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Donald Trump’s administration will send 700 Marines to Los Angeles amid protests against raids on alleged illegal immigrants, deploying more federal troops to California in the face of vigorous opposition from the state’s governor.
The Marines would be sent to protect “federal personnel and federal property”, the US Northern Command said on Monday afternoon.
The move came just hours after California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom sued Trump for an earlier decision to deploy National Guard troops to stamp out protests that began at the weekend. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court, called the president’s decision an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority”.
Military forces frequently assist in the US during natural disasters and other incidents, but it is rare that they are deployed to aid in domestic law enforcement, particularly without the support of the state’s governor.
The mobilisation of Marines will intensify the stand-off between the White House and state and local leaders over the use of troops, as Trump and his allies press ahead with their sweeping plans to strengthen the power of the president and deport millions of illegal immigrants.
“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” Trump said on Monday on his Truth Social platform, defending the deployment of federal troops.
Newsom on Monday accused the president of “creating fear and terror” with the move. “This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” he said in a statement.
About 300 members of the California National Guard arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday after Trump transferred control of the military force from state to federal authorities.
Late on Monday, the Trump administration authorised another 2,000 guardsmen to be deployed to Los Angeles, a Pentagon spokesman said, bringing the total of authorised guardsmen to 4,000 despite opposition from Newsom and local leaders.
The Marines were being sent to provide “adequate numbers of forces to provide continuous coverage of the area”, US Northern Command said on Monday. The National Guard troops took up positions on Sunday in downtown LA, where thousands gathered at the weekend to protest and clashes erupted between demonstrators and law enforcement officials.
A US president last deployed a state’s National Guard without being asked by its governor in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson sent troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama.
Thousands more protesters marched in the streets of downtown Los Angeles for a fourth straight day on Monday, with some holding signs declaring “The Trump fascist regime must go now.”
Alphabet-owned robotaxi operator Waymo said on Monday that it had halted services in Downtown Los Angeles after some of its vehicles were set on fire at the weekend. It has also stopped vehicles from operating in certain parts of San Francisco where protests have taken place.
About 155 people, including six children, were arrested in San Francisco on Sunday, while other protests took place in New York.
The showdown in California, a heavily Democratic state, echoes Trump’s first term, when Newsom took the mantle of leading the “resistance” to his administration. At one point in the war of words between the two men on Monday, Trump endorsed the idea of Tom Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arresting Newsom.
“I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great,” Trump said as he returned to the White House from Camp David. “Gavin likes the publicity . . . He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows that.”
Newsom called Trump’s remarks backing his arrest an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism”.
The president also claimed the “people that are causing the problem are professional agitators, they’re insurrectionists”.
He later told reporters: “I wouldn’t call it quite an insurrection, but it could have led to an insurrection.”
Newsom said the addition of the National Guard troops had only made the situation worse. “Federalising the California National Guard is an abuse of the president’s authority under the law — and not one we take lightly. We’re asking a court to put a stop to the unlawful, unprecedented order.”
Additional reporting by Myles McCormick in Washington and Rafe Uddin in San Francisco
