Protests in Los Angeles Cause Deployment of National Guard
Last week in Los Angeles County, the National Guard was called to control protests against immigration raids.
On Friday morning, Immigration Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) raided three places around central L.A and arrested about 45 people. Most of the arrests were for illegally living there, but the state president of the Service Employees International Union, David Huerta, was arrested for attempting to slow the search by blocking a parking zone for ICE vehicles. By afternoon, many peaceful rallies broke out in the streets where protesters gathered outside the detention center that held the arrestees. Local police fired teargas at the mob to disperse them around 7pm, and a safety alert was sent out around the city later. The next morning, ICE conducted another raid in a neighborhood of the city Paramount. Hundreds of protestors surrounded their business center, and border patrol officers again used teargas and flash grenades. This time, they didn’t scatter the mob and instead the protestors responded by throwing rocks. That night, law enforcement fired rubber bullets and non-fatal weapons to scare the remaining crowd, and the Trump administration called the National Guard there, claiming that it was a rebellion. 2000 officers arrived Sunday morning. Only then did the protests grow more violent as they spray-painted, broke windshields, and set fire to empty cars on the road. Today, 700 more Marines were sent to help.
Even though the federal officers were sent to aid the state, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, criticized Trump. He claimed that the Los Angeles area police could have calmed down the public without interference. According to him, Trump only sent the troops to make a scene so that he could gain more power. Newsom is currently suing the Trump Administration for taking control of troops without the state’s governor’s permission, which violated the 10th amendment that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution… are reserved to the States”. All control over the California National Guard was given to the California state government, so the federal government did not have authority to give orders to them. Even though Newsom has promised to keep fighting for justice, it does not seem that the state will gain back its control over their own military very soon.
