Department Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem will give remarks Thursday afternoon from Los Angeles as protesters lash out over immigration raids carried out by the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the city.

Noem is expected to defend the DHS’s deportation raids and the Trump administration’s decision to deploy National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to the area to help quell unrest.

Demonstrations have cropped up in the Los Angeles area — and nationwide — with hundreds of arrests being made in recent days amid the unrest over the administration’s efforts to conduct mass deportations.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have argued the deployment of troops will only exacerbate the tensions and called the president’s move a “brazen abuse of power.”

The news conference is scheduled to begin at 1:40 p.m. EDT.

Watch the live video above.