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      Trump sends thousands more troops to LA as mayor says city is being used as an ‘experiment’

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      The Trump administration was deploying roughly 4,000 national guard members in Los Angeles on Monday in response to protests over immigration raids, in an extraordinary mobilization of troops against US residents that California leaders have called “authoritarian”.Tensions between the federal government and the nation’s second-largest city dramatically escalated over the weekend as residents took to the streets to demonstrate against a series of brutal crackdowns on immigrant communities. Raids in the region have affected garment district workers, day laborers and restaurants, and the president of a major California union was arrested by federal agents while serving as a community observer during US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) arrests.Despite facing teargas and other munitions over the weekend, protesters continued to rally on Monday, and families of detained immigrants pleaded for their loved ones to be released.The Trump administration initially said 2,000 national guard members were being sent to LA, but California governor Gavin Newsom said late on Monday he was informed federal officials were sending an additional 2,000 troops, though he said only 300 had been deployed so far, with the remainder “sitting, unused, in federal buildings without orders”. Federal authorities also said the military would be sending roughly 700 marines, marking an exceptionally rare deployment targeting people domestically.Largely peaceful protests against Ice spread around the country on Monday, including in New York, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco, where hundreds of people gathered in the evening for a march through the city’s historically-Latino Mission district. In Austin, demonstrators marched outside an Ice processing center, chanting slogans such as “No more Ice” and holding up signs including “No human being is illegal”. In downtown Los Angeles, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a demonstration calling for an end to Ice raids. Intermittent protests continued into the evening, as police used rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of several hundred people gathered near the federal building.Advocates also rallied in support of David Huerta, the president of SEIU California and SEIU-USWW, who was arrested on Friday and initially hospitalized. Huerta was charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, which could result in a six-year prison sentence, and released Monday, telling reporters: “This fight is ours, it’s our community’s, but it belongs to everyone. We all have to fight for them.”Tensions simmered as California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the federal deployment of the state national guard over Newsom’s objections. Meanwhile, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, earlier threatened to arrest Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, a move the governor said was “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism”.Newsom dared the administration to follow through with the threats, prompting Trump to respond: “I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great.”View image in fullscreenTrump, who congratulated the national guard troops for a “great job” before they had arrived in the city, said LA would have been “completely obliterated” without them.Homan claimed on Fox News that Ice “took a lot of bad people off the street”. He said, without providing specifics, that he had arrested gang members and people with serious criminal convictions, but also admitted that Ice was detaining immigrants without criminal records.Homan also told NBC News that more raids were coming, and Ice arrests continued across southern California on Monday.California’s lawsuit, filed late on Monday against Trump and Pete Hegseth, his defense secretary, said the president had “used a protest that local authorities had under control to make another unprecedented power-grab … at the cost of the sovereignty of the state of California and in disregard of the authority and role of the governor as commander-in-chief of the state’s national guard”.The suit, which seeks to block the defense department from deploying the state national guard, said there has been no “rebellion” or “insurrection” in LA. California also said that during raids, Ice agents “took actions that inflamed tensions and provoked protest” and “sparked panic”. California noted that Ice sealed off entire streets around targeted buildings, used unmarked armored vehicles with paramilitary gear, and did not coordinate with LA law enforcement officials.Rob Bonta, the California attorney general who filed the suit, said the president was “trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends”.Also on Monday, families targeted by the recent raids spoke out. Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, an immigrant rights group, held a press conference outside Ambiance Apparel, a garment district warehouse raided on Friday.One woman said she witnessed the raid where her father was “kidnapped by Ice”, adding: “What happened was not right. It was not legal. In this country, we all have the right to due process … I saw with my own eyes the pain of the families, crying, screaming, not knowing what to do.”Yurien Contreras said her family has had no communication with her father, Mario Romero, since he was taken: “I witnessed how they put my father in handcuffs, chained him from the waist and from his ankles.” Lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), found that immigrants apprehended in LA were initially detained in a basement of a federal building, alleging they were denied food, water or beds for more than 12 hours.View image in fullscreenMayor Bass has said that LA is a “proud city of immigrants” and has strongly condemned the raids, telling reporters on Monday evening that most people detained have been denied access to lawyers, with many “disappeared” to unknown locations. “I can’t emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos,” she said, adding that she would not stand for the White House using LA as a “test case” for this kind of federal crackdown.Bass also condemned vandalism and said protesters would be arrested for “violent” acts. LAPD said on Monday that 29 people had been arrested on Saturday for “failure to disperse”, and that there were 21 additional arrests on Sunday on a range of charges, including looting, attempted murder with a molotov cocktail and assault on an officer.Civil rights activists criticized the militarized response of local law enforcement, including LAPD, which has a history of injuring protesters, sometimes leading to costly settlements. Several journalists were injured at the protests, with an Australian reporter on Sunday shot by a rubber bullet at close range while filming a segment.“When residents come together to make use of their first amendment rights, often LAPD responds with a show of force,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a legal support group, who was present at the protests. “When you show up in riot gear and paramilitary equipment, you inject into an already dynamic situation a volatile element that escalates things.”The LAPD said officers had fired more than 600 rubber bullets over the weekend. Thousands had protested on Sunday, rallying around city hall and a federal detention center, and at one point, taking over a freeway.Jim McDonnell, the chief of the LAPD, said when officers fire on protesters, they are using “target-specific munitions,” but added: “That’s not to say that it always hits the intended target.” He said he was “very concerned” about the footage of a journalist hit by a munition.Regarding the deployment of marines to the city, he said his department had not been formally notified, and said their arrival would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge”. Bass said the national guard troops were simply guarding two buildings: “They need Marines on top of it? I don’t understand.”Hegseth, meanwhile, said the marines were needed to “restore order” and “defend federal law enforcement officers”.Trump’s federalization of the guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots, when widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating the Black motorist Rodney King. It also was the first deployment without the express request of the governor since 1965.Los Angeles county is home to 3.5 million immigrants, making up a third of the population. The demonstrations come as the White House has aggressively ramped up immigration enforcement with mass detentions in overcrowded facilities, a new travel ban, a major crackdown on international students and rushed deportations without due process.Perez, of the legal support group, noted how immigrants were deeply woven into the fabric of life in LA, making uprisings against raids inevitable: “When a city like this is the target of an immigration raid by an administration like this, you’re going to deal with a popular and massive outpouring of resistance.”Helen Livingston contributed reporting More

