PARAMOUNT, California (AP) — US President Donald Trump is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom after a second day of clashes between hundreds of protesters and federal immigration authorities in riot gear.
Confrontations broke out on Saturday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles, where federal agents were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office nearby. Agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls, and protesters hurled rocks and cement at Border Patrol vehicles. Smoke wafted from small piles of burning refuse in the streets.
Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, including in LA’s fashion district and at a Home Depot, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed past 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.
The White House announced that Trump would deploy the Guard to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.” It wasn’t clear when the troops would arrive.
Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post on the social platform X that it was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.” He later said the federal government wants a spectacle and urged people not to give them one by becoming violent.
In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to deploy the US military.
“If violence continues, active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert,” Hegseth said on X.
Trump’s order came after clashes in Paramount and neighboring Compton, where a car was set on fire. Protests continued into the evening in Paramount, with several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities holding up barbed wire to keep the crowd back.
Crowds also gathered again outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles, including a detention center, where local police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people.
Earlier in Paramount, immigration officers faced off with demonstrators at the entrance to a business park, across from the back of a Home Depot. They set off fireworks and pulled shopping carts into the street, broke up cinder blocks and pelted a procession of Border Patrol vans as they departed and careened down a boulevard.
US Attorney Bill Essayli said federal agents made more arrests of people with deportation orders on Saturday, but none were at the Home Depot. The Department of Homeland Security has a building next door, and agents were staging there as they prepared to carry out operations, he said on Fox11 Los Angeles. He did not say how many people were arrested on Saturday or where.
Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons told multiple news outlets that community members showed up in response because people are fearful about activity by immigration agents.
“When you handle things the way that this appears to be handled, it’s not a surprise that chaos would follow,” Lemons said.
Some demonstrators jeered at officers while recording the events on smartphones.
“ICE out of Paramount. We see you for what you are,” a woman said through a megaphone. “You are not welcome here.”
More than a dozen people were arrested and accused of impeding immigration agents, Essayli posted on X, including the names and mug shots of some of those arrested. He did not say where they were protesting.
Trump federalized part of California’s National Guard under what is known as Title 10 authority, which places him, not the governor, atop the chain of command, according to Newsom’s office.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the work the immigration authorities were doing when met with protests is “essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens.”
The president’s move came shortly after he issued a threat on his social media network saying that if Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did not “do their jobs,” then “the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
Trump signed the order shortly before he went to attend a UFC fight in New Jersey, where he sat ringside with boxer Mike Tyson.
Newsom said in his statement that local authorities “are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” and “there is currently no unmet need.”
The California Highway Patrol said Newsom directed it to deploy additional officers to “maintain public safety.”
In 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their National Guard troops to Washington DC to quell protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Many agreed and sent troops.
Trump also threatened at the time to invoke the Insurrection Act for those protests — an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”
Trump did not invoke the act during his first term, and he did not do so Saturday, according to Leavitt and Newsom.
Protests kicked off a day earlier in Los Angeles after federal authorities arrested 44 people for violating immigration law on Friday.
DHS later said recent ICE operations in Los Angeles resulted in the arrest of 118 immigrants, including five people linked to criminal organizations and people with prior criminal histories.
David Huerta, regional president of the Service Employees International Union, was also arrested Friday while protesting. The Justice Department confirmed that he was being held Saturday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles ahead of a scheduled Monday court appearance.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for his immediate release, warning of a “disturbing pattern of arresting and detaining American citizens for exercising their right to free speech.”