President Trump ordered the troops to temporarily protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and government personnel, as well as federal property, according to a memo released by the White House.
The announcement late Saturday brought to a head simmering tensions between the Trump administration, which had been saying local authorities didn’t move quickly enough to address the clashes, and Democratic leaders of the city and state. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the move “purposefully inflammatory.”
Trump, posting early Sunday on his Truth Social platform, thanked the National Guard and said Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were unable “to handle the task.”
“Also,” the president wrote, “from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???”
Protests broke out Saturday in Paramount, a city about 16 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, but fewer than 100 people remained by nightfall, according to a local official.
Protesters also gathered outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles Saturday night and were pushed back by law enforcement using tear gas and flash-bangs, according to local news footage. Los Angeles police declared an unlawful assembly in the area and detained multiple people.
The deployment of troops under federal authority in response to civil unrest is a rare step, one that usually requires the president to find under the Insurrection Act that they are needed to enforce the law or restore order.
The White House said in a statement Saturday night that the troops were deployed after the president “signed a presidential memorandum.”
“This is highly unusual,” said Laura Dickinson, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “It is unclear what legal authority the president is using to deploy the troops. If he is invoking the Insurrection Act, he has to issue a proclamation explaining that. And that act is used as a last resort.”
“As far as I can see, law and order has not completely broken down in Los Angeles,” she said.
Newsom said sending the National Guard troops was unnecessary. “The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” he said in a post on X.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton in Southern California were on “high alert” and would be sent to reinforce the National Guard if violence continued.
Newsom said the threat to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil was “deranged behavior.”
In Los Angeles, the County Sheriff’s Department said it responded Saturday morning to a protest in Paramount.
Deputies stepped in to control the crowd after protesters threw objects at federal agents and deputy sheriffs, according to the department. “When federal authorities come under attack and request assistance, we will support them and provide aid,” the department said.
The mayor of Paramount, Peggy Lemons, said the federal agents had been gathering in an industrial park near a Home Depot when residents in the majority-Latino neighborhood spotted them. It wasn’t known why the agents were staging there, but Homeland Security has had an office in the park for at least 15 years, she said.
As the crowd grew to roughly 300 people, the federal agents called the County Sheriff for assistance. Law enforcement tossed flash-bang stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the crowd, she said. Some protesters responded with firecrackers and at one point set a tire on fire in the road.
Additional munitions were delivered to authorities in Paramount aboard Customs and Border Protection helicopters, according to an Instagram post from a U.S. Border Patrol sector chief in Southern California, Gregory Bovino.
Nobody was injured, Lemons said. Approximately four people were detained by authorities. The local authorities had the situation under control, said Lemons, who spent the day at the protest scene command post. By nightfall, the scene was mostly clear, she said.
“People are angry, you know, they’re just afraid that mom or dad’s not gonna come home or a child’s not gonna come home. It just comes from that place of fear and chaos that appears to be part of our world right now,” she said.
In videos of the scene, people were seen running and yelling in the streets. “ICE out of Paramount. You are not welcome here,” one woman shouted through a megaphone. Smoke filled the streets.
The outcry was similar to protests that took place in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, when people reacted to federal agents engaged in what appeared to be immigration enforcement.
The president of California’s Service Employees International Union, David Huerta, was injured and detained Friday while protesting what the union said was a raid by ICE officials in Los Angeles. Videos captured people surrounding vans, shouting and chanting. The protests lasted overnight Friday.
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal Essayli said Friday on social media that agents were executing a warrant at a work site in Los Angeles when Huerta “deliberately obstructed their access by blocking their vehicle.”
Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Friday that some 800 protesters surrounded and breached a federal law-enforcement building in Los Angeles. She said protesters assaulted ICE officers, slashed tires and defaced public property.
The National Guard forces will be deployed under the orders of the federal government, known as Title 10 authority, according to the White House memo, and will protect federal property. U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for military operations in North America, said Hegseth had directed it to assume command of the troops.
“To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” Trump’s memo said.
The troops are authorized to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property,” the memo said.
It said the troops will be activated for 60 days unless Hegseth decides otherwise. Hegseth has discretion to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary.” The order doesn’t limit the use of federal forces to Los Angeles.
