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      LA cleans up and protests some more after weekend of defiance against Trump

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      Outside the federal courthouse complex in downtown Los Angeles on Monday morning, two cleaners carrying bins on wheels looked uncertainly at the daunting task in front of them – long walls in several directions covered in spray-painted graffiti after a weekend of vigorous street protest.They donned black plastic gloves and reached for spray bottles and rolls of paper towels, but these seemed hardly adequate even for the black marble plinth bearing the name “Edward R Roybal Center and Federal Building” where they began. Indeed, the rest of the official writing on the plinth was illegible, defaced by three separate graffiti reading “Fuck Ice” and another saying “Dead Cops”.The City of Angels was in recovery and clean-up mode after a fraught, boisterous day of protest on Sunday against Donald Trump’s immigration roundups and his decision to activate the California national guard against the will of the state’s leaders.A mostly peaceful series of demonstrations were marred, as night fell, by more serious acts of vandalism and violence. Some people, who the LAPD chief later said were not affiliated with the protesters, tossed rocks and paving stones off freeway overpasses on to police cruisers and officers below and a line of Waymo driverless vehicles that had already been spray-painted were set on fire.On Monday morning, street cleaning vehicles were out in force on Alameda Street, on the east side of the federal courthouse complex, where the national guard was stationed on Sunday and where thousands of protesters converged, starting in the early afternoon. The sidewalk and the long block of Alameda flanked by the federal buildings were cordoned off to the public.The 101 freeway, which had been occupied by protesters the night before, was open to traffic again, but most of the downtown exits were sealed off by California highway patrol vehicles. A cleaning crew with a pressure washer was hard at work on the outside of the federal building on Los Angeles Street, which houses a passport office, a social security office and other key federal bureaucratic services.View image in fullscreenThe national guard, which played almost no role in policing the protests on Sunday, was once again nowhere to be seen. Federal authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were likewise noticeably absent.With much of the Los Angeles police department recovering from a long day and night, the streets were largely given over to representatives from neighboring police forces drafted in to help – from Pasadena, South Pasadena, Burbank, Vernon and other cities. South Pasadena had the job of guarding concrete blocks set up overnight on either side of LA city hall on Spring Street. Its officers also stood guard on the building’s western steps.Much of the city establishment – council members, local elected officials and union leaders – flocked, meanwhile, to a protest of their own in Grand Park, on a hill overlooking city hall, to demand the release of David Huerta, a leader of the Service Employees International Union who was arrested on Friday while monitoring an immigration raid and was expected in court for his first appearance on Monday afternoon.“David Herta is my brother,” the president of his union, April Verrett, told the crowd to rapturous applause and chanting. “What he would say is, use this moment!”The thousands in attendance blew horns and yelled in approval.Union volunteers acted as marshals for the event and kept a close eye on the perimeter to watch for troublemakers – there appeared to be none. A sole Los Angeles police helicopter hovered overhead, but otherwise law enforcement was entirely absent. More

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      California to file lawsuit over Trump’s ‘unlawful’ deployment of national guard

