Trump admin pulls back deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in LA

By Alicia A. Caldwell

 

The Trump administration has recalled about half of the California National Guard troops that were deployed to Los Angeles under federal orders last month after a series of high-profile immigration raids and anti-deportation protests.

 

About 2,000 National Guard troops will be released from duty because “the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Tuesday. Roughly 700 Marines remain deployed in the city.

 

Trump ordered the federal deployment in early June, the first time in decades that a president used the National Guard in a US city without a request from the state government or local authorities. At the time, he said the troops — which numbered roughly 4,000 — were needed to quell what he described as rioting that would have otherwise destroyed the city. 

The move drew condemnation from Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, who accused the president of making the tensions even worse. 

 

Days of protests were mostly confined to several city blocks around downtown LA, largely focused on a federal detention center and another government building that houses an immigration court office. Federal immigration agents and troops have continued to confront protesters at the sites of arrest operations, but large-scale protests have generally subsided. Bass lifted a curfew in the downtown area on June 17.

 

Newsom, who is suing the administration to end the deployment, said the remaining troops “continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities.”

 

“We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now,” the governor said in a statement Tuesday.

 

The National Guard troops were initially tasked with protecting federal property, along with hundreds of active-duty US Marines deployed to the city. Some of those troops later escorted immigration agents during raids at Home Depot parking lots, car washes and agriculture fields in nearby Ventura County. Thousands of immigrants across the LA region have been arrested since early June. 

 

Dozens of troops were deployed to a city park earlier this month as heavily armed federal agents marched across the area in an operation that didn’t yield any arrests, according to city officials who decried the effort as an unnecessary display of force.

 

The recent focus on LA is part of a broader Trump administration effort to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in US history. Federal immigration authorities have been ordered to make at least 3,000 arrests a day and have increasingly swept up farm workers and day laborers along with foreigners accused of committing crimes in the US.

 

Bass, a Democrat, said Tuesday’s recall of 2,000 troops was a “retreat.” 

 

“This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong,” Bass said in a statement. “We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.”