Trump deploys 2,000 National Guard members to LA

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The Committee to Protect Journalists released a statement Monday noting that several journalists have sustained injuries from law enforcement while reporting on protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles over the weekend.

“Any attempt to discourage or silence media coverage by intimidating or injuring journalists should not be tolerated,” Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator, said in the statement.

Lauren Tomasi, an Australian journalist for 9News, was wrapping up a live broadcast on Sunday when she was shot with a rubber bullet by a police officer from close range. 9News reported that Tomasi was sore but unharmed. In a video of the incident, law enforcement appears to turn and aim at Tomasi then fire. A bystander can be heard saying: “You just shot the f**king reporter.”

The Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called the incident “completely unacceptable” and implored the Australian prime minister to address the matter with President Donald Trump.

A British photojournalist, Nick Stern, was also taken into emergency surgery on Sunday after being hit in the thigh by a three-inch plastic bullet fired by police. Stern told the BBC that he was being “very deliberate and very obvious" about his role as media, wearing his press pass and a huge camera around his neck.

Tomasi and Stern aren’t an anomaly. Other reporters injured by law enforcement over the weekend include Ryanne Mena, a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Daily News, and Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, a freelance reporter, who were both shot with nonlethal rounds and teargassed by law enforcement. A New York Times reporter also visited the hospital after sustaining injuries from a nonlethal round.

Dozens of protests and rallies opposing ICE raids and government immigration policies were held across the country on Monday, with more planned for the rest of the week, after a weekend of protests and unrest in Los Angeles.

Since Sunday, the anti-ICE movement has spread across California and beyond, with events held from New York to Texas. Activists plan more events on Tuesday, with events due in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. A series of so-called "No Kings" nationwide demonstrations are planned for Saturday.

NBC News counted at least 25 rallies and demonstrations coast to coast. Some of them only involved a few dozen participants, while others attracted thousands to make a stand against the detention and removal of suspected undocumented migrants.

Many protesters across the country were trade unionists calling for the release of SEIU California President David Huerta, who was arrested on Friday.

California and the West Coast
Thousands reportedly marched through San Francisco on Monday, marking the second day of anti-ICE protests there, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The San Francisco Police Department stated on X that the demonstration was "overwhelmingly peaceful," but added that two small groups "broke off and committed vandalism and other acts" at the end of the night. The department said it made an unspecified number of arrests.

At least 60 people were arrested at a march in San Francisco on Sunday for failing to respond to a dispersal order, NBC Bay Area reported.

"It’s important for us to show up everywhere, because what happened in L.A., what’s happening all over our country," said Xan Joi of Berkeley, who attended Sunday's protest with a sign that read "CA National Guard & Newsom: Protect our 1st Amendment rights."

Jesse McKinnon, of Pleasant Hill, carried a sign that read "Softball dad against tyranny."

NBC L.A. reported that at least 1,000 people joined a protest at a federal building in Santa Ana, Orange County. The number of arrests is unknown, but they came after police declared the gathering unlawful.

Hundreds gathered at City Hall in San Jose on Sunday, and two separate protests occurred in San Diego.

"This policy hits close to home, our family is a family of immigrants," Vanessa Garcia-Morales of San Jose told NBC Bay Area.

Referring to one of her two sons, who was at the rally, she said, "His life is at risk, truthfully, with the policy that's happening, he can very much be targeted by just the way he looks.”

Protests took place across the Portland, Oregon, metro area, including a march in Seattle and one in Las Vegas.

New York and the East Coast
At least nine people were taken into custody in New York after a tense standoff between protestors and police at a rally on Monday, according to NBC New York.

NYPD confirmed there were "multiple arrests when people refused to comply" outside Trump Tower in Midtown around 1 p.m., before a "disorderly group" was arrested at 6:50 p.m. for blocking traffic and refusing to comply.

The event targeted ICE raids and the travel ban imposed on 12 countries worldwide this week, with restrictions on people from 7 more countries.