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      California plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, accusing the US president of “unlawfully” federalizing the state’s national guard to quell immigration protests in Los Angeles.Previewing the suit, the attorney general, Rob Bonta, said the extraordinary deployment of troops had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty, overriding objections by the governor Gavin Newsom and going “against the wishes of law enforcement on the ground”. Bonta said the legal action will ask the court to declare Trump’s call deployment of the guard unlawful and will seek a restraining order to halt the use of its troops to manage the protests.“We don’t take lightly to the president abusing his authority and unlawfully mobilizing California national guard troops,” the attorney general said during a virtual news conference on Monday. Later, multiple news outlets reported that the Pentagon planned to temporarily mobilize about 700 marines to Los Angeles while additional national guard troops arrive in the city, a provocative escalation by the federal government.Democratic officials have argued that local law enforcement agencies had been adequately managing the protests, which began on Friday in response to a series of immigration enforcement operations across the LA area.“This was not inevitable,” Bonta said, arguing that the demonstrations had largely dissipated by the time Trump, on Saturday, announced his plans to assert federal control over at least 2,000 national guard troops for at least 60 days, which Bonta said inflamed the situation. On Sunday, roughly 300 California national guard troops arrived in Los Angeles, prompting an outpouring of anger and fear among residents.Trump’s call-up order “skipped over multiple rational, common sense, strategic steps that should have been deployed to quell unrest and prevent escalation”, he said.Bonta said his office would file the suit later on Monday.Newsom has accused Trump of intentionally sewing chaos, claiming Trump “wants a civil war on the streets” and appealing for protesters not to give the administration the spectacle of violence it is hoping to stoke.“This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” Newsom said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach. This is beyond incompetence – this is him intentionally causing chaos, terrorizing communities, and endangering the principles of our great democracy.”On Sunday, Newsom formally requested that Trump rescind his order and return command of the guard to his office. In a letter to the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the governor’s legal affairs secretary, David Sapp, argued there was “currently no need” for such intervention by the federal government and that local law enforcement was capable of “safeguarding public safety”.“Trump and Hegseth jumped from zero to 60,” Bonta said. “Bypassing law enforcement expertise and evaluation, they threw caution to the wind and sidelined strategy in an unnecessary and inflammatory escalation that only further spurred unrest.”In a rhetorical back and forth between Newsom and Trump, longtime political foes who clashed repeatedly during Trump’s first administration, Trump said he endorsed a threat by his “border czar” Tom Homan to arrest Democratic leaders in California if they impeded law enforcement, including Newsom. “Gavin likes the publicity but I think it would be a great thing,” Trump told reporters on Monday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNewsom responded to the taunt on Twitter/X, calling Trump’s support for the arrest of a sitting governor “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism”.The Trump administration has said that the immigration protests in Los Angeles amount to a “form of rebellion” against the authority of the United States government.The order does not invoke the Insurrection Act, the 1807 law that allows the president to deploy US soldiers to police streets during times of rebellion or unrest. Instead, it cites a rarely used section of federal law, known as Title 10, that allows the president to federalize national guard units in circumstances where there is a “rebellion or danger of rebellion” or the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”.“There was no risk of rebellion, no threat of foreign invasion, no inability for the federal government to enforce federal laws,” Bonta said. He told reporters his office had studied the Insurrection Act and was prepared to respond should Trump later invoke it as a legal authority to deploy the US military. “We’re prepared for all of it,” he said.The statute has been invoked only once in modern history, Bonta noted, in 1970, when president Richard Nixon mobilized the nationalguard to deliver the mail during a strike by the postal service. The last time a president activated the national guard without a request from the state’s governor was in 1965, when president Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.In 1992, George HW Bush sent troops to LA to calm widespread civil unrest following the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating Black motorist Rodney King. But in that case both the California governor and the mayor of Los Angeles requested the federal intervention. 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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      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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      How can Trump use the national guard on US soil?

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      Donald Trump said on Saturday he’s deploying 2,000 California national guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests, over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.Here are some things to know about when and how the president can deploy troops on US soil.The laws are a bit vagueGenerally, federal military forces are not allowed to carry out civilian law enforcement duties against US citizens except in times of emergency.An 18th-century wartime law called the Insurrection Act is the main legal mechanism a president can use to activate the military or national guard during times of rebellion or unrest. But Trump didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act on Saturday.Instead, he relied on a similar federal law that allows the president to federalize national guard troops under certain circumstances.The national guard is a hybrid entity that serves both state and federal interests. Often, it operates under state command and control, using state funding. Sometimes national guard troops will be assigned by their state to serve federal missions, remaining under state command but using federal funding.The law cited by Trump’s proclamation places national guard troops under federal command. The law says this can be done under three circumstances: when the US is invaded or in danger of invasion; when there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the US government; or when the president is unable to “execute the laws of the United States”, with regular forces.But the law also says that orders for those purposes “shall be issued through the governors of the States”. It’s not immediately clear whether the president can activate national guard troops without the order of that state’s governor.The role of the national guard troops will be limitedTrump’s proclamation says the national guard troops will play a supporting role by protecting US immigration officers as they enforce the law, rather than having the troops perform law enforcement work.Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in military justice and national security law, says that’s because national guard troops can’t legally engage in ordinary law enforcement activities unless Trump first invokes the Insurrection Act.Vladeck said the move raises the risk that the troops could end up using force while filling that “protection” role. The move could also be a precursor to other, more aggressive troop deployments down the road, he wrote on his website.“There’s nothing these troops will be allowed to do that, for example, the ICE officers against whom these protests have been directed could not do themselves,” Vladeck wrote.Troops have been mobilized beforeThe Insurrection Act and related laws were used during the civil rights era to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central high school after that state’s governor activated the national guard to keep the students out.George HW Bush used the Insurrection Act to respond to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.National guard troops have been deployed for a variety of emergencies, including the Covid pandemic, hurricanes and other natural disasters. But generally, those deployments are carried out with the agreements of the governors of the responding states.Trump is willing to use the military on home soilIn 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their national guard troops to Washington DC to quell protests that arose after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Many of the governors agreed, sending troops to the federal district.At the time, Trump also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act for protests following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis – an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then defense secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations”.Trump never did invoke the Insurrection Act during his first term.But while campaigning for his second term, he suggested that would change. Trump told an audience in Iowa in 2023 that he had been prevented from using the military to suppress violence in cities and states during his first term, and said that if the issue came up again in his next term: “I’m not waiting.”Trump also promised to deploy the national guard to help carry out his immigration enforcement goals, and his top adviser, Stephen Miller, explained how that would be carried out: sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refused to participate, Miller said on The Charlie Kirk Show in 2023.After Trump announced he was federalizing the national guard troops on Saturday, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth said other measures could follow.Hegseth wrote on the social media platform X that active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton were on high alert and would also be mobilized “if violence continues”. More

