The New York City Police Department arrested around two dozen protesters at Manhattan’s Trump Tower who were demonstrating against the White House’s position on immigration policy.
At least 24 protestors were detained on trespassing charges after refusing to comply with police, who had warned that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave the Fifth Avenue building, according to the New York Daily News.
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Another seven protesters were arrested during a demonstration outside the federal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services district office in New York City on Monday evening. Roughly 200 protesters participated in an “ICE out of NYC” protest outside the building, where ICE detainees are being held, per ABC 7.
New York City Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a press conference responding to the demonstrations in the Big Apple that they stood ready to crack down on any “violence and lawlessness.”
“At the New York City Police Department, we know how to police protests in a manner that maintains public safety and upholds the law,” Tisch said. “We will maintain public order and we will do it consistent with the law.”
Calling the Los Angeles riots “unacceptable,” Adams warned that similar protests “would not be tolerated if attempted in our city.”
Protests against ICE’s actions to carry out President Donald Trump’s deportation of illegal immigrants sparked in Los Angeles on Friday when ICE arrested over 40 illegal immigrants in the area. Demonstrations have since spread to other major cities, including Dallas, Chicago, and Seattle.
The LAPD arrested 50 people over the weekend in response to violence that swiftly broke out in Los Angeles. Those arrested included a man accused of ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers and a suspect who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail.
Other California rioters set multiple Waymo taxis on fire and lobbed “commercial-grade fireworks” at officers, while masked men hurled chunks of concrete and electric scooters at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.
Waymo suspended service in downtown Los Angeles after facing up to $1 million in losses, according to KTLA.
Trump has attracted fierce criticism from Democrats who have accused him of unlawfully militarizing Los Angeles to shut down the protests.
The president defended himself in a post to Truth Social Tuesday morning, saying: “If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now.”
The Pentagon on Monday approved the deployment of 700 Marines to stabilize the area as riots continued for the fourth day.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said he would sue to stop troops from coming, calling the move a “blatant abuse of power.” The Marines shouldn’t be deployed “on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President,” the governor added in a post to social media.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also condemned the decision as unnecessary due to the National Guard’s presence in the city. Trump deployed 2,000 guardsmen to the area over the weekend and has since ordered the Pentagon to mobilize an additional 2,000, bringing the total to 4,000.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said that he had not received any form of notification regarding the military deployment, worrying that the lack of coordination would bring new challenges to security.
“The possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city,” he said Monday afternoon. “The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so effectively and professionally.”
But the police chief broke with Newsom and Bass’s blatantly hostile take on the deployment of Marines.
“Do we need them? Well, looking at tonight, this thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference Sunday evening.
Border czar Tom Homan defended the deployment as a necessary precaution in the event of more riots.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight — it seems like, at night, the crowds get bigger, the violence peaks. So, we want to be ahead of the game,” he said during a Monday evening interview on CNN. “We’ll be well prepared for the military here to protect government property and protect officers’ lives.”
Over the weekend, McDonnell clarified distinctions between protestors “legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights” and violent “anarchists” throwing objects at authorities and taking other criminal actions that could “kill you.”
“When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that’s not the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” McDonnell said. “These are people who are all hooded up — they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on.”
LA IMMIGRATION RIOTS: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROTESTS, TRUMP’S RESPONSE, AND MORE
“They’re people that do this all the time,” he said. “They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics frequently. And they are connected.”
Labor leader David Huerta, who had attracted sympathy from Democrats due to his arrest while protesting ICE in Los Angeles, was released on a $50,000 bond on Monday after being charged with interfering with federal agents.