The protests, once contained to small corners of Los Angeles, have spread across the country. And cities are waking up to more.
Downtown Los Angeles is currently under a curfew. Police officers wrestled protesters to the ground in New York, used chemical agents in Atlanta and monitored large demonstrations in Chicago, where people vandalized vehicles and threw water bottles at them. In Los Angeles, the police flew in a helicopter and threatened over a loudspeaker to arrest anyone who broke the curfew downtown.
The fight between California and the Trump administration has also escalated. In a nationally televised speech, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who may have presidential ambitions, argued that Trump’s deployment of nearly 5,000 federal troops to Los Angeles had put the U.S. on the verge of authoritarianism. “Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said. “The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”
The protests are expected to continue today: Marines will be in Los Angeles to protect immigration agents and federal buildings, expanding the government’s rare use of military forces on domestic soil. The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has called in the National Guard ahead of protests planned in San Antonio. Trump threatened that protesters across the country would be met with “equal or greater force” than those in Los Angeles, which he called “a trash heap.” He promised to “liberate” it.
Below, we explain what is happening.
The raids continue
The protests are a widespread rebuke of Trump’s immigration policies. The president won the election on a pledge to conduct mass deportations, and he has used cinematic raids to signal he’s making good on that promise.
As anger spreads in cities, Trump is digging in. Agents are rushing to arrest undocumented migrants, and he has sent federal troops to work with them. National Guard troops accompanied federal immigration officers on raids across Los Angeles. The Marines will also provide security to ICE agents as they do their work today, a government spokeswoman said.