The Pentagon will ship a Marine battalion to Los Angeles in a significant escalation of US President Donald Trump’s response to anti-immigration enforcement protests, the US army has mentioned.
The assertion on Monday confirmed the “activation” of 700 Marines to assist shield federal personnel and property within the California metropolis, the place Trump had deployed the US Nationwide Guard a day earlier.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell mentioned in a while Monday that an “further” 2,000 Nationwide Guard troops would even be mobilised.
The bulletins got here regardless of opposition from state officers, together with California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, who has mounted a authorized problem to the deployment of the Nationwide Guard.
In a press release, the army mentioned the “activation of the Marines” was meant to assist “present steady protection of the world in assist of the lead federal company”.
Talking to the Reuters information company, an unnamed Trump administration official mentioned the troopers could be performing solely in assist of the Nationwide Guard and different regulation enforcement.
The official mentioned that Trump was not but invoking the Revolt Act of 1807, which might droop authorized limitations that block the army from participating in home regulation enforcement.
Talking shortly earlier than the experiences emerged, Trump mentioned he was open to deploying Marines to Los Angeles, however mentioned protests within the metropolis had been “on target”.
“We’ll see what occurs,” he mentioned.
Reporting from Los Angeles, Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds mentioned protests on Monday organised within the metropolis centre by union teams had been peaceable.
He famous that the Nationwide Guard which Trump had deployed to town on Sunday performed a minimal position in responding to the protests, solely guarding federal buildings. That raised questions over why the Trump administration would really feel a Marine deployment was wanted.
“[The National Guard] didn’t interact with the protesters. They didn’t do a lot of something aside from stand there of their army uniforms,” Reynolds mentioned.
He added that there’s an necessary distinction between the Nationwide Guard, a state-based army pressure normally composed of part-time reserves, and the extra combat-forward Marines, that are the land pressure of the US Navy.
“Now the Marines, this can be a entire completely different factor. The USA sends Marines abroad the place US imperialist pursuits are at stake, however to not cities in the US,” he mentioned.
California Governor Newsom’s workplace, in the meantime, mentioned that in accordance with the knowledge it had obtained, the Marines had been solely being transferred to a base nearer to Los Angeles, and never technically being deployed onto the streets.
Nonetheless, it mentioned the “stage of escalation is totally unwarranted, uncalled for, and unprecedented – mobilising the perfect at school department of the US army in opposition to its personal residents”.
California mounts problem
The updates on Monday got here shortly after Newsom and California Legal professional Basic Rob Bonta introduced the state had filed a lawsuit difficult Trump’s determination to deploy the Nationwide Guard to Los Angeles.
Newsom has maintained that native regulation enforcement had the capability to reply to protests over US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles and the close by metropolis of Paramount that first broke out on Friday.
The Democratic state chief accused Trump of escalating the state of affairs, saying in a press release that the president was “creating worry and terror by failing to stick to the US Structure and overstepping his authority”.
“This can be a manufactured disaster to permit him to take over a state militia, damaging the very basis of our republic,” Newsom mentioned.
The California lawsuit argues that the authorized authority Trump invoked to deploy the Nationwide Guard requires the consent of the state’s governor, which Newsom didn’t present.
For his half, Trump indicated he would assist Newsom being arrested for impeding immigration enforcement, responding to an earlier menace from the president’s border czar, Tom Homan.
Trump’s response to the protests represented the primary time since 1965 {that a} president deployed the Nationwide Guard in opposition to the desire of a state governor. On the time, President Lyndon B Johnson did so to guard civil rights demonstrators in Alabama.
Protests proceed
Protests in opposition to Trump’s crackdown – in addition to his total immigration coverage – continued on Monday.
Standing in entrance of Ambiance Attire in Los Angeles, one of many websites raided by ICE brokers final week, Indigenous group chief Perla Rios spoke alongside relations of people detained by immigration brokers.
Rios known as for due course of and authorized illustration for these taken into detention.
“What our households are experiencing is just a nightmare,” Rios mentioned.
In the meantime, the Service Staff Worldwide Union (SEIU) known as for protests in cities throughout the nation over the Trump administration’s response to demonstrations, which included the arrest of the union’s California president David Huerta.
Huerta was detained on Friday throughout immigration raids and charged with conspiracy to impede an officer throughout immigration enforcement operations.
“From Massachusetts to California, we name for his quick launch and for an finish to ICE raids which are tearing our communities aside,” the SEIU mentioned in a press release.
Protesters additionally gathered in New York and Los Angeles in response to Trump’s newest ban on travellers from 12 nations, a coverage critics have decried as racist.
Talking at a protest in New York Metropolis on Monday, Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, mentioned the coverage was “a continuation of the Muslim and journey ban beneath the primary Trump administration, which separated households and harmed our communities”.
The coverage, he mentioned, was creating “an immense quantity of worry”.
