Los Angeles Clashes Over Deportation Protests: Trump Sends National Guard to City

On June 6, protests began in Los Angeles in response to raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). By Sunday, June 8, the protests had escalated into a third day of unrest and were one of the largest protests in the city in recent memory, writes Associated Press. CNN keeps a chronicle of events.

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In the raids, ICE officers detained 118 people on suspicion of immigration violations in a week. The raids, which began Friday, hit locations including warehouses, Home Depot stores and an underground nightclub. They have sparked outrage among locals, especially in communities with large immigrant populations.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets on June 8 in response to President Donald Trump's emergency decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

On the subject: Government staff are being tested with lie detectors to find out who is leaking information about immigration raids

Protesters blocked a major highway and set fire to self-driving cars, while police used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse the protesters.

Some officers patrolled the streets on horseback, while others in riot gear stood behind guardsmen guarding federal facilities, including a detention center where some immigrants have been taken in recent days. Police declared the protest unlawful, and many dispersed. The remaining protesters used chairs from a nearby public park to form a barricade between themselves and the police. They pelted the officers with whatever came to hand.

The arrival of nearly 300 federal troops has angered and frightened some residents. On Sunday, protests in Los Angeles, home to 4 million people, were concentrated in a few blocks in the heart of the city.

Outside the Metropolitan Migrant Detention Center, protesters chanted "Shame!" and "Go home!" at the guards. The troops, armed with rifles and riot shields, stood shoulder to shoulder. When some protesters got too close, a group of security forces advanced, using smoke bombs.

Minutes later, Los Angeles police began firing rubber bullets and using other crowd control weapons, arguing that the crowd was illegally assembled. Much of the crowd then moved onto Interstate 101, blocking traffic until state highway patrol officers cleared the roadway by mid-afternoon. The southbound lanes remained closed.

Flashbang grenades went off every few seconds while some protesters threw objects onto the highway and traffic police returned fire.

At least four Waymo self-driving cars were set on fire near the scene, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky as the burning electric vehicles exploded one after another. By evening, police had declared the protest illegal and closed off several blocks of the city center.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom sent Trump a letter on the afternoon of June 8 demanding he recall the guardsmen and calling their deployment a “serious violation of state sovereignty.” He was in Los Angeles at the time, meeting with local law enforcement and officials. It is unclear whether he spoke to Trump after Friday.

It appears to be the first time in decades that the National Guard has been deployed without a request from the governor.

The current protests have not reached the scale of past protests that have seen the National Guard deployed to Los Angeles, such as during the unrest in Watts following the Rodney King beating and during protests against police violence in 2020, when Governor Newsom himself requested federal troop assistance.

The last time the National Guard was deployed without the governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass echoed Newsom's sentiments: "What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos created by the White House."

Her words did not stop the presidential administration.

"It is a blatant lie to suggest that there were no problems in Los Angeles before Trump's intervention," White House press secretary Abigail Jackson said in response.

Troop deployment follows days of protests

The National Guard arrived at the scene of protests after two days of action that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles and spread to the Paramount on Saturday.

Federal agents arrested immigrants in a trendy Los Angeles neighborhood, a Home Depot parking lot and other locations on Friday. The next day, they were spotted outside a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, attracting protesters who suspected another raid. Authorities later said no arrests were made at that store.

Demonstrators attempted to block Border Patrol vehicles by throwing rocks and pieces of cement. In response, armored agents used tear gas, flash-bang grenades and pepper munitions.

The number of immigrant arrests in the Los Angeles area this week has surpassed 100, federal authorities said, and many protesters have been detained, including a prominent labor leader who was charged with obstructing police.

About 500 Marines based at Twentynine Palms, about 200 kilometers east of Los Angeles, were in "ready to deploy" status on the afternoon of June 8, U.S. Northern Command said.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol deployed helicopters that day to monitor the ongoing protests.

The helicopters began flying at around 1:00 a.m. Sunday and continued to operate until 22:00 p.m. local time.

Several business owners have complained about looting at their stores in the area of ​​6th Street and Broadway, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Police Capt. Raul Houvel told reporters on June 8 that officers were “making more arrests right now.” He said three officers were injured in clashes with protesters, though their injuries were minor.

The captain's comments came an hour before police declared all of downtown Los Angeles an unlawful assembly zone. That didn't stop some protesters, who returned to the area, police said.

Mayor Karen Bass said the protests began to subside by the evening of Sunday, June 8.

Trump: There will be “strict law and order”

On June 8, as President Donald Trump prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, he told reporters that there were "violent people" in Los Angeles and "they're not going to get away with this."

The day before, on June 7, the president issued a directive citing a law allowing him to send in federal forces in the event of "rebellion or threatened rebellion against the authority of the United States Government."

He signed a memorandum calling for 2000 National Guard troops to quell protests, the first such move since the 1992 riots.

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Asked if he would send U.S. troops to Los Angeles, Trump said: "We're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let that happen to our country. We're not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden." He did not elaborate.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lives in Los Angeles, said the arrests of immigrants and the deployment of the Guard are part of a "brutal, calculated campaign to sow panic and division."

She stressed that she supports everyone who “stands up to defend our fundamental rights and freedoms.”

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