An additional 2,000 members of California’s National Guard have been federalized and are being deployed to Los Angeles, according to federal officials.
The order comes after much of the civil unrest in the city related to ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, as well as the earlier federalization of California National Guardsmen and the deployment of U.S. Marines, has stabilized.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass even lifted the curfew issued for a single-square-mile downtown that was put in place in response to protest-related violence and clashes with police on Tuesday.
“By direction of the Secretary of Defense and in coordination with U.S. Northern Command, about 2,000 additional California Army National Guard soldiers have been activated in a Title 10 status to support the protection of federal functions, personnel, and property in the great Los Angeles area,” a news release from U.S. Northern Command stated.
According to federal officials, the additional troops, who are currently undergoing training for crowd control, de-escalation and rules for use of force, will not participate in civilian law enforcement activities.
This deployment brings the total number of federalized California National Guardsmen in Los Angeles to around 4,100 soldiers along with 700 active-duty U.S. Marines.
It’s unclear if the additional deployment is connected to recent statements made by the president singling out Democrat-run cities like L.A., Chicago and New York, calling them “Democrat Power Centers” where “Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”
In a Sunday post to his social media platform Truth Social, President Trump called on ICE “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
In Canada at the G7 Conference, the president doubled down on the inflammatory rhetoric.
“Yeah, I want them to focus on these cities because the cities are where you really have what’s called sanctuary cities, and that’s where the people are,” he told reporters. “New York and L.A. – look at L.A. Those people weren’t from L.A., they weren’t from California, most of those people, many of those people.”
The Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard and Marines to the city has come under heavy criticism by state and local leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass.
Arguments also began today in the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals on whether the Trump administration should return control of California National Guard troops to Gov. Newsom after they were originally deployed, the Associated Press reported.
