Pentagon withdraws 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles
President Donald Trump ordered some 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines into Los Angeles in early June to help enforce federal immigration raids amid widespread protests.
According to Department of Homeland Security figures, cited by NBC Los Angeles, the raids have led to the arrest of 2,792 undocumented immigrants.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Tuesday confirmed the release of 2,000 California National Guardsmen 'from the federal protection mission'. He claimed the move was because 'the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding'.
Mayor Karen Bass described the withdrawal as a 'retreat', crediting the success of peaceful protests and legal actions.
'This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong,' Bass said.
'We organised peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court. All of this led to today's retreat,' the Democratic mayor said.
She referred to a lawsuit the city joined that led to an order from a federal judge barring immigration officers from detaining people based solely on their race or for speaking Spanish.
Federal troops deployed to Los Angeles are authorised to detain people who pose a threat to federal personnel or property, but only until police can arrest them.
Military officials are not allowed to carry out arrests themselves.
Responding to the withdrawal of some of the troops, California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said that 'thousands of members are still federalised in Los Angeles for no reason and unable to carry out their critical duties across the state'.
'End this theatre and send everyone home,' he added in a post on social media.
Despite legal challenges, a US appeals court has let Trump retain control of California's National Guard, the first to be deployed by a US president against the wishes of a state governor since 1965.
Newsom's office said in late June that California National Guard firefighting crews were 'operating at just 40 percent capacity due to Trump's illegal Guard deployment', as fires were 'popping up across the state' months after devastating fires tore through Los Angeles.
Originally a part of the Mexican empire, Los Angeles continues to have a large population of people with Central and South American origins. The Californian capital is also one of several so-called 'sanctuary' cities in the US, offering protection from deportation to hundreds of thousands of undocumented people living there.
Trump has promised to deport millions of people in the country without documentation and has executed raids at work sites, including farms that were largely exempted from enforcement during his first term. The administration has faced dozens of lawsuits across the country challenging its tactics.
Trump has also increasingly turned to the military in his immigration crackdown.
In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles, thousands of active-duty troops have been deployed to the border with Mexico, and the Pentagon has created military zones in the border area.
The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events such as civil disorder.
A recent poll showed support for immigration in the US has increased since last year, while backing for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants has gone down.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
18 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
‘Good Trouble Lives On' protests across US against Trump policies
Demonstrations have taken place at more than 1,600 locations around the United States, in protest against President Donald Trump's controversial policies that include mass deportations of immigrants and refugees and cuts to medical insurance, as well as the removal of other safety nets for impoverished people. The 'Good Trouble Lives On' refrain that underscored the national day of action on Thursday was inspired by the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis. He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture. Organisers had called for peaceful protests to take place on the fifth anniversary of Lewis's death along streets, at courts and other public spaces in cities including Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. 'We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation's history,' Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen, said during an online news conference on Tuesday. 'We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration … as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.' Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centred on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics, as well as access to healthcare. The administration has pushed third-party countries to accept deportees, and the African country of Eswatini has confirmed this week that it received five individuals deported from the US. The US also completed the deportations of eight men to South Sudan after a judge cleared the way for their transfer to the violence-hit African country. Trump's administration has also been actively targeting pro-Palestinian activists. Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student imprisoned for more than three months, this month filed a wrongful detention claim against Trump seeking $20m in damages. The so‑called 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' also prompted a backlash for slashing health coverage schemes, Medicare and Medicaid, by $930bn over the next decade. It could leave as many as 17 million Americans without insurance, in one of the steepest rollbacks of social welfare programmes in the US since their inception in 1935. Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as federal authorities conducted mass arrests at two Southern California marijuana farms. One farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid. Organisers of the June 14 'No Kings' demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to San Francisco. Demonstrators branded Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
