National Guard arrives in LA on Trump's orders to quell immigration protests
National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday on orders from US president Donald Trump, in response to clashes in recent days between federal immigration authorities and protesters seeking to block them from carrying out deportations.
Members of California's National Guard were seen mobilising at the federal complex in central Los Angeles that includes the Metropolitan Detention Centre, one of several sites that have seen confrontations involving hundreds of people in last two days.
The troops included members of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a social media post from the Department of Defence that showed dozens of National Guard members with long guns and an armoured vehicle.
Mr Trump has said he is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests, which he called "a form of rebellion".
The deployment was limited to a small area in central Los Angeles. The protests have been relatively small and limited to that area. The rest of the city of four million people is largely unaffected.
Their arrival follows clashes near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles.
As protesters sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, federal agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.
Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, 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.
On Sunday, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said the National Guard would "keep peace and allow people to be able to protest but also to keep law and order".
In a signal of the administration's aggressive approach, defence secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty marines "if violence continues" in the region.
The move came over the objections of governor Gavin Newsom, marking the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.
In a directive on Saturday, Mr 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".
Mr Newsom, a Democrat, said Mr Trump's decision to call in the National Guard was "purposefully inflammatory".
He described Mr Hegseth's threat to deploy marines on American soil as "deranged behaviour".
In a statement on Sunday, assistant homeland security secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused California's politicians and protesters of "defending heinous illegal alien criminals at the expense of Americans' safety".
"Instead of rioting, they should be thanking Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers every single day who wake up and make our communities safer," Ms McLaughlin added.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said the order by Mr Trump reflected "a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism" and "usurping the powers of the United States Congress".
Mr Trump's order came after clashes in Paramount and neighbouring 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 central Los Angeles, including a detention centre, where police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people.
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Irish Examiner
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Earlier, Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump's defense secretary, had raised the possibility of deploying US marines on to the streets of LA. Mr Newsom has called the potential deployment of US marines 'deranged'. He and other California leaders have been adamant that local officers had adequately responded to the protests on Friday and Saturday. 'Law enforcement authorities from the city and county of Los Angeles are safeguarding public safety, and, as demonstrated by the robust law enforcement response yesterday evening to protect federal facilities, local law enforcement resources are sufficient to maintain order,' Mr Newsom wrote to Mr Hegseth. Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, criticised Mr Newsom's stance on ABC's Face the Nation. She said: 'If he was doing his job people wouldn't have gotten hurt the last couple of days … Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions.' The independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders called the situation a threat to US democracy. 'We have a president who is moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism,' he told CNN. 'He does not believe in the rule of law.' In a joint statement, Democratic governors on Sunday condemned Mr Trump's deployment of the California national guard as an 'alarming abuse of power'. Tensions in Los Angeles had begun on Friday, when protesters clashed with law enforcement officials conducting immigration raids on multiple locations in the sprawling city's downtown. On Saturday, US immigration authorities extended enforcement action into Paramount, a majority Latino area south-east of Los Angeles, and were met with more protests outside an industrial park. A standoff developed between border patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks and protesters. As demonstrations continued, law enforcement deployed teargas and protesters also threw objects at them. At least one car was set alight. 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