US President Donald Trump’s administration has sent thousands more troops to Los Angeles on a fourth day of chaotic protests against immigration raids, as the unrest spread to other US cities.
Some 700 US Marines have been deployed to the LA area and the contingent of National Guard troops mobilised to help quell the disorder has been doubled to 4,000.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said the move was fulfilling “the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial president”.
The state is suing the president for sending in troops without the governor’s permission. It is highly unusual for the American military to have any domestic law enforcement role.
At least four Mexican nationals detained in LA since Friday have already been deported back to Mexico, the country’s foreign affairs office announced on Monday.
The standoff in LA represents the first time since 1965 that a president has sent National Guard troops to a US city without a governor’s approval.
US Marines were previously deployed domestically for major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The Trump administration has so far not invoked the Insurrection Act, which would allow his deployed troops to directly participate in civilian policing.
On Tuesday morning, the LA County prosecutor reiterated the view of state authorities that the extra deployment was unnecessary. “We have not reached the point where local law enforcement has got beyond its means to deal with the situation,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Hochman said only a “small fraction” of the area’s population were actually protesting, and an even smaller number had broken the law.
But he said there had been multiple instances of crime, “whether it’s burning Waymo vehicles, throwing cinder blocks and bricks at the police, driving a motorcycle into the police, or vandalising – and defacing through graffiti – public and private buildings”.