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      Los Angeles protests: a visual guide to what happened on the streets

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      After a series of immigration raids across the city of Los Angeles on Friday inspired mostly peaceful protests involving a few hundred people, the situation escalated on Saturday when the US president, Donald Trump, took the unprecedented step of mobilizing the national guard – the country’s military reserve units – claiming the demonstrations amounted to “rebellion” against the authority of the US government. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, called the decision “purposefully inflammatory”. Here’s a look at what actually happened on the streets.Most of the events took place in downtown Los Angeles, in a fairly localized area. The vast majority of the gigantic metropolis was not affected.Friday 6 June, morning. Federal immigration officers raid multiple locations across Los Angeles, including a Home Depot in Westlake; centers where day laborers gather looking for work; and the Ambiance clothing store in the fashion district. The Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights (Chirla) says there are raids at seven sites.Friday 6 June, afternoon. David Huerta, the president of California’s biggest union, is arrested while apparently doing little more than standing and observing one of the immigration raids. Footage shows the 58-year-old head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) being knocked down by a masked agent. He was taken to a hospital, then transferred to the Metropolitan detention center in downtown LA. “What happened to me is not about me; this is about something much bigger,” he says in a statement from the hospital. “This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening.” In a statement the US attorney Bill Essayli claims Huerta “deliberately obstructed their access by blocking their vehicle” and says he was arrested on suspicion of interfering with federal officers.Friday 6 June, afternoon. Demonstrators gather outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where Huerta and others are being held. There is a tense but largely non-violent standoff with police.7pm: The LAPD declares unlawful assembly in the area and deploys teargas to break up the crowd.8.20pm: The police force declares a city-wide tactical alert.Saturday 7 June, morning. As border patrol agents are seen gathering opposite another Home Depot location, this time in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood of Paramount, news spreads on social media of another raid. A couple of hundred protesters gather outside the Paramount Business Center. Sheriff’s deputies block off a perimeter near the 710 Freeway and Hunsaker Ave.12pm. Border patrol vehicles leave the center, with officers firing teargas and flash grenades at protesters. Some follow the convoy of federal vehicles up Alondra Blvd, throwing rocks and other objects; a few others set up a roadblock near the Home Depot.Saturday 7 June, 4pm. The area near the Home Depot confrontation is declared an unlawful assembly and protesters are warned to leave. Approximately 100 people gather further west in the neighborhood of Compton, at the intersection of Atlantic Ave and Alondra Blvd, where three fires are set, including a vehicle in the middle of intersection. Rocks are thrown at LA county sheriff’s deputies, and officers retreat to the bottom of bridge to the east.7pm. The Trump administration announces it will deploy the national guard, claiming the limited protests were a “rebellion” against the US government. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, immediately denounces the move, the first time a US president has mobilized US military forces in a domestic political situation without the request of the state’s governor since 1965.The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, also announces that 500 marines at Camp Pendleton in California have been placed on high alert.Saturday 7 June, evening. Federal agents emerge in a phalanx from inside the Metropolitan detention center to confront approximately 100 protesters, firing teargas and “less lethal” weapons at them.9.30pm. Officers and vehicles force the crowd on Alondra Blvd back west, and by midnight most protesters have dispersed.Sunday 8 June, morning. After curfews are declared across LA county overnight from 6pm-6am, by Sunday morning about 300 national guard troops are deployed to the city. Two dozen appear to news crews outside the federal complex, as though intent only on posing for photographs.10.30am. Protesters begin congregating near the Metropolitan detention center, where national guard troops have arrived to support immigration officials – though they do not appear to be engaging in active policing.1pm. Thousands of protesters gather in downtown LA.Sunday 8 June, afternoon. The LAPD again declares the protest an unlawful assembly, ordering everyone to leave, but still the protests continue. Police patrol on horseback and report several arrests. Journalists and protesters are reportedly struck by projectiles, while LA police say two officers are injured after being struck by motorcyclists attempting to “breach a skirmish line”. Ice officers and other federal agents use teargas and pepper balls in an attempt to disperse the crowds. Throughout the afternoon, there are isolated episodes of vandalism – graffiti sprayed on buildings and vehicles, and a protester who damages the side mirror of a parked car. A line of spray-painted Waymo driverless cars, one with a smashed windshield, are later set on fire.Downtown Los AngelesSunday 8 June, afternoon. Hundreds of protesters block the 101 Freeway. They take over two lanes.Evening. Tensions have risen, with demonstrators throwing garbage and rocks at police. Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, double down on their plea to protesters to stay peaceful. “Protest is appropriate to do, but it is just not appropriate for there to be violence,” Bass says, while the LAPD chief, Jim McDonnell, calls the violence “disgusting” and says officers have been pelted with rocks, and shot at with commercial grade fireworks. Crucially, he notes that those engaging in violence were not among the people demonstrating against the immigration raids, but are “people who do this all the time”. More

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      Trump has unleashed something terrifying in the US – that even he may be powerless to control | Gaby Hinsliff