Protesters also gathered in Boston, Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Texas, the South and the Midwest
At least one person was arrested on Monday in Dallas, police said, with charges pending, as protesters and law enforcement met in a standoff that shut down a busy intersection.

The Daily Texan reported that some 500 gathered at the Texas Capitol on Monday, while hundreds gathered in San Antonio, according to Spectrum News 1.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, referring to the deployment of National Guard troops to L.A., said on X that "an organized assault has been waged against federal law enforcement officials."

Rallies and demonstrations also took place in Charlotte, Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis, Chicago, Detroit, and Oklahoma City.

Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem signaled on Tuesday that she would continue the agency’s program of raids and deportations despite the widespread protests.

"ICE will continue to enforce the law," Noem said

For the White House, this scene — Trump battling a blue state over his signature issue — is a political win, officials said. It’s a nationally watched saga of the sort that has long defined his career: a made-for-TV moment.

“We’re happy to have this fight,” a White House official said, emphasizing that politically, the administration sees it as a winning issue.

Democrats and immigration activists have broadly blasted the Los Angeles operation as illegal and inhumane and insisted that it’s all about politics — and not about sound public policy.

This Administration’s actions are not about public safety — they’re about stoking fear,” former Vice President Kamala Harris, a Los Angeles resident who ran against Trump last year, wrote in a statement.

But Trump allies argue that it’s simply Trump carrying out the hard-line immigration agenda that was the centerpiece of his campaign. NBC News spoke with four White House officials, in addition to other Trump supporters, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

“This is what America voted for, period,” a Trump adviser said. “This is the America First focus that got the president elected and is driven by nothing else than what he promised American voters.”

“Look at the violence, the attacks on law enforcement,” the adviser added. “If Democrats want to support that, let them. This is why we win elections and they do not.”

Trump advisers also pointed to the fact that the president’s immigration policies continue to get high marks in most public polling.

Some of those influencers have been posting from the protests — most notably Phil McGraw, a well-known Trump supporter better known as “Dr. Phil,” who embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the Los Angeles raids, as he did during similar immigration raids in Chicago this year.

The Trump adviser, asked about McGraw’s involvement, said: “This is an important moment in American history. People have a right to see it in a way not unfairly skewed by a biased mainstream media.”

The adviser wouldn’t elaborate on how McGraw, whose presence was first reported by CNN, was able to have front-line access to the federal immigration operations. A spokesman for McGraw didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Republicans more broadly also see the fight as a political winner and say Democrats are functionally taking the bait on an issue in which polling has given Trump an advantage.

“I think it is a symptom of how far left this party has done when you have major Democrats standing on the side of illegal aliens that are torching vehicles,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Fox News on Monday.

“It is one of the reasons the Democratic Party is struggling so much nationally,” he added.

Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration official, said the raids shouldn’t be a surprise because immigration is a “legitimate issue” the voters have signaled they care about.

“There is no political upside in defending or denying the images of burning cars, rioters and looting and the destruction,” he said of Democrats. “A feeling that things have spun out of control in California and that government can’t effectively govern. … It has changed the conversation from illegal immigration to a breakdown in society.”

Still, there has been some disagreement — at least in public messaging — about how far to push in going after California Democrats, a break between what may be politically popular with the base and what’s politically realistic.

The clearest example centers on the Trump administration’s authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops over the opposition of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have argued that inserting National Guard troops will inflame tensions and potential violence — a response that has led Trump to signal he would consider arresting Newsom if he were to continue what the administration considers to be his interference.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, referring to his “border czar,” Tom Homan. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity. But I do think it would be a great thing.”

While detaining Newsom would no doubt please Trump’s MAGA base, White House officials privately say it’s not currently in the cards.

“It’s not being actively planned or considered,” a senior White House official said. “But anyone who breaks federal law puts themselves at risk of being arrested. That’s just a basic fact.”

A second White House official said that if either Newsom or Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman, do something at odds with federal immigration law, they could be detained. But the official also acknowledged that the optics of arresting California officials amid an immigration fight they believe most Americans support could backfire with some Republican voters because, at the moment, it doesn’t appear they have actually broken any immigration laws.

