California Seeks To Block Troops In L.A.

By Jack Morphet , Tali Arbel and Jennifer Calfas

California officials asked a federal court on Tuesday to block National Guard members and Marines from law-enforcement activities in Los Angeles, as President Trump defended his decision to send troops to the city and called protesters demonstrating over immigration enforcement in California “animals” and professional agitators.

California officials urged a federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday to intervene and block the National Guard or Marines from being used for law enforcement. “Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California. They must be stopped, immediately,” the filing said.

A hearing has been set for Thursday.

“What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country,” Trump said at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. “We’re not

going to let that happen.”

The speech was billed as a salute to the U.S. Army as it celebrates its 250th anniversary, but the president’s remarks veered toward other subjects, including the protests. “These are animals, but they proudly carry the flags of other countries. But they don’t carry the American flag,” Trump said, referring to the protesters.

He added: “These guys are professionals. These are not amateurs.”

As he spoke, dozens of soldiers behind him booed mentions of the media, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, transgender athletes and former President Joe Biden.

Later Tuesday, Newsom described Trump’s actions to call in the National Guard and Marines as a “brazen abuse of power” that “inflamed a combustible situation.”

Newsom accused Trump of creating a culture of fear that has led schoolchildren to be afraid of attending their own graduations. “We do not want our streets militarized by our own armed forces,” Newsom, a Democrat, said.

“Other states are next. Democracy is next,” he said. “Democracy is under assault before our eyes.”

The dueling remarks on Tuesday came a day after U.S. Marines were deployed to the Los Angeles area, where protests over the president’s immigration- enforcement crackdown have engulfed parts of the city. The military has said it was deploying about 700 Marines to protect federal buildings. About 4,000 National Guard troops have also been mobilized.

The Guard troops are accompanying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on operations to arrest immigrants, a Defense Department official confirmed. While the Guard members were authorized to protect federal property and officials, their protection of federal officials during arrests is an expansion of their role.

Earlier Tuesday, ICE released a picture showing National Guard members protectively surrounding ICE agents in the middle of an arrest.

“If any rioters attack ICE law enforcement officers, military personnel have the authority to temporarily detain them until law enforcement makes the arrest,” Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew running from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time, covering roughly a square mile of downtown. She said she expects it to last several days.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell called the curfew “a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property.” He said 197 arrests were made Tuesday— the most on any day since the protests began on Friday. Of those arrested, 130 were near the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown and 67 were on Highway 101, McDonnell said.

California National Guards---men remained stationed in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon as protesters marched flying the U.S. flag upside-down, chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets.” Stores were being boarded up as the protesters passed.

Juan Pantoja, 47, said his brother was caught up in the arrests while riding his scooter past the protest. “It’s good they’re protesting but all this vandalism is out of hand,” Pantoja said. “Cops shooting people with rubber bullets is out of hand too.”

Large protests criticizing Trump’s immigration policies continued to spread to other cities across the country.

In New York, hundreds gathered Tuesday across from the federal buildings that house immigration operations. In the Atlanta area, demonstrators lined Buford Highway, according to news footage. A large protest popped up at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, and thousands of people marched in Chicago’s central business district waving flags and signs.

“ICE is continuously deporting people without due process,” said Jay Waxse, a 36-year-old community organizer at the Chicago protest. “If we don’t protest against it, then it’s just going to continue to be accepted.”

The military mission in California will cost the Pentagon at least $134 million for additional troop pay, food, transportation and other logistics, according to Bryn MacDonnell, the acting comptroller, who testified on Tuesday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a House Appropriations Committee hearing.

Hegseth defended the deployment of Marines and National Guardsmen, describing protesters in Los Angeles as “rioters, looters and thugs” who endangered federal agents.

In a tense exchange between Hegseth and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California— who expressed his “severe concern” about the decision to deploy the troops without the governor’s approval—the secretary said the forces were necessary to protect the U.S. from foreign agitators.

Trump said that any protests in Washington on Saturday at the military parade to celebrate the Army’s anniversary “will be met with very heavy force.”

Although U.S. officials have said the role of the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles will be limited, the broad nature of the order spurred concerns that it could be laying the foundations for future military actions against protesters elsewhere in the country.

“I feel like we’ve all been, in Los Angeles, a part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the federal government decides they want to roll up on a state, or roll up on a city, and take over,” Bass, a Democrat, said Tuesday.