US Marines Arrive In Los Angeles As Immigration Protests Continue

Protests against immigration policy in Los Angeles. (Twitter/@USNorthernCmd)

JAKARTA - Hundreds of US Marines arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday on President Donald Trump's orders, as the local mayor announced curfews for parts of the city while police arrested 197 people as the protests entered their fifth day.

Earlier, President Trump had also deployed 4,000 National Guard troops to defuse protests in the city despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom who considered the deployment unnecessary, illegal and politically motivated.

About 700 Marines are in a preparation area in the Seal Beach area about 30 miles (50 km) south of Los Angeles, awaiting deployment to a specific location, a US official said.

According to military officials, the Marines do not have the authority to arrest and will protect property and federal personnel.

On the other hand, there were about 2,100 Guard troops in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, and many more will come, the official said.

Protests in Los Angeles have entered its fifth day since President Trump's Administration launched a series of immigration raids on Friday last week.

The demonstrators raised the Mexican flag and other countries as a form of solidarity for migrants who were arrested in a series of increasingly intensive raids.

Yesterday, police arrested 197 people, while Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew for an area of one square mile (2.5 square km) in downtown Los Angeles which will last for several days.

Even so, state and local officials called President Trump's response an overreaction to the largely peaceful demonstration.

Two California senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, said in a joint statement that active-duty military personnel could only be mobilized domestically "during the most extreme circumstances, and this is not the situation in question."

President Trump, who made the crackdown on immigration his main issue, used a speech of respect to soldiers on Tuesday to defend his decision, telling soldiers at the Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina: "The Army heroes' Generation does not spill their blood on the far coast just to see our country destroyed by invasions and violations of third world law."

"What you are witnessing in California is a massive attack on national peace, public order and sovereignty, carried out by rioters carrying foreign flags," President Trump said, adding his government would "free Los Angeles."

Separately, Los Angeles Mayor Bass stressed at a news conference that the unrest had been restricted to several blocks in the city center and he distinguished the majority of demonstrators who rallied peacefully with a small number of agitators he blamed for violence and looting.

He later told another briefing the curfew had been under consideration for several days but decided to impose it from Tuesday evening after 23 businesses were looted on Monday night.

In what has become a 'ritual' every afternoon, police on Tuesday began forcing demonstrators away from the streets outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where many migrants were being held detained. Several groups of demonstrators winded through downtown Los Angeles, monitored or followed by police armed with less lethal ammunition.

Police said they had arrested 197 people, more than double the total number of arrests in the region since Saturday.

Business owners around who clean up graffiti and sweep up trash said they did not support immigration raids and felt President Trump's response would only confuse the atmosphere.

"I agree with what the protesters defended - they defend the Latino community," said Frank Chavez, 53, manager of an office building.

"But there are some who commit vandalism and violence, and that must be stopped," he said.

On Monday, the State of California and Governor of Newsom called on President Trump and the Department of Defense to stop deploying federal troops.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Reuters the state was concerned about allowing federal forces to protect personnel, saying there was a risk that could violate the 1878 law that generally banned the US military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civil law enforcement.

"The federal property department that I understand, defend and protect federal buildings," Bonta said.

"But protecting personnel is likely to mean accompanying ICE agents to the community and the surrounding environment, and protecting functions can mean protecting ICE functions in enforcing immigration law," he continued.

President Trump's immigration policy protests also took place in other cities including Chicago, where police carried at least two demonstrators handcuffed from aggressive parades in the city center. Other demonstrators shouted "Malu! Shame!" as officers took the detained demonstrators away.

The Department of Homeland Security said on Monday the Customs Immigration and Enforcement Division had arrested 2,000 immigration violators per day, well above the average of 311 per day in the 2024 fiscal year under former President Joe Biden.