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      She was live on air to viewers back home, her TV microphone clearly in hand, when the rubber bullet hit her. The Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was the second journalist after the British photographer Nick Stern to be shot with non-lethal rounds while covering protests in Los Angeles sparked by immigration raids. But she was the first to be caught on camera and beamed around the world. There’s no excuse for not knowing what the US is becoming, now that anyone can watch that clip online. Not when you can hear her scream and see the cameraman quickly swing away to film a panicking crowd.It was the scenario everyone feared when Donald Trump took office. Deportation hit squads descending on the kind of Democrat-voting communities who would feel morally bound to resist them, triggering the kind of violent confrontation that creates an excuse to send in national guard troops – and ultimately a showdown between federal and state power that could take US democracy to the brink. Now something like this may be unfolding in California, where the state governor, Gavin Newsom, has accused the president of trying to “manufacture a crisis” for his own ends and warned that any protester responding with violence is only playing into his hands. Suddenly, the idea that this presidency could ultimately end in civil conflict no longer seems quite so wildly overblown as it once did.Or to put it another way, Trump has got what he wanted, which is for everyone to switch channels: to stop gawping at his embarrassing fallout with Elon Musk over unfunded tax cuts, and flick over to the rival spectacle he has hastily created. After a brief interruption to scheduled programming, the great showman is back in control. But in the meantime, the world has learned something useful about who wins in a standoff between two giant egos, one of whom has all the money and the other of whom has all the executive power. In US oligarchies just as in Russian ones, it turns out, it’s presidents who still get to set the agenda.You can’t ride the tiger. That’s the lesson here: once populism has grasped the levers of power, even the richest man in the world cannot be sure of exploiting it for his own ends, or imposing his own agenda on the chaos. Not when a vengeful White House still has the power to destroy even the most powerful business empire, anyway. At the weekend, Musk meekly deleted explosive tweets about the president’s alleged relationship with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and by Monday he was loyally sharing Trumpian messages about the LA protests. His father, meanwhile, tactfully blamed the outburst on Musk Junior being “tired” after five months working round the clock for the White House.That ought to ring some bells on this side of the Atlantic. For oddly enough, it’s the same excuse offered up by Zia Yusuf, the millionaire businessman brought in to professionalise Reform UK’s perennially chaotic operation, who last week quit as chair in exasperation. Trying to get the party into power was no longer a “good use of his time”, he tweeted, after publicly clashing with its newest MP, Sarah Pochin, over her decision to ask a question in parliament about banning burqas (which isn’t officially Reform policy, or at least not yet). Yusuf, a British Muslim, has long been seen as Farage’s trusted bulwark against those inside Reform desperate to pick up where the jailed thug Stephen Yaxley-Lennon left off, and to become a full-blown, far-right anti-Islam movement.But this time, it seems, Yusuf may have bitten off more than the boss was ready to chew. A whole two days after storming out, Yusuf ended up storming awkwardly back in, telling the BBC that actually, having thought about it, he probably would ban burqas and other face coverings. He had just been exhausted, he suggested, after barely having a day off in 11 months. (If nothing else, it seems Reform really means what it says about fighting back against modern HR practices.)To be fair to him, even Farage seems to find the process of trying to control his parties exhausting at times, judging by the regularity with which he has taken breaks from them over the years. While Yusuf won’t return as chair, he will now join Reform’s so-called British Doge, supposedly taking a Musk-style chainsaw to council spending – which sounds like a breeze compared with managing Reform MPs. Until, that is, you reflect on how exactly Doge has turned out across the Atlantic.The reason parts of Silicon Valley were quietly enthusiastic about their fellow tech tycoon’s slash and burn approach to US bureaucracy was that they saw profitable method in the madness: a plan to hack the state back to the bare minimum, opening up new markets for digital services and unleashing (or so they hoped) a new wave of economic growth by slashing national debt.Five months on, however, it’s clear that any Doge savings will be utterly dwarfed by Trump’s forecast to send national debt soaring to uncharted and potentially unsustainable highs. Any tech titan hoping for the US equivalent of Margaret Thatcher on steroids, in other words, has ended up with Liz Truss after one too many espressos instead – plus troops on the streets of California and the slowly dawning realisation that, as the billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz put it, they have “no sway” over what they unleashed.There will be plenty of people back in Britain who couldn’t care less about obscure comings and goings in the Reform party, even as its poll lead means it’s starting to make the political weather. Others simply don’t expect it to affect their lives much either way if Reform permanently supplants a Conservative party from which it already seems hard to distinguish, and a few may already be calculating that they can turn its rise to their own advantage.Yet what the last few frightening days in the US have demonstrated is that once populism has its feet firmly enough under the table, chaos wins. There’s no ability to belatedly impose order, no house-training it either. All you can do is deny it a room in the house in the first place. In Britain, at least, it’s not too late for that.

      Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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      US national guard troops deployed in LA after protests over immigration raids