The official said there isn’t some grand strategy to deploy National Guard troops in blue cities across the country; the administration is simply waiting to see whether other protests get out of control.

Meanwhile, Newsom has leaned into the threats, practically daring the administration to arrest him rather than focusing on the protesters.

“He’s a tough guy. Why doesn’t he do that? He knows where to find me,” Newsom told MSNBC on Sunday. Referring to Homan, he added: “That kind of bloviating is exhausting. So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”

The increasingly contentious political fight over Los Angeles, administration officials admit, is no longer about just deporting those with criminal records, which was Trump’s main pitch to voters on the campaign trail.

On Monday, an MSNBC host asked Homan whether everyone ICE has arrested as part of the Trump administration’s immigration efforts had criminal records, and he had a blunt response.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he’ll deploy the National Guard to locations across the state "to ensure peace and order," ahead of a planned protest in San Antonio.

"Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest. @TexasGuard will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order," he wrote on X late Tuesday evening local time.

Spectrum News 1 reported that San Antonio held a peaceful demonstration downtown on Sunday. This demonstration followed the recent ICE arrests of immigrants who showed up for appearances in the San Antonio Immigration Court.

The city is bracing for more demonstrations on Wednesday. Mayor Ron Nirenberg and local police will hold a news conference today to discuss the city’s plan for the protests.

A “No Kings Day” protest decrying the Trump administration’s policies is planned for Saturday, Trump’s birthday, in downtown San Antonio. Several groups will organize it: the 50501 Movement, the Bexar County Democratic Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Indivisible and Women’s March. Similar “No Kings Day” protests are planned across the country.

In Austin, 500 people gathered in front of the state’s Capitol Monday evening in solidarity with the L.A. protesters to denounce Trump’s federal immigration policies. Local and state authorities used pepper spray and flash bang grenades on protesters in that incident, and more than a dozen people were arrested, Abbott said.

Tear gas was fired into a crowd of protesters in Las Vegas. At least eight people in Seattle were arrested as a protest was declared illegal. Police detained 10 people in another day of protest in New York.

These were just some of the coast-to-coast rallies on Wednesday in the growing movement to oppose the U.S. government’s immigration policies as ICE agents continue to carry out immigration raids across the country.

Protests also broke out in Los Angeles, the epicenter of the country’s attention, after unrest and curfews followed ICE raids in the city on Friday. More than 200 people have been arrested in Los Angeles this week, police said.

Major rallies are also expected nationwide on Saturday to coincide with President Donald Trump’s military parade.

Las Vegas
Many of the hundreds who attended the Las Vegas rally carried Mexican flags, some waved the Stars and Stripes, and others featured flags from Central and South America.

In what appeared to be a tense standoff, police told protesters to move back while one video showed a long line of police firing what appeared to be tear gas. Las Vegas police said they declared the protest an “unlawful assembly.”

One video showed protesters surrounding the Lloyd D. George Courthouse and chanting, “If we don’t get it, shut it down.”

Washington state
In Spokane, Washington, Mayor Lisa Brown declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Wednesday from 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. local time, as footage posted to X showed police officers detaining people and tying their hands with zip ties.

At least 30 people were arrested, according to local broadcaster KREM, and video showed authorities firing tear gas as people protested outside an ICE field office.

In Seattle, at least eight people were arrested. Police said officers were peppered with fireworks, rocks and pieces of cement, while firefighters extinguished a dumpster fire.

California
Videos and photographs of high-profile ICE raids on Wednesday showed people clashing with, running from and being arrested by immigration agents in California.

In Los Angeles’ historic Mexican neighborhood of Boyle Heights, two vehicles pinned a passenger car at an intersection in what the Department of Homeland Security called “a targeted arrest of a violent rioter” who had allegedly punched an immigration officer.

