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Law enforcement officers clashed with protesters in Los Angeles for a third day after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to stamp out demonstrations against raids on suspected illegal immigrants.
Officers and guards fired tear gas, smoke-filled canisters and rubber bullets at protesters near a detention centre in downtown LA on Sunday. About 300 members of the National Guard were on the scene.
Protesters managed to halt vehicles on the busy 101 highway near City Hall, snarling traffic and prompting officers to fire a barrage of flash-bang devices. A number of self-driving Waymo vehicles were set on fire.
By nightfall, police had made dozens of arrests and the LA Police Department had issued an “unlawful assembly” declaration to clear downtown streets.
After the deployment of National Guard troops on Sunday, Gavin Newsom, California governor, accused the Trump administration of a “serious breach of state sovereignty”.
It was the first time since 1965 that a US president has deployed a state’s National Guard without being asked by the governor.
Over the weekend, Trump invoked a rarely used law designed to repress invasions and rebellions to send in the troops, a move deemed unnecessary by local law enforcement officials and decried by Newsom as “inflammatory”.
The US president justified the move on Sunday with incendiary language: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals.”
On his Truth Social platform Trump claimed, without evidence, that “violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations”.
The large protest in downtown LA drew a crowd of thousands, some waving Mexican flags and carrying signs that said: “Immigrants Make America Great”.
When some protesters tossed water bottles at police, others in the crowd yelled: “Don’t throw things — this is what Trump wants you to do!”
The unrest in the second-largest US city followed sweeps of businesses by federal agents, who arrested dozens of people suspected of being illegal immigrants.
On Sunday evening, Trump did not rule out sending in marines after defence secretary Pete Hegseth threatened the move on Saturday.
“We’re going to see what we need,” he told reporters. “We’ll send whatever we need to ensure there’s law and order.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump said he had ordered officials “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots”.
Deploying up to 2,000 guardsmen will test the ability of heavily Democratic states to resist the Trump administration’s agenda and protect their citizens from its enforcement actions.
Trump’s decision to “federalise” the National Guard — or transfer it from state to federal control — was highly unusual. It was last done in 1992, when then-President George HW Bush sent guardsmen to LA to control riots following the beating by police of Rodney King. In that instance, the Guard’s assistance was requested by California’s governor, Pete Wilson.
This time Trump overruled the wishes of Newsom, a frequent target of the president.
Newsom said the Trump administration made the decision to deploy the National Guard “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle” in a post on X.
Nanette Barragán, a Democratic member of Congress whose district includes the areas of southern Los Angeles that witnessed many of the protests, told CNN that Trump was “sending in the National Guard because he doesn’t like the scenes. He doesn’t like the scenes of people peacefully protesting.”
Barragán said officials in Los Angeles had been told by the federal government to “get ready for 30 days of enforcement”, while border tsar Tom Homan told NBC that “around 150” undocumented immigrants had already been detained in the city over the past two days.
The deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles comes amid a broader stand-off between the White House and California.
The Trump administration, which has been aiming for a “minimum” of 3,000 migrant arrests daily, has clashed with the predominantly Democratic state, after officials vowed resistance and non-cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Trump has threatened federal funding cuts due to California’s positions on immigration, transgender rights and other matters.
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