Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the administration’s decision to deploy California National Guard troops to quell violence in Los Angeles, citing the riots that took place in Minnesota in 2020.

The Department of Defense has deployed 700 active-duty Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to California in response to days of riots in Los Angeles over immigration raids. The decision has been denounced by local government leaders who argued that the militarized presence only worsened the tension regarding the raids and deportations.

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Hegseth defended the deployments during his testimony on Capitol Hill in front of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

“In Los Angeles, we believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country,” he told lawmakers.

The mission will cost an estimated $134 million, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, the acting Pentagon comptroller, said during the hearing.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, called the decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines “premature and escalatory,” before bringing up the protests in her home state of Minnesota following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

“I was in the Twin Cities during the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd,” she said. “Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets for days. Gov. Walz made the decision to call up the Minnesota National Guard. At no point did we need — the citizens of Minnesota request that the Marines be deployed. Our state and local law enforcement, along with our National Guard, who have worked on crowd control, were more than enough.”

Hegseth, who also hails from Minnesota, rebutted her version of events, arguing, “Gov. Walz abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground and also allowed five days of chaos to occur inside the streets of Minneapolis.”

“President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor like it was by Gov. Walz, if it gets out of control, is a bad situation for the citizens of any location,” he added.

President Donald Trump used Title 10, a federal law that outlines the role of the U.S. military, to bypass Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) command of his state’s National Guard. There are three conditions under which the president can utilize the federal statute: if the United States is invaded or faces the threat of invasion, if there’s a rebellion against federal authority, or if the president is unable to enforce federal laws using domestic personnel.

Trump has previously discussed the possibility of deploying active-duty troops to quell protesters, dating back to the protests that came in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

ROUGHLY 700 MARINES DEPLOYING TO LA FOLLOWING WEEKEND ICE PROTESTS

The deployment has proven to be somewhat chaotic, as it’s unclear what the Marines’ specific task will be in Los Angeles. They are from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, and their activation is “intended to provide Task Force 51 with adequate numbers of forces to provide continuous coverage of the area in support of the lead federal agency,” according to U.S. Northern Command.

The Los Angeles police chief, Jim McDonnell, said on Monday evening that the department had not “received any formal notification” about the Marines’ deployment and that “the possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge.”