that it was racially discriminatory. Miller and Trump may want all 11.7 million undocumented immigrants to live in terror. But the rest of us shouldn't. The overwhelming majority of those people came to the United States seeking a better life. If we want to deter future immigrants, cracking down on employers who hire undocumented people and making it harder to enter the country in the first place are obvious solutions. Making life excessively difficult for people already here will probably discourage future migrants, but the U.S. government should not be in the business of rushing into restaurants and courthouses with guns to arrest people for the purpose of scaring others into leaving the country. Many Democratic politicians and political commentators have criticized Trump for deploying the National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to stop the protests of ICE's actions in Los Angeles. But Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson rightly invoked the National Guard, without support from governors, to integrate schools and defend civil rights marches respectively. The problem isn't that Trump is using the National Guard; it's that he's using the National Guard to defend a policy that will target people of color indiscriminately and inhumanely. The quota must go.
Washington Post
15 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Democrats ignored border politics. Now the consequences are here.
Democrats have gotten the border issue so wrong, for so long, that it amounts to political malpractice. The latest chapter — in which violent protesters could be helping President Donald Trump create a military confrontation he's almost begging for as a distraction from his other problems — may prove the most dangerous yet. When I see activists carrying Mexican flags as they challenge ICE raids in Los Angeles this week, I think of two possibilities: These 'protesters' are deliberately working to create visuals that will help Trump, or they are well-meaning but unwise dissenters who are inadvertently accomplishing the same goal. Democrats' mistake, over more than a decade, has been to behave as though border enforcement doesn't matter. Pressured by immigrant rights activists, party leaders too often acted as if maintaining a well-controlled border was somehow morally wrong. Again and again, the short-term political interests of Democratic leaders in responding to a strong faction within the party won out over having a policy that could appeal to the country as a whole. When red-state voters and elected officials complained that their states were being overwhelmed by uncontrolled immigration over the past decade, Democrats found those protests easy to ignore. They were happening somewhere else. But when red states' governors pushed migrants toward blue-state cities over the past several years, protests from mayors and governors finally began to register. But still not enough to create coherent Democratic policies, alas. It's open season on former president Joe Biden these days, and he doesn't deserve all the retrospective criticism he's getting. But on immigration, he was anything but a profile in courage. Security advisers including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wanted tougher border policies starting in 2021. But political advisers such as chief of staff Ron Klain, who sought amity with immigration rights progressives in Congress and the party's base, resisted strong measures. Though Biden was elected as a centrist, he leaned left — and waited until the last months of his presidency to take the strong enforcement measures recommended earlier. Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump played shamelessly on public anxieties about the border. Some of his arguments, like claims that hungry migrants were eating pets, were grotesque. They were simply provocations. But Biden and Kamala Harris didn't have good answers, other than indignation. They had straddled the issue through Biden's term, talking about border security but failing to enact it, and the public knew it. Democrats finally came up with a bipartisan border bill in 2024 that would have given the president more authority to expel migrants and deny asylum claims, and more money to secure the border. Republicans, led by Trump, were shameless opportunists in opposing the bill. They didn't want Biden to have a win. In the end, Democrats didn't have the votes — or, frankly, the credibility on the issue. Biden took executive action in June 2024, limiting entry into the United States. But it was too late. He could have taken that action in 2021. Since Trump took office in January, he has been building toward this week's confrontation in the streets. ICE raids have steadily increased in cities with large migrant populations, as have nationwide quotas for arrests and deportations. Trump declared a national emergency on Inauguration Day that gave him authority to send troops to the border to 'assist' in controlling immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem seized every photo opportunity to convey a militarized approach to the coming clash. Over these months, the immigration issue has been a car crash skidding toward us in slow motion. Since his first term, Trump has clearly wanted a military confrontation with the left over immigration or racial issues. Gen. Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped talk Trump out of invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 to contain the unrest that followed the death of George Floyd. But this time, Trump faces no opposition. He is surrounded by yes-men and -women. The saddest part is that Democrats still have no clear policy. Some blue-state mayors and governors have pledged to provide 'sanctuary' for migrants, but they don't have good arguments to rebut Trump's claim they're interfering with the enforcement of federal law. In some cases, sanctuary has meant refusing to hand over undocumented migrants convicted of violent crimes, former DHS officials tell me. That's wrong. The courts have limited Trump's most arbitrary policies and his defiance of due process, but not his authority to enforce immigration laws. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week chose sensible ground to fight, by filing a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to override gubernatorial power by federalizing National Guard troops when there isn't a 'rebellion' or 'invasion.' There is no evidence of such extreme danger — or that local law enforcement in Los Angeles can't handle the problems. But Newsom's smart pushback doesn't get Democrats out of addressing an issue they've been ducking for more than a decade: Do they have the courage to enforce the border themselves? Over the long run, taking border issues seriously means more immigration courts, and more border-control people and facilities — and a fair, legal way of deciding who stays and who goes. But right now, it means Democratic mayors and governors using state and local police to contain protests, so that troops aren't necessary — and preventing extremists among the activists from fomenting the cataclysm in the streets that some of them seem to want as much as Trump. Yes, of course, we need new bipartisan legislation to resolve the gut issue of how to protect the 'dreamers' and other longtime residents who show every day that they want only to be good citizens. But on the way to that day of sweet reason, Democrats need to oppose violence, by anyone — and to help enforce immigration policies that begin with a recognition that it isn't immoral to have a border.
