A photo posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows a service member protecting a federal agent as he arrests a man. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The nearly 5,000 troops — National Guard soldiers and Marines — deployed to Los Angeles to help contain immigration protests have expanded their mission to protect federal agents as they conduct raids and arrests throughout the city, military officials confirmed Tuesday.
“Service members are protecting federal assets and personnel while they perform their federal functions. Military service members will not directly participate in law enforcement activities,” according to U.S. Northern Command, the joint military headquarters overseeing the mission.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday posted images to social media that showed service members providing protection as federal agents arrested people just hours after California called on the federal courts to file an emergency injunction to prohibit it. The judge scheduled a hearing for Thursday.
Since arriving Sunday in L.A., troops have remained outside of the downtown Edward R. Roybal Federal building in a relatively stationary posture, occasionally moving with law enforcement to hold the line against protesters. Soldiers can be seen in news footage with crowd control shields, gas masks, M-4 rifles and wooden batons surrounding the federal building that has become a focus of immigration protests because people arrested in immigration raids Friday were brought there for detention.
About 1,700 of the 4,000 Guard troops deployed to the city were there Tuesday afternoon, according to Army North, which is executing the mission for NORTHCOM. The 700 Marines from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines have made it to the greater Los Angeles area from about 140 east in Twentynine Palms. However, a NORTHCOM official declined to comment on their specific location and disposition.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of the first 2,000 Guard troops Saturday night after protests that began peacefully escalated into violence and damaged property. He ordered the Marines into the city Monday afternoon and another 2,000 Guard troops hours later.
All Marines receive crowd control training and those sent to Los Angeles are carrying shields and batons, Gen. Eric Smith, the Marine Corps commandant, said Tuesday during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“I am not concerned. I have great faith in my Marines and their junior leaders and their more senior leaders to execute the lawful task that they’re given,” he said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he, too, has great faith in Marines when they are assigned to do their central mission.
“I am deeply worried about the effect of the use of Marines or National Guard in a way that could inflame and incite rather than calm tensions,” Blumenthal said. “Marines are trained to be a lethal force, as you have said, and that is known by the people who are going to be in those streets.”
Local law enforcement has made arrests each day of the protests and has described the situation, now in its fifth day, as mostly peaceful with pockets of violence.
“The possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city,” said Jim McDonnell, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. “The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively.”
In federal court documents filed Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Trump’s deployment of the military has inflamed the protesters instead of calming them. He has also argued Trump overstepped his powers in ordering the deployment.
California officials learned Monday that troops were shifting their mission to “holding a secure perimeter in communities around areas where immigration enforcement activities would take place and securing routes over public streets where immigration enforcement officers would travel,” according to court documents.
The Pentagon has also faced criticism that the deployment of the National Guard was so rushed, it did not establish appropriate accommodations. Photos of soldiers sleeping on the floor were published Monday in the San Francisco Chronicle with anonymously sourced accusations that troops were sent to Los Angeles without funds for fuel, food, water or lodging.
“The soldiers you saw in the photo were resting as they were not currently on mission and due to the fluid security situation, it was deemed too dangerous for them to travel to better accommodations,” NORTHCOM said Tuesday. “The soldiers have ready access to food and water as needed.”
The soldiers do have accommodations with cots at another location, according to a military official speaking on condition of anonymity. They are also being served meals, ready to eat, while the logistics for hot food is sorted out.
