Nationwide — For the first time since the 1992 Rodney King uprising, a sitting U.S. President has deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles without a formal request from the city or state. President Donald Trump authorized the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to respond to escalating immigration protests, sparking immediate backlash from California leaders—especially from L.A.’s Black mayor, Karen Bass, who condemned the move as “dangerous and unnecessary.” The protests erupted after a new wave of ICE raids swept through immigrant communities across L.A. County, triggering fear, outrage, and violent clashes with federal agents.
Time reports that Mayor Bass, a veteran community organizer and former Congressional Black Caucus chair, urged calm while slamming the federal response. “We will not allow this city to be turned into a war zone,” she said in a televised address. “Every Angeleno has the right to protest—but military force against civilians is not the answer.” Bass said city officials had not requested federal troops and accused the Trump administration of seeking to “provoke violence for political theater.” Her statement came just hours after National Guard troops arrived at several federal properties across the region.
Trump, however, doubled down. On Truth Social, he accused protesters of being “radical left agitators” and called for a ban on masks at protests. “What are they hiding?” he wrote. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that active-duty Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton were also on standby. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the deployment “purposefully inflammatory,” warned that Trump was “manufacturing a crisis to justify more authoritarian control.”
This deployment marks only the third time in modern history that the National Guard has been sent into L.A. in response to civil unrest—following the 1965 Watts rebellion and the 1992 Rodney King riots. But unlike past events, this latest action bypasses state leadership altogether. “No governor or mayor asked for this,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, calling Trump’s move “a clear step toward authoritarianism.” Civil liberties groups including the ACLU have threatened legal action, calling the deployment “a declaration of war on Californians.”
The protests were sparked by aggressive ICE raids, which have reportedly resulted in more than 2,000 arrests nationwide this week, with 118 in L.A. alone. Activists and immigrant rights organizations say federal agents used excessive force and failed to show warrants. In downtown L.A. and Paramount, demonstrators lit fires, clashed with officers, and blocked intersections. Over 120 people have been arrested, according to federal authorities. “We belong here,” said one organizer from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. “And we will not be silenced.”
As tension builds, Mayor Bass continues to urge nonviolence while rejecting the federal militarization of the city. “Let history remember,” she said, “who stood for unity—and who brought soldiers into our neighborhoods to silence dissent.”