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      US national guard troops were deployed in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday amid an immigration crackdown that saw authorities use teargas on protesters in a move that sent shockwaves though American politics.Troops were stationed outside Metropolitan detention center in downtown Los Angeles, one of several sites that have seen confrontations involving hundreds of demonstrators and federal law enforcement in the last two days, and other areas of the federal complex. Footage captured in the area showed the situation quickly escalated as authorities fired pepper balls and teargas at a growing crowd gathered there, reportedly striking protesters and journalists.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has sharply criticized the deployment and urged protesters to “stay peaceful”. “Don’t give Donald Trump what he wants,” he said.Donald Trump ordered the deployment of the national guard in Los Angeles late on Saturday night following days of clashes between demonstrators and US immigration authorities. The decision marked a stunning escalation in a broad crackdown on immigrants in the United States following raids across the country which have triggered protests.Trump’s federalization of the guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots. At that time widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating Black motorist Rodney King.Trump’s move has been followed by the threat of even more escalation. Earlier Pete Hegseth,Trump’s controversial and hardline defense secretary, had raised the possibility of deploying US marines onto the streets of the Democrat-run state following the protests that erupted in the wake of raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) authorities in the state.“Under President Trump, violence & destruction against federal agents & federal facilities will NOT be tolerated. It’s COMMON SENSE,” Hegseth wrote on social media.“If violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized – they are on high alert,” Hegseth said. Camp Pendleton is a large military base south of Los Angeles and north of San Diego.Newsom called the potential deployment of US marines “deranged” .“The Secretary of Defense is now threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens. This is deranged behavior,” Newsom wrote on X.Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, criticized Newsom’s stance on ABC’s Face the Nation. “If he was doing his job people wouldn’t have gotten hurt the last couple of days … Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions. The president knows that he makes bad decisions and that’s why the president chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity.”The independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders called the situation a threat to US democracy. “We have a president who is moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism,” he told CNN. “He does not believe in the rule of law.”Tensions in Los Angles had begun on Friday, when protesters clashed with law enforcement officials conducting immigration raids on multiple locations in the sprawling city’s downtown.On Saturday, US immigration authorities extended enforcement action into Paramount, a majority Latino area south-east of Los Angeles, and were met with more protests outside an industrial park.A stand-off developed between border patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks and protesters. As demonstrations continued law enforcement deployed teargas and protesters also threw objects at them. At least one car was set alight.Trump then promised to send in the national guard – a move that many critics have feared might happen during his second administration amid fears that the US is sliding into authoritarianism.“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles – not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” Newsom said later. “Don’t give them one.”On his own social media platform, Truth Social, Trump praised the national guard, even before it was reported that troops had arrived. “Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest,” he said in a post filled with insults at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and Newsom.“These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED. Also, from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???” he added.Ice officers and police have been wearing face masks during raids and arrests but Noem defended this on Sunday, saying: “It’s for the safety of those individuals.” She did not specify how law enforcement will prevent protesters from wearing masks.Nanette Barragán, who has Paramount in her constituency, said she has been told to prepare for a large presence ofIceagents in California.“We’ve been told to get ready for 30 days of enforcement. Thirty days of ICE enforcement,” Barragán told CNN, adding that their presence is “going to escalate the situation.”“We haven’t asked for the help. We don’t need the help. This is [President Trump] escalating it, causing tensions to rise. It’s only going to make things worse in a situation where people are already angry over immigration enforcement,” Barragán said.Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, or the White House executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations, warned that immigration enforcement will continue “every day” in Los Angeles.“I’m telling you what, we’re going to keep enforcing law every day in LA,” Homan told NBC News. “Every day in LA, we’re going to enforce immigration law. I don’t care if they like it or not.”Homan was asked if his prior warnings to elected state and local officials to not obstruct federal immigration enforcement included Newsom and Bass. Homan said he did not believe Bass had “crossed the line yet”.But, he added, “I’ll say it about anybody. You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”Trump has long promised mass immigration raids across the US after campaigning in part last year on anti-immigrant sentiment. Since he returned to office Ice raids have increased, in particular targeting some areas traditionally left alone such as court houses where immigrants might be attending hearings. More

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      Newsom is warned of ‘criminal tax evasion’ if he withholds federal taxes

