The Defense Department declared on Tuesday the deployment of an additional 2,000 California National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area. This development follows earlier reports of an intensifying immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, leading to a series of, at times, contentious protests in downtown L.A. over the past weeks.
According to reliable sources, the U.S. Northern Command stated the troops’ activation is under the Title 10 law, a statute previously invoked by President Trump when he first made public on June 7 his decision to dispatch National Guard troops to L.A. These soldiers, it has been reported, will ‘support the protection of federal functions, personnel, and property in the greater Los Angeles area,’ according to USNORTHCOM.
The recent update from USNORTHCOM clarified that these 2,000 National Guard troops had already been announced last week. They will join approximately 2,100 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines presently stationed in L.A. This decision to activate them came directly from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, officials said.
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom released a statement asserting: ‘This is clean up from the Pentagon. This isn’t a new deployment — it’s the same group of soldiers who have been diverted from critical wildfire work and work at the border, now twiddling their thumbs for Donald Trump’s political theater. This is the deployment of the second set of 2000 federalized Guard soldiers, under the June 9 order. The description of what they are and aren’t going to be doing is meant to be consistent with their legal position, rather than the immigration enforcement support we’ve seen them doing in Los Angeles.’
Local and state officials have strongly criticized President Trump’s move, arguing that local law enforcement was competent to manage the protests, some of which escalated into violence. These protests were born out of a series of immigration raids throughout the L.A. area. The deployment of federal troops on city streets, according to these officials, has only served to aggravate the situation in L.A., a city known for its large and diverse immigrant community.
Mr. Trump’s initial memo ordering the deployment states the troops are in L.A. to ‘temporarily protect’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as other federal personnel and property. The president’s use of Title 10 to deploy federal troops domestically is now facing a legal challenge from Governor Newsom, who filed a lawsuit labeling the move a ‘power grab’. He argues that California National Guard troops were placed under federal control without his consent.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco briefly and temporarily blocked the National Guard deployment. However, mere hours later, an appeals court halted Breyer’s ruling. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit heard arguments in the case over whether Mr. Trump exceeded his authority when he invoked Title 10.
