After 2, 000 troops were dispatched by US President Donald Trump to halt a wave of federal immigration raids in the area, which sparked a sharp rebuke from California’s Democratic leadership.
Early on Sunday, police were seen patrolling the Metropolitan Detention Center, which has become a hot topic for the past two days, in the city’s central business district.
In Paramount, a city south of Los Angeles with a sizable Latino population, there have been frequent clashes between demonstrators and federal agents near a Department of Homeland Security facility.
After federal authorities carried out large-scale arrests in several locations, including a Home Depot store and the city’s fashion district, the clashes broke out.
Immigration officials claim that over 100 people have been detained in the past week.
Trump accused of escalating tensions
Agents used pepper balls, stun grenades, and tear gas during the confrontation on Saturday, while protesters reacted with rocks and debris. As tensions grew, the streets became ablaze with flames.
Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera’s senior correspondent reporting from Los Angeles, said, “This deployment of National Guard troops was done in a very unusual manner.”
The governor of a state typically requests the presence of the National Guard. According to Reynolds, Trump used a different provision of the law to nationalize the state National Guard and demand that it be called out in cases of insurrection against the US government in this instance.
He added that many city residents, including politicians and community leaders, worry that the National Guard’s presence “could constitute in and of itself a provocation, an inflammatory situation that could actually lead to more confrontations.”
Reynolds remarked, “The leaders of this city do not want that to happen.”
Newsom, who has long been opposed to Trump, said the move was “inflammatory” and warned that it would only increase the situation’s combustibility.
They desire a spectacle. Don’t give them a gift, Newsom wrote on X.
He claimed that the administration had omitted its controversial immigration policy and was using forceful tactics to stifle protests.
Trump has called the demonstrations “a form of rebellion.”
“Trump has long expressed an animosity toward California in general and also toward Newsom, who Trump refers to as “Gavin New Scum” on social media as a somewhat childish nickname. Reynolds noted that earlier today he was using the nickname.
The Guard was being sent to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” according to the White House, who defended the decision.
Local communities are feared about what they should do to defend their area, according to Alexandra Miller, an immigration justice attorney at VECINA, a non-profit organization dedicated to immigrant legal needs.
According to Miller, “I believe that’s exactly the purpose of the raids… to use a massive public fear tactic to subvert communities in order to demonstrate the administration’s force,” Miller said.
Although the US government has the authority to impose immigration laws, Miller claimed that Miller’s approach to enforcement is “disproportionate to the needs and priorities” that the government should have.
She continued, “ICE and other federal authorities must adhere to the laws of due process and make sure that migrants are able to defend themselves against removal at this time.”
The National Guard’s most recent deployment to Los Angeles was in 1992, when it was a result of Rodney King’s gruesome police beating by a Black man on a video.
The president’s decision to bypass the governor and send troops was described by Robert Patillo, a civil and human rights attorney, as “unprecedented” in recent memory.
“Typically, the governor of a state invites federal troops to use them inside of their states.” For instance, the California governor invited federal troops to stop the riots in Los Angeles in 1992. There will be difficulties, he said, if the governor, like Gavin Newsom, has not requested that federal troops be dispatched, and these troops are doing so against his will.
A vehicle was set on fire in Compton, another protest site, while hundreds of protesters rallied near a doughnut shop as police constructed barbed wire barriers. The demonstrations lasted into the night, and residents of central Los Angeles also retreated to federal buildings.
After that, police began making arrests and declared an unlawful assembly.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a warning that Camp Pendleton’s active-duty Marines were on high alert and could be mobilized in response to the latest uprising.
Sanders, a progressive Vermont senator, claimed that the Trump order “captured” and “usurped the authority of the US Congress” in a “president moving this country quickly into authoritarianism.”
Source: Aljazeera
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