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      The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has warned California governor Gavin Newsom that he would be guilty of “criminal tax evasion” if he withholds his state’s tax payments to the federal government amid threats of a funding cut by Donald Trump.Newsom had threatened to cut tax payments to the federal government two days ago after reports that Trump was preparing huge federal funding cuts targeting Democrat-dominated California, including its state university system.“Gavin Newsom is threatening to commit criminal tax evasion,” Bessent said in a post on X. “His plan: defraud the American taxpayer and leave California residents on the hook for unpaid federal taxes.”Bessent continued: “I am certain most California businesses know that failing to pay taxes owed to the Treasury constitutes tax evasion and have no intention of following the dangerous path Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening.”He described Newsom’s comments as “extremely reckless” and advised the governor to come up with a tax-cutting plan for California that mirrored Trump’s federal tax cutting plan, “instead of committing criminal tax evasion”.The treasury secretary’s comments came after Newsom posted on Friday that “Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, Donald Trump.”The California governor linked to a CNN report that the Trump administration is preparing to cancel some federal funding for California and federal agencies had been directed to identify grants that could be withheld, including the University of California and California state university systems.In a statement on Friday, the White House spokesperson Kush Desai criticized California’s energy, immigration and other positions as “lunatic anti-energy, soft-on-crime, pro-child mutilation, and pro-sanctuary policies”.“No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country,” Desai said, but he added that “No final decisions, however, on any potential future action by the Administration have been made, and any discussion suggesting otherwise should be considered pure speculation.”Newsom and Trump are accustomed to a war of words, including threats to withhold funding. The administration recently cut $126m in flood prevention funding projects, and Trump has threatened “large-scale fines” on the state after transgender athlete AB Hernandez competed in the long jump, high jump and triple jump events at the California Interscholastic Federation track and field championships.But the reported threat to cut off federal funding to California’s university system appears to have pushed California officials into threats of retaliation. Soon before Newsom made his threat, California assembly speaker Robert Rivas described the rumored grant cancellations as “unconstitutional and vindictive.”“We’re the nation’s economic engine and the largest donor state, and deserve our fair share,” Rivas wrote. “I’ll use every legal and constitutional tool available to defend CA – we must look at every option, including withholding federal taxes.” More

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      National guard deploys in downtown LA amid eerie calm after two days of unrest

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      On a foggy, unseasonably cold morning in Los Angeles, the national guardsmen suddenly pressed into service by Donald Trump to quell what he called a “rebellion” against his government were nothing if not ready for their close-up.Outside a federal complex in downtown Los Angeles that includes a courthouse, a veterans’ medical centre, and a jail, two dozen guardsmen in camouflage uniforms were arrayed in front of their military vehicles with semi-automatic weapons slung over their shoulders for the benefit of television and news photographers clustered on the sidewalk.They stood with the visors of their helmets up so the reporters could see their faces. Most wore shades, despite the gloomy weather, giving them the eerie appearance of extras from a Hollywood action movie more than shock troops for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.After two days of unrest in response to heavy-handed raids by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in downtown Los Angeles and in the heavily Latino suburb of Paramount, the day started off in an atmosphere of uneasy, almost surreal calm.The skyscrapers and government offices of downtown Los Angeles were ringed by vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies – Los Angeles police and parking enforcement, county sheriffs, highway patrol and private security guards.Most, though, were deployed for an entirely different event – a festival and two-mile walk organized by the non-profit group the March of Dimes to raise money for maternal and infant health.The streets around Grand Park, across from City Hall, were closed to traffic, but the police seemed less interested in sniffing out anti-Ice protesters than they were in posing for pictures next to a bubble machine with March of Dimes volunteers dressed as Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters.“We had the LAPD’s community engagement Hummer come by earlier and they told us we had nothing to worry about,” event organizer Tanya Adolph said. “They said they’d pull us if there was any risk to our safety. Our numbers are down markedly, I won’t hide that, but we’ve still managed to raise $300,000.”Local activists have called for demonstrations against the immigration crackdown; one demonstration set for Boyle Heights east of downtown and the other outside City Hall. Many activists, though, were worried about continuing Ice raids, particularly in working-class, predominantly Latino parts of the LA area such as Paramount – and worried, too, that any national guard presence heightened the risk of violence.Governor Gavin Newsom’s office reported on Sunday that about 300 of the promised 2,000 national guardsmen had deployed in the LA area. In addition to the small presence downtown, a group of them was reported to have driven through Paramount, scene of clashes between protesters and local police outside a Home Depot on Saturday.Trump congratulated the national guardsmen on a “great job” after what he called “two days of violence, clashes and unrest” but, as several California political leaders pointed out, the national guard had not yet deployed when city police and sheriff’s deputies used tear gas and flash-bang grenades to clear the streets.Both Ice and local activists estimated that about 45 people were arrested on Friday and Saturday, and several were reported to have been injured in confrontations with the police.Nick Stern, a news photographer, said he was shot in the leg by a less-lethal police round and was in hospital awaiting surgery. David Huerta, a prominent union leader with the Service Employees International Union, was also treated in hospital before being transferred to the Metropolitan detention center, the federal lockup in downtown LA.One of many slogans spray-painted on the walls of the federal complex, within eyeshot of the national guard and the news crews, read: “Free Huerta.”Others, daubed liberally on the walls of the complex around an entire city block, expressed rage against Ice and the Los Angeles police in equal measure. “Fuck ICE. Kill all cops!” one graffiti message said. “LAPD can suck it,” read another.Elsewhere in downtown Los Angeles, little seemed out of the ordinary. Homeless people slept undisturbed on a small patch of lawn on the south side of City Hall. Traffic moved unhindered past the county criminal court building and the main entrance to City Hall on Spring Street.Alejandro Ames, a Mexican American protester, who had traveled up from San Diego sat at a folding table on the west side of City Hall with a hand-scrawled sign that read: “Republic against ICE and the police”.Ames said he was a Republican and hoped this would give extra credence to his plea for restraint by the federal authorities. “I don’t want ‘em to go crazy,” he said. “I want ‘em to go home.” More

