By Lolita C. Baldor, Tara Copp, Jason Dearen and Tim Sullivan
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Another 2,000 National Guard troops along with 700 Marines are headed to Los Angeles on orders Monday from President Donald Trump..
An initial 2,000 Guard troops ordered by Trump started arriving Sunday, which saw the most violence during three days of protests.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with the police department presented a “significant logistical and operational challenge” for them.
The protests began Friday in downtown Los Angeles after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across the city. The smell of smoke hung in the air downtown Monday, one day after crowds blocked a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
Additional protests against immigration raids continued into the evening on Monday in several other cities including San Francisco and Santa Ana in California and Dallas and Austin in Texas.
California pushes back against presence of federal troops
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit over the use of National Guard troops following the first deployment, telling reporters in his announcement Monday that Trump had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty.
“We don’t take lightly to the president abusing his authority and unlawfully mobilizing California National Guard troops,” Bonta said. He sought a court order declaring Trump’s use of the Guard unlawful and asking for a restraining order to halt the deployment.
Trump said Monday that the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.
U.S. officials said the Marine troops were deployed to protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents. Trump’s Monday order put more National Guard members on active duty, but one U.S. official warned that the order was just signed and it could take a day or two to get troops moving. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements.
Despite their presence, there has been limited engagement so far between the Guard and protesters while local law enforcement implements crowd control.
On Monday, thousands flooded the streets around City Hall for a union rally ahead of a hearing for arrested labor leader David Huerta, who was freed a few hours later on a $50,000 bond. He is the president of the Service Employees International Union California, which represents thousands of the state’s janitors, security officers and other workers.
Chanting against a line of National Guard troops with Homeland Security officers behind them surrounding the federal buildings ramped up in the afternoon as people yelled, “Free them all!” and “National Guard go away.”
Several dozen people were arrested in protests throughout the weekend. Authorities say one was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers.
The National Guard deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor.
The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
Sullivan reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles, Amy Taxin in Orange County, California, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.