U.S. Marines arrive in Los Angeles as city prepares for weekend protests
LOS ANGELES — A handful of U.S. Marines stood guard outside the Wilshire Federal Building on Friday afternoon, screening visitors to the installation.
The deployment of the Marines — joining National Guardsmen already stationed there — marked a rare instance of domestic use of American military forces in response to ongoing demonstrations against President Donald Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
The National Guard has been tasked with protecting federal buildings and accompanying federal agents during immigration operations.
The protests began on June 6 in response to deportation raids that took place in Los Angeles' Fashion District, and escalated to property damage and clashes with police over the weekend. In response, the Trump Administration mobilized 2,000 National Guardsmen — a number which has since doubled — on June 7, then days later summoned 700 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines stationed at Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County.
Federal immigration agents have continued to conduct raids, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Thursday that agents have since showed up at schools, emergency rooms and homeless shelters.
Protests have continued daily since the deportation raids began, mostly clustered around the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in the city's downtown. Demonstrations have remained mostly peaceful, though protesters have at times clashed with ICE agents attempting to conduct raids in other parts of the city. Since the protests began, Los Angeles Police said they have arrested more than 160 people, and another two dozen people were arrested by the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Police Department put out a statement warning protesters against prohibited items at Saturday's No Kings rally, including laser pointers, wooden sticks or plastic/metal pipes, posters or banners not made out of soft material, baseball bats, bear spray or pepper spray, projectile launchers like slingshots, weapons such as firearms or knives, water cannons, glass bottles, shields, open flames, or bricks or other items to be thrown.
The last time members of the American military were deployed in a similar fashion was more than 30 years ago, when Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to riots that broke out throughout Los Angeles after the police officers charged with the brutal beating of Rodney King were acquitted.
Trump's mobilization of the National Guard without Gov. Gavin Newsom's consent marked the first time since a president had done so in 60 years, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent National Guardsmen to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators marching to Montgomery.
Army Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who is overseeing the operations in Los Angeles, previously told reporters the service members 'will not participate in law enforcement activities.'
Initially, military officials said the troops would be tasked with guarding federal buildings, though they later said service members would also be authorized to accompany and protect ICE agents on deportation raids, and to detain anyone interfering with those operations.
Newsom and Bass have excoriated the federal mobilization, with Newsom calling the deployment a 'brazen abuse of power' that 'inflamed a combustible situation' and endangered Angelenos, law enforcement and service members alike.
'Trump is pulling a military dragnet across Los Angeles,' Newsom said in a video address to his constituents. 'It's weakness masquerading as strength.'
The state won a court order Thursday handing control of the National Guard back to Newsom, but an appeals court stayed the ruling until after it hears the case Tuesday.
Also on Thursday, Bass blasted the ICE raids as a 'pretext to federalize the National Guard' and said the deployment of U.S. Marines into an American city 'will target our own citizens.'
Not everyone was opposed to their presence, however. On Friday afternoon, Lavictor Goldsmith, 52, sat on his porch at an apartment complex across the street, surveying the troops as they stood guard outside of the federal building.
'They're a blessing here. Anyone could pull up and shoot the FBI. We can't have that,' said Goldsmith, who said he served 10 years in the U.S. Air Force as a boom operator.
'I hope everything will settle down by the end of summer.'
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