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      Fury as Republicans go ‘nuclear’ in fight over California car emissions

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      California has long been one of the nation’s preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it.But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets and updates its own federal standards for all states on smog and emissions from cars and trucks, which the Biden administration made even stricter last year, saying they will save American drivers thousands in fuel costs and maintenance over the life of a vehicle.But for decades, California has been granted the ability to make those rules even stricter to help address some of the worst smog and air quality issues in the nation, which are linked to a host of health effects that disproportionately affect people of color.On Wednesday, the Senate voted to reverse the waivers, in move that prompted fury from Democrats who call it a “nuclear” option, calling it an unprecedented, and illegal, use of the statute. The Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian have agreed, saying EPA waivers are not subject to the review law.The House approved similar resolutions earlier this month. The resolutions now go to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign them.“This move will harm public health and deteriorate air quality for millions of children and people across the country,” said senators Alex Padilla, Sheldon Whitehouse and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement.“This Senate vote is illegal. Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on Thursday. “We’re going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.”Kathy Harris, the director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized California’s ability to mandate strict emissions standards for cars, trucks and buses had existed for nearly 60 years, noting the state had been granted more than 75 waivers under Republican and Democratic presidents.Among the waivers include rules to increase the share of electric vehicles each year among all new car and truck sales, as well as mandates that auto companies introduce progressively cleaner vehicles.She described the waivers as a “quadruple win”, benefiting public health, air quality, drivers’ pockets and the economy as a whole.“These waivers are not new or novel,” Harris said in an interview. “California has historically been innovators in systems to help produce cleaner air and stymying California’s ability is a direct attack on our ability to limit pollution and health harming pollutants in the air.”View image in fullscreenShe added revoking the waivers would immediately lead to an increase in pollution on the nation’s roadways.More than a dozen states follow California’s lead on emissions standards, according to the California air resources board. The standards now cover nearly 40% of new light-duty vehicle registrations and more than a quarter of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks across the entire US.Automakers have largely followed California’s emissions standards as well so they can continue to sell cars there, as the state equates to the fourth-largest economy on the planet.Newsom upped the ante in the nation’s environmental future in 2020, declaring his state would ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Eleven states have also joined California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the 2035 deadline, a reality that has spooked major car companies.Joe Biden’s administration approved the plan at the end of his term. Trump, however – a vehement opponent to many of the nation’s climate efforts – has vowed to see them reversed.“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Trump said during his campaign last year. “I will terminate that.”Newsom on Wednesday cast the battle as a nail in the coffin for the American car industry and decades of public health advancements.“The United States Senate has a choice: cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades of precedent and uphold the clean-air policies that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon fought so hard for,” he challenged Republicans in a statement. “Will you side with China or America?”The Senate’s decision may have sweeping effects far beyond the state’s borders.Harris said she recently pulled up pictures of what air quality looked like in cities around the country in the 1960s before the Clean Air Act, the seminal environmental law that regulates the nation’s air quality, was in effect. She described normal levels of smog in California as blanketing the state similar to the apocalyptic clouds of wildfire smoke that have descended during recent fire seasons.The American Lung Association also found last month that Los Angeles remained the country’s smoggiest city for the 25th time in 26 years of tracking, despite decades of improvements in air quality.“I think we have forgotten about what our air used to look like,” Harris said. “We take it for granted because it’s a policy that’s been around for so long we don’t really recognize those direct benefits.“There is still a long way to go, we have not succeeded in fully cleaning up our air yet,” she added. “These types of policies help ensure we are moving in a positive direction.” More