Members of the National Guard clashed with protesters in Los Angeles on Sunday and tear gas was fired at a growing crowd that gathered outside a federal complex hours after the federal troops arrived in the city on President Donald Trump’s orders.
The confrontation broke out in front of the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown as a group of demonstrators shouted insults at members of the guard lined shoulder to shoulder behind plastic riot shields.
There did not appear to be any arrests. Other law enforcement officials are also on scene, and it was not immediately clear who fired the tear gas.
Trump told reporters: “We’ll send whatever we need to make sure there’s law and order.”
Around 300 soldiers were stationed outside the centre dressed in tactical gear and holding long guns in front of armored vehicles.
Trump’s deployment marked the first time in six decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor.
The US President took the action as violence escalated with police using tear gas and batons as they faced off against demonstrators during a second day of protests following immigration raids.
LA county sheriffs also fired flash bangs in a bid to clear hundreds of protesters.
The Californian city saw a second day of unrest on Saturday as residents of a predominantly Latino district clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) federal agents.
Federal security agents confronted protesters in the Paramount area in southeast Los Angeles, where some demonstrators displayed Mexican flags. A second protest in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night attracted some 60 people, who chanted slogans including "ICE out of L.A.!"
Trump signed a presidential memorandum to deploy the National Guard troops to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester”, the White House said in a statement. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News that the National Guard would be deployed in Los Angeles on Saturday.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called the decision “purposefully inflammatory”. He posted on X that Trump was deploying the National Guard “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle”, adding: “Don’t give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully.”
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that if Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass can’t do their jobs “then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
The protests pit Democratic-run Los Angeles, where census data suggests a significant portion of the population is Hispanic and foreign-born, against Trump's Republican White House, which has made cracking down on immigration a hallmark of his second term.
“Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers, while one half of America's political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil,” Vice President JD Vance posted on X late on Saturday.
Senior White House aide Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, described the protests as a “violent insurrection”.
The administration has not invoked the Insurrection Act, two US officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. One said that National Guard troops can deploy quickly, within 24 hours in some cases, and that the military was working to source the 2,000 troops.
The 1807 law empowers a president to deploy the US military to enforce the law and suppress events like civil disorder. The last time it was invoked was during the 1992 Los Angeles riots at the request of the California governor.
Video footage of the Paramount protest showed dozens of green-uniformed security personnel with gas masks at the Paramount protest, lined up on a road strewn with overturned shopping carts as small canisters exploded into gas clouds. Authorities began detaining some protesters, according to Reuters witnesses. There was no official information of any arrests.
“Now they know that they cannot go to anywhere in this country where our people are, and try to kidnap our workers, our people - they cannot do that without an organized and fierce resistance,” said protester Ron Gochez, 44.
A first round of protests kicked off on Friday night after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted enforcement operations in the city and arrested at least 44 people on alleged immigration violations.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that there were about “1,000 rioters” at the protests on Friday.
Reuters could not verify DHS’s account. Angelica Salas, executive director of immigrants’ rights organization Chirla, said lawyers had not had access to those detained on Friday, which she called “very worrying”.
Trump has pledged to deport record numbers of people in the country illegally and lock down the US-Mexico border, with the White House setting a goal for ICE to arrest at least 3,000 migrants per day.
But the sweeping immigration crackdown has also caught up people legally residing in the country, including some with permanent residence, and has led to legal challenges.
ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Los Angeles Police Department did not respond to requests for comment on the protests or whether there had been any immigration raids on Saturday.
Television news footage on Friday showed unmarked vehicles resembling military transport and vans loaded with uniformed federal agents streaming through Los Angeles streets as part of the immigration enforcement operation.
Raids occurred around Home Depot stores, where street vendors and day laborers were picked up, as well as at a garment factory and a warehouse, Salas of Chirla said.
Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, condemned the immigration raids.
“I am deeply angered by what has taken place,” Bass said in a statement. “These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. We will not stand for this.”
