500 Marines Prepared to Deploy to LA Riots

About 500 Marines are prepared to deploy if needed to help authorities in Los Angeles as protests continue around immigration enforcement raids.

In a statement from U.S. Northern Command, officials said about 2,000 California Army National Guard soldier were placed under federal command to help protect federal personnel and property in the greater Los Angeles area.

About 300 Guard members from the 78th Infantry Brigade Combat team were deployed at locations in the greater Los Angeles area: Los Angeles, Paramount and Compton.

The roughly 500 Marines are from Twentynine Palms and are "in a prepared to deploy status" in case they're needed to support the Department of Defense's protection of federal property and personnel efforts.

Governor Gavin Newsom said President Donald Trump was escalating the situation in Los Angeles by threatening the deployment of Marines into Los Angeles.

LA Protests Latest

National Guard troops faced off with protesters in Los Angeles as tear gas was fired at a growing crowd outside a federal complex hours after the federal troops arrived in the city on President Donald Trump’s orders.

The confrontation broke out Sunday in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles as a group of demonstrators shouted insults at members of the guard lined shoulder to shoulder behind plastic riot shields.

Around 300 National Guard troops had arrived early Sunday on orders from President Donald Trump following two days of clashes with immigration authorities.

The protests began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.

As federal agents set up a staging area Saturday near a Home Depot in Paramount, demonstrators attempted to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement. In response, agents in riot gear unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.

Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed above 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.

The recent protests remain far smaller than past events that have brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.

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.