700 Marines Deployed to L.A. as Immigration Protests Continue

Yomiuri Shimbun

5 hours ago

Joshua Lott/The Washington Post
Protesters are seen outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Monday in Los Angeles.
The Pentagon on Monday ordered a battalion of 700 Marines to Los Angeles as protests of the Trump administration's immigration policies spilled into a fourth day, escalating a confrontation between the White House and the country's most populous state.
The Marines, summoned from an infantry unit typically trained for overseas warfare, will assist more than 300 National Guard members that President Donald Trump deployed to the city over the weekend, the first wave of roughly 2,100 activated so far for the mission, according to the Defense Department. The deployments follow demonstrations against immigration raids that at times turned violent.
The Marines, stationed east of Los Angeles in Twentynine Palms, had started moving out Monday afternoon, a defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.
This marks the first time in six decades an American president has ordered such a military intervention without the approval of a state's governor.
State and local officials in California – a frequent target of Trump's ire – denounced the move as incendiary.
'This is unprecedented that the president is using the military against his own people in this way,' said Los Angeles City Council member Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose district adjacent to downtown encompasses a range of immigrant communities.
Most protests have been peaceful, state and local officials have said, even as they spread to cities across the country.
'U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy. They are heroes,' California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said on social media. 'They shouldn't be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American.'
The Marines will deploy from a military base in Twentynine Palms, a three-hour drive east of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert. They will focus on 'protecting federal personnel and federal property,' the Pentagon said in a statement, and they will partner with National Guard members who have been trained in crowd control and de-escalation.
The mobilization is a significant move by the Pentagon. Typically, National Guard members, rather than active-duty troops such as the Marines, are mobilized for civil unrest missions at the behest of governors or the president.
The Marines and Guard members under federal orders will serve in a support role and cannot participate in direct immigration or law enforcement operations. That would change if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, which gives the president broader powers to conduct policing operations with troops under federal control.
Troops being sent to Los Angeles are 'trained in de-escalation, crowd control, and standing rules for the use of force,' Northern Command, which oversees operations in North America, said in a statement.
The activated units so far are drawn from combat units, not military police personnel, who specialize in civil disturbance response.
The move was met with skepticism among some of the protesters in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.
Amaris Leon, a 35-year-old lawyer from Sacramento, said he interpreted the deployment of Marines as an effort to set 'the military on civilians for exercising their First Amendment rights.'
Trump is trying to rile people up, said Teri Merrick, a retired professor, 'so he can have an excuse to come in and stomp everybody down.'
The protests began after a week of immigration raids in Southern California, which resulted in more than 100 arrests at workplaces that neighbors described as normally calm, including a doughnut shop and Home Depot stores. Demonstrators took to the streets in response, lighting the fuse that sparked days of widely broadcasted dust-ups.
Portions of the 101 Freeway closed over the weekend when protesters clogged its southbound lanes, snarling already notorious traffic. Protesters hurled rocks at police cruisers, tear gas filled the air and phones captured videos of rioters torching self-driving vehicles, leading one robotaxi company to suspend part of its Los Angeles services. More than 50 protesters have been arrested, according to local law enforcement.
The National Guard members had already improved the situation in Los Angeles, Trump said Monday. 'Thank goodness we sent out some wonderful National Guard – they really helped,' he said. 'A lot of problems that we're having out there, they were afraid to do anything. And we sent out the troops, and they've done a fantastic job.'
But local officials said the deployment was unnecessary.
The chaos from the protests was contained to 'a few streets downtown' that looked 'horrible,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said on CNN. But there has not been, she added, 'citywide civil unrest.'
California sued the Trump administration Monday over the deployment of California National Guard members to Los Angeles without Newsom's consent.
The fallout from the protests appears to have deepened the political feud between Trump and Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic hopeful. The Trump administration has been weighing the cancellation of California's federal funding, an unprecedented move that would decimate the state's budget. And Trump endorsed arresting Newsom on Monday after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House.
'I would do it if I were Tom,' Trump told reporters as he returned to the White House, referring to border czar Tom Homan. 'I think it's great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.'
Newsom responded minutes later in a social media post on X, calling it 'an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.'
'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation – this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,' he wrote.
After a chaotic weekend, downtown Los Angeles residents woke to a jarring combination of calm streets and graffiti-marred buildings. Just outside the city's core, in the coffee-shop-studded neighborhood of Silver Lake, people casually walked dogs and sipped cortados as the workweek started.
Yet the national spotlight remained glued to Hollywood's backyard, which was caught in the crosshairs of dueling political narratives: While right-leaning media looped videos of burning cars and street skirmishes, Democrats insisted that most protesters remained peaceful.
Protests spread across the country after the Friday arrest of David Huerta, the 58-year-old head of the Service Employees International Union's California branch. Huerta was arrested after sitting in the path of federal agents targeting Los Angeles warehouse workers, and he now faces a felony conspiracy charge. The Service Employees International Union, which represents thousands of janitors, cooks, security guards and other service workers, organized rallies in more than a dozen states, with members and their supporters condemning immigration-enforcement tactics they cast as inhumane.
Huerta was released from custody Monday on a $50,000 bond.
Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, wrote in a post on X that Huerta had 'deliberately obstructed' federal agents who were executing a warrant.
'No one has the right to assault, obstruct, or interfere with federal authorities carrying out their duties,' Essayli wrote.
Some Los Angeles residents are bracing for more protests.
Christian Frizzell, owner of the downtown Redwood Bar, was trying to decide whether to close early Monday. They usually stay open until 2 a.m. But he noticed a nearby credit union had boarded up its windows in anticipation of more protests.
Back in 2020, his bar was damaged during Black Lives Matter protests.
Still, he wasn't sure if Marines were the best choice to protect his property.
'It seems like a large escalation,' he said of the coming deployment. 'I wish they would try to cool it down.'