'No Kings' protests: Tensions rise in LA as crowd hurls concrete, police allege

Dozens of mayors from across the Los Angeles region banded together Wednesday to demand that the Trump administration stop the stepped-up immigration raids that have spread fear across their cities and sparked protests across the U.S. They also called on President Donald Trump to pull back from using troops alongside immigration agents during the raids.

"I'm asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents," said Mayor Jessica Ancona of El Monte, who said she was hit by rubber bullets during a raid in her city.

Meanwhile, the commander in charge of the troops said about 500 National Guard soldiers deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations. And while some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it's too early to say if that will continue, even after the protests die down.

Speaking alongside the other mayors at a news conference, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the raids spread fear at the behest of the White House.

"We started off by hearing the administration wanted to go after violent felons, gang members, drug dealers. But when you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you're not trying to keep anyone safe," she said. "You're trying to cause fear and panic."

Those who have been caught up in the nationwide raids include asylum seekers, people who overstayed their visas and migrants awaiting their day in immigration court.

The administration has cited the protests in its decision to deploy the military. Referring to the demonstrations, which have been mostly concentrated in the LA business district, the Democratic mayor added: "If you drive a few blocks outside of downtown, you don't know that anything is happening in the city at all."

California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has asked a federal court to put an emergency stop to the military helping immigration agents in the nation's second-largest city. This week, guardsmen began standing protectively around agents as they carry out arrests. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.

The military is now closer to engaging in law enforcement actions such as deportations, as Trump has promised in his crackdown. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement.

The president posted on the Truth Social platform that the city "would be burning to the ground" if he had not sent in the military.

Some 2,000 National Guard soldiers are in Los Angeles, and are soon to be joined by 2,000 more along with about 700 Marines, said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, head of Task Force 51, which is overseeing the deployment of National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles.

Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and ABC, Sherman initially said that National Guard troops had already temporarily detained civilians in the Los Angeles protests over immigration raids. He later said he based his comments on photos and footage he had seen that turned out not to be a representation of Guard members in Los Angeles.
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This story has been corrected. The commander of the troops deployed to Los Angeles initially told the AP that National Guard members had already detained some civilians. He later said his information was incorrect and Guard members have not detained civilians.

All 700 Marines sent to LA must complete four days of crowd control training, Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Smith said that the Marines are operating under standard Rules of Force.

"These rules emphasize de-escalation, use of non-lethal force and the inherent right of self-defense for Marines and others," he said.

The 4,000 National Guardsmen must complete two days of crowd control training, he said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's lawsuit challenging the Trump administration from using the military to enforce federal immigration laws is a "crass political stunt endangering American lives," Department of Justice lawyers said.

The lawyers asked a federal judge to deny Newsom's request for a temporary restraining order that would limit the military to protecting federal buildings, arguing such an order would amount to a "rioters' veto to enforcement of federal law."

"The extraordinary relief Plaintiffs request would judicially countermand the Commander in Chief's military directives -- and would do so in the posture of a temporary restraining order, no less. That would be unprecedented. It would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous," they argued.

In Newsom's request for an emergency order blocking the troops from assisting in federal law enforcement, he argued Trump failed to meet the legal requirements for a federal deployment of the National Guard. Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services allows a federal deployment in response to a "rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."

"To put it bluntly, there is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together," Newsom argued.

In response, lawyers with the Department of Justice argued that California should not "second-guess the President's judgment that federal reinforcements were necessary" and that a federal court should defer to the president's discretion on military matters.a

Thirty mayors from the LA area joined together at a news conference to call on the raids to end.

LA Mayor Karen Bass again claimed that LA is "part of a national experiment" by the Trump administration "to determine how far the federal government can go in reaching in and taking over power" from state and local leaders.

Bass also highlighted the estimated $134 million spent to deploy the Marines and National Guard, saying, "all of our cities could use that money."

For many residents of the south LA city of Paramount -- one of the sites of protests -- "this has been one of the most devastating moments in recent memory," Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons said, with some families now too afraid to leave their homes.

Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said, "The militarization of immigration enforcement has no place in our neighborhoods and the deployment of Marines on U.S. soil is an alarming escalation that undermines the values of democracy."

"We stand against these fear-based tactics that target immigrant communities and erode public trust," he said, calling the administration's actions "political theater that is rooted in fear."