By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
National Guard troops were sent to Los Angeles after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment over the weekend, following days of protests and riots in the city.
The U.S. Northern Command confirmed in a post on social media platform X on Sunday morning that the California National Guard started deploying troops in the Los Angeles area and that some members “are already on the ground.”
“Additional information will be provided as units are identified and deployed,” the military added, including photos of National Guard troops and other assets.
Members of California’s National Guard were seen staging early Sunday at the federal complex in downtown Los Angeles that includes the Metropolitan Detention Center, one of several sites where confrontations involving hundreds of people have taken place over the previous two days.
The troops included members of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a social media post from the U.S. Northern Command that showed dozens of National Guard members with long guns and an armored vehicle.
The message was issued just hours after Trump wrote on social media platform Truth Social that the National Guard is doing a “great job” to quell “violence, clashes, and unrest” before he criticized both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats, and accusing them of slow-walking a response to the protests.
Earlier Sunday, Bass wrote that “the National Guard has not been deployed in the city of Los Angeles,” although that came before Northern Command’s post.
“These radical left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED,” the president wrote. “Also, from now on, masks will not be allowed to be worn at protests.”
Over the weekend, Trump confirmed in a signed memorandum that he would deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to the violence.
In a signal of the administration’s approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also warned he could deploy active-duty Marines “if violence continues” in the area.
The deployment also follows clashes near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles. As protesters sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, federal agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.
Trump’s order also came after clashes in neighboring Compton, where a car was set on fire. Protests continued into the evening in Paramount, with several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities holding up barbed wire to keep the crowd back.
Crowds also gathered again outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles, including a detention center, where local police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people.
Officials with Homeland Security defended their immigration enforcement in the city, noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested a 55-year-old illegal immigrant from the Philippines who had multiple criminal convictions. Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote that he has convictions of assault, theft, burglary and rape.
“This criminal illegal alien is who [Newsom, Bass,] and the rioters are trying to protect over U.S. citizens,” she wrote on X.
Newsom wrote in a post on X that the federal government under Trump is trying to “take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers,” adding that it is “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”
Local authorities can “access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” the governor added. “We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need. The Guard has been admirably serving L.A. throughout recovery. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