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      DC rally protests cuts to US veterans programs: ‘Promises made to us have come under attack’

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      A flurry of red, white and blue American flags fluttered across the National Mall on Friday as more than 5,000 military veterans and their allies descended on Washington to protest against the planned elimination of 80,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the cancellation of hundreds of contracts for veterans services with community organizations.“I hope that in the future veterans will be able to get their benefits,” said David Magnus, a navy veteran who decided to travel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after his doctor told him she was quitting during a recent mental health appointment. Before Donald Trump returned to office in January, “the VA was good”, he said, but since then medical staff have faced harassment that puts the entire system at risk.“It used to be, you’d call and get an answer,” he said. “Now, so much is going on that they don’t know where to put you.”Organizers said that in addition to the march in Washington, there were more than 200 corresponding actions across the country, from watch parties to vigils held at VA clinics. Many veterans told the Guardian they came to the nation’s capital on their own after hearing about the rally online.The VA secretary, Doug Collins, has said the efforts are designed to trim bureaucratic bloat and will have no impact on veterans’ healthcare or benefits. Reporting by the Guardian last month found the agency, which provides healthcare to more than 9 million veterans, has already been plunged into crisis. Across the nation, appointments have been cancelled, hospital units closed, the physical safety of patients put at risk.View image in fullscreenDemonstrators said the Trump administration is seeking to destroy the VA, the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, with 170 government-run hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, and replace it with a private voucher program that will provide substandard care.“We’re a generation of service. We volunteered and stepped up to lead. Now we are seeing the promises made to us come under attack,” said Kyleanne Hunter, the chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a Marine Corps veteran who flew multiple combat missions as an AH1-W Super Cobra attack pilot.The administration’s proposed budget for the VA, released on Friday, slashes spending for “medical services” by $12bn – or nearly 20% – an amount offset by a corresponding 50% boost in funding for veterans seeking healthcare in the private sector.“We’re already being starved,” said Sharda Fornnarino, a Navy veteran and one of about three dozen nurses brought to the rally by the National Nurses United union. Fornnarino, who works at the VA in Denver, Colorado, said that while politicians in Washington debate permanent staff reductions, essential healthcare positions are being left vacant.With fewer staff on the floor, veterans on hospice “are being left to die in their own piss and shit”, said Teshara Felder, a Navy veteran and nurse at the agency’s hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, said.A blue-ribbon commission established by the agency last year found veterans received significantly better care at lower cost from the public system. Private providers operated with little oversight, they wrote, and “are not required to demonstrate competency in diagnosing and treating the complex care needs of veterans nor in understanding military culture, which is often critical to providing quality care for veterans”.The VA says the budget submission “prioritizes care for our most vulnerable veterans, including those experiencing homelessness or at risk of suicide” and “eliminates nonessential programming and bureaucratic overhead that does not directly serve the veteran”.View image in fullscreenThe march was held on the 81st anniversary of D-day, when Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, a decisive turn in the war against Nazi Germany during the second world war. Organizers said their inspiration goes back even further – to the “Bonus Army” march on Washington in 1932 during the depths of the Great Depression, when thousands of first world war veterans gathered on the National Mall to demand promised benefits, only to have the US military deployed against them.Christopher Purdy, an Afghanistan war veteran and organizer of today’s march, said the Bonus Army rally helped set the stage for the New Deal social programs and eventually the GI Bill, which provided higher education, healthcare and home ownership to veterans returning from the second world war.Other speakers criticized Trump’s decision to impose a travel ban on visitors from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, where many of the demonstrators served alongside translators who risked their lives for the US. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump ordered a pause on the US refugee admissions program, putting translators’ safety in doubt.“We all left behind people who are now marked,” said Nadim Yousify, who immigrated to the United States in 2015 after working as a US government translator in Afghanistan and later joined the Marine Corps. More