A heavy military presence was seen in downtown Los Angeles early Sunday morning after unrest sparked by ICE raids in the L.A. area and ahead of what is expected to be a third day of protests.
President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops to be deployed Saturday night after a raid in Paramount earlier in the day that set off a chain of destructive demonstrations. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, however, said just after midnight Sunday that the National Guard had not been deployed in the city.
Military personnel began arriving at the Federal Building in downtown around 4 a.m. Sunday to ensure that federal agents are protected. More have been deployed to the Hall of Justice, next to City Hall.
“It’s one thing to see a heavy law enforcement presence, but it’s a whole other situation when we have [this many] military personnel in downtown L.A.,” KTLA 5’s Jennifer McGraw said.
A rally has been planned for 2 p.m., but impromptu demonstrations are expected to pop up on Sunday morning.
Protests began on Friday after federal agents conducted raids in DTLA and the Westlake neighborhood, which resulted in more than 40 people being detained, including a local labor union president. The tension continued the next day when ICE officials were seen in Paramount, and large crowds quickly gathered there and in neighboring Compton, where demonstrators set a car on fire.
The unrest spread to downtown by Saturday evening, where protesters clashed with ICE agents outside the Federal Detention Center, where some detainees are believed to be held. Immigrant advocates, legal representatives and U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (CA-34) attempted to enter the facility to see those who had been detained during raids but said they were denied entry multiple times.
The situation has escalated tensions between local, state and federal leaders; President Trump has repeatedly called out L.A. Mayor Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for their handling of the protests.
Newsom called Trump’s move to deploy the National Guard “purposefully inflammatory” and less than ten minutes later, Trump put out a social media post that read: “If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
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