LA protests live: Trump mobilizes 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines to crack down on anti-ICE unrest – UK Times

Senator John Fetterman is again breaking with members of his party, condemning L.A. protesters for causing “anarchy” as many Democrats accuse Donald Trump of triggering riots with aggressive immigration raids.

“I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos,” Fetterman wrote on X on Monday night. “My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.”

Here’s more on Fetterman’s growing estrangement from the left of his party.

“A number of reports suggest that federal officers have indiscriminately used force or deployed munitions such as tear gas or pepper balls that caused significant injuries to journalists,” press groups wrote in a letter Monday to the Homeland Security Secretary. “In some cases, federal officers appear to have deliberately targeted journalists who were doing nothing more than their job covering the news.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is warning protesters that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will “come after” them the more they agitate, seeming to blur the line between the agency’s immigration role and more traditional law enforcement functions.

“The more that they protest and commit acts of violence against law enforcement officers, the harder ICE is going to come after them,” Noem told Fox News on Monday.

“They’ve acted with dignity and they’ve acted with grace under stressful situations,” she continued, speaking about ICE agents. “When they’ve been disrespected, they’ve responded appropriately under the law to make sure they were treating every individual the same and making sure due process was followed and they were doing their jobs.”

High-profile immigration raids triggered the protests that have consumed Los Angeles in recent days, and the situation could get exponentially more tense going forward as Trump may seek to “operationalize” National Guard troops to carry out more such operations, according to California’s governor.

“We’re getting word that he’s looking to operationalize that relationship and advance significantly larger ICE operations, in partnership, in collaboration, with the National Guard,” California Governor Gavin Newsom told Pod Save America on Monday. “We’re on the other side now of the red line.”

Four thousand federalized California National Guard troops are being deployed across Los Angeles, over the objections of local officials.

Protesters burned and vandalized five Waymo self-driving taxis on Sunday as part of the protests in Los Angeles, and now the tech company is moving to limit car service in San Francisco in areas expecting similar demonstrations, The New York Times reports.

“We’re aware of potential protests and will not be providing service in the areas protesters may be gathering out of abundance of caution,” a company spokeswoman told the paper.

Local police have been using “less lethal” weaponry on protesters in Los Angeles.

CNN reported on Monday night that the LA police were using FN303s, a gun that uses compressed air to fire projectiles, as well as deploying golfball-sized rubber bullets on protesters. Authorities have also used CS gas, which is a tear gas, and flash bangs for crowd control.

Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was seen on camera screaming and grabbing her leg after getting hit by a rubber bullet while covering the LA protests on Sunday.

“Thousands of protesters and bystanders have been maimed and dozens killed by the often reckless and disproportionate use of less lethal law enforcement weaponry,” Amnesty International said in 2023 after studying the use of such weapons.

During the protests that erupted over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, local police used rubber bullets and tear gas on demonstrators.

Soren Stevenson, a protester who put up his hands as police approached him, lost his left eye after getting hit with a plastic-tipped rubber bullet, despite the department banning their use against nonviolent people, according to KFF Health News.

As night falls over Los Angeles, larger protests crowds have thinned, and thick lines of heavily armed police are pushing smaller groups of protesters away from sensitive areas like federal buildings downtown.

A CNN camera feed captured one of group of officers firing crowd-control rounds into an assembled group of demonstrators who were yelling in their faces.

Individuals within the group had reportedly set off fireworks at the advancing police.

Immigration operations have reportedly expanded beyond the immediate Los Angeles area and into nearby Santa Ana, in Orange County, prompting protests.

“Border Patrol and ICE indiscriminately raided and violently detained many of our neighbors in Santa Ana and other cities,” Santa Ana Police Oversight Commissioner Carlos Perea said in a statement on Monday, sharing a video appearing to show an agent in a bulletproof vest chasing a man then tossing him to the ground.

“There are reports of arrests of individuals doing nothing but standing outside and being profiled,” Congressman Lou Correa, who represents parts of the area, said in a separate statement. “It’s unacceptable, and shocking, that this is happening in my hometown of Santa Ana.”

Federal officials do not appear to have publicly acknowledged the operations.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have set up checkpoints to screen drivers around the Los Angeles area, California Governor Gavin Newsom claims.

“They’re doing check points, checking people’s IDs. We’ve never seen this kind of deployment,” Newsom told Meidas Touch.

“It’s mass panic out here in the nation largest county, in the national largest state,” he added. “Good hardworking people, decent people. These are not the criminals. These are not the thugs.”

If true, such operations would represent another dramatic escalation of the scope of immigration operations taking place across the city. Checkpoints manned by immigration agents are typically seen at the border itself, not in the interior of the country.