EU hits Russian oil, shadow fleet with new sanctions over Ukraine war
The European Union has approved a new raft of stiff sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, including a lower oil price cap, a ban on transactions with Nord Stream gas pipelines, and the targeting of more shadow fleet ships. 'The message is clear: Europe will not back down in its support for Ukraine. The EU will keep raising the pressure until Russia ends its war,' EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a statement on Friday. Kallas said the EU move amounts to 'one of its strongest sanctions packages against Russia to date' linked to the war, which is now in its fourth year. It comes as European countries start to buy United States weapons for Ukraine to help the country better defend itself. US President Donald Trump announced the deal to supply more weapons to Ukraine and threatened earlier this week to impose steep tariffs on Russia unless a peace deal is reached within 50 days. The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, had proposed to lower the oil price cap from $60 to $45, which is lower than the market price to target Russia's vast energy revenues. The EU had hoped to get major international powers in the Group of Seven countries involved in the price cap to broaden the impact, but conflict in the Middle East pushed up oil prices and the US administration could not be brought on board . In 2023, Ukraine's Western allies limited sales of Russian oil to $60 per barrel , but the price cap was largely symbolic as most of Moscow's crude – its main moneymaker – cost less than that. Still, the cap was there in case oil prices rose. Oil Russia's main source of income The linchpin of Russia's economy is oil income, allowing President Vladimir Putin to pour money into the armed forces without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse. The EU has also targeted the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany to prevent Putin from generating any revenue from them in future, notably by discouraging would-be investors. Russian energy giant Rosneft's refinery in India was hit as well. The pipelines were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany but are not in operation. They were targeted by sabotage in 2022, but the source of the underwater explosions has remained a major international mystery. Additionally, the new EU sanctions are targeting Russia's banking sector, with the aim of limiting the Kremlin's ability to raise funds or carry out financial transactions. Two Chinese banks were added to the list. The EU has slapped several rounds of sanctions on Russia since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But each round of sanctions is getting harder to agree, as measures targeting Russia bite the economies of the 27 member nations. Slovakia held up the latest package over concerns about proposals to stop Russian gas supplies, which it relies on.
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump seeks release of grand jury transcripts as Epstein uproar widens
United States President Donald Trump has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to request a court release grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein case, as uproar over the controversy widens. The case of deceased high-profile sex offender Epstein has dominated news recently after the Trump administration reversed course last week on its pledge to release documents it had suggested contained damning revelations about Epstein and his alleged elite clientele. That reversal enraged many of Trump's most loyal followers and prompted allegations that his administration is covering up lurid details of Epstein's crimes to protect rich and powerful figures. Trump himself had been associated with Epstein and once called him a friend. 'Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late on Thursday. Shortly after Trump's statement, Attorney General Bondi said on social media that the Justice Department was ready to ask the court on Friday to unseal the grand jury transcripts. 'President Trump – we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts,' Bondi wrote. The latest development comes just hours after Trump threatened to sue The Wall Street Journal after it published a story about an alleged risque letter he wrote to Epstein that featured a drawing of a naked woman. The WSJ story, which quickly reverberated around the US capital, says the note to Epstein bearing Trump's signature was part of a collection assembled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The newspaper said it reviewed the letter but did not print an image. 'The Editor of The Wall Street Journal… was told directly by [White House Press Secretary] Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE,' Trump wrote on his social media platform. 'Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway,' he said. 'President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch, shortly. The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist,' he added. The alleged letter, which Trump denies writing, involves several lines of typewritten text, contained in an outline of a naked woman drawn with a marker. 'The future president's signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair,' the Journal reported. 'The letter concludes: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.'' Trump told the WSJ: 'This is not me. This is a fake thing.' 'I don't draw pictures of women,' he said. 'It's not my language. It's not my words.' Epstein took his own life in a New York prison in 2019 – during Trump's first term – after being charged with sex trafficking in a scheme where he allegedly groomed young and underage women for sexual abuse by the rich and powerful. The Trump-supporting far-right has long latched onto the scandal, claiming the existence of a still-secret list of Epstein's powerful clients and that the late financier was, in fact, murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up.