In Downey, another predominantly Latino city southeast of Los Angeles, officials from Downey Memorial Christian Church and others confronted a group of five armed men in plain clothes and tactical gear who “swarmed” a man sitting under a tree in the church’s parking lot, according to church pastor Al Lopez.

“When we said, ‘We don’t want this on our property,’ this gentleman just shouted again: ‘The whole country is our property,’” Lopez told reporters.

His wife and senior pastor Tanya Lopez recalled telling the men — whom she said identified themselves only as “police” — they weren’t welcome on church property, and after she got closer, “They did point their rifle at me, and they said, ‘You need to get back.’”

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons appeared on Fox News on Wednesday night to defend federal actions to deport suspected “criminals” and described the protests in L.A. as “pure anarchy.”

“What the brave men and women of ICE, the brave men and women of the Department of Justice, all our federal partners, and the brave men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, I have to think that all we’re trying to do is our law enforcement mission, and we have to deal with this,” he said.

Legal fight over use of troops
In California, Trump has deployed thousands of troops, including 700 active-duty Marines, to Los Angeles to quell protests. The move has raised fears that Marines have not been properly trained for interacting with civilians.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice formally responded to California’s lawsuit seeking to block the military from involving itself in immigration enforcement, calling it a “crass political stunt” that is “endangering American lives.” A court hearing is set for Thursday in San Francisco.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta argued in a Tuesday court motion that the Trump administration’s deployment violates the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement efforts.

“The federalized National Guard and active-duty Marines deployed in Los Angeles will engage in quintessential law enforcement activity in violation of the PCA,” the motion said.

A military official with knowledge of the operation told NBC News that the Marines would not conduct arrests and would only transport and guard ICE agents.

In San Antonio, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott called up National Guard members in response to demonstrations. “Texas is a law-and-order state, and we will use every tool that we can to ensure order across our state,” he said Wednesday.

The city’s outgoing mayor, Democrat Ron Nirenberg, said the governor wasn’t asked to send in the guard and didn’t give city leaders advance notice. Nirenberg urged peaceful protest and expressed confidence that the city “knows how to do this right.”

Demonstrations in San Antonio remained peaceful Wednesday night. Some National Guard members sent to keep the peace were seen playing the popular card game Uno at a table.

Not all the protestors were honourable
https://atlantablackstar.com/2025/06/10 ... fight-too/

“I’ll spit in your face … f–k your family, N-word, f–k your kids, N-word,” a young Latino protester yelled at an unnamed Black Los Angeles police officer, who remains calm and doesn’t respond. “I can’t sleep comfortably because of you.”
A young Latina woman joined in, calling the officer the N-word repeatedly while getting personal about his eating habits. She signaled she knew him, as a customer at Cava, where she works.

Please Mr trump, kindly deport these two disgusting individuals...

The Trump administration can maintain control of several thousand National Guard troops in California and continue to deploy them in Los Angeles, a federal appeals court ruled late Thursday, pausing a lower court ruling that determined President Donald Trump's federalization of the guardsmen was unlawful.

The ruling by a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keeps in place Trump’s directives authorizing the deployment of at least 4,000 California National Guard troops and several hundred Marines pending further litigation, even as state leaders cast the military presence as unnecessary and escalatory.

The appeals court will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday.

Hours before the appeals court ruling, a federal judge temporarily halted the deployment in Los Angeles, writing Thursday evening that the federal government did not have the authority to nationalize California’s National Guard.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued the temporary restraining order after an hourlong hearing in a San Francisco federal court. It marked a significant setback for Trump, who in recent days increased the number of California National Guard troops under his command by thousands as he sought to flex his executive power and blunt volatile protests in Los Angeles triggered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

During a hearing in San Francisco this afternoon, a lawyer for the federal government argued the administration had met the requirements of a federal statute that governs when the National Guard can be called into federal service. However, in his order Thursday evening, Breyer said the Trump administration had in his view met none of those requirements.

"His actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution” Breyer wrote.

“He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith,” the judge continued.

Tell us you don't understand how freedom of speech works CD.

Are you saying they are entitled to be racist?