The first US Marines ordered by Donald Trump to Los Angeles will deploy Friday, the Pentagon said, raising the stakes in a standoff that pits the president against protesters claiming growing authoritarianism.
The approximately 200 Marines are part of a group of 700 set to join 4,000 National Guard soldiers, while local police conduct a crackdown on unrest over Trump’s sweeps for undocumented migrants.
The Marines – normally used as crack troops in foreign conflicts – will be equipped with riot gear to guard a federal building starting from 12:00 pm (1900 GMT), Major General Scott Sherman told reporters.
An intense legal battle is underway over Trump’s authority to deploy troops on US soil, as the country braces for widespread protests Saturday, when the Republican will be overseeing a rare large-scale military parade in Washington.
The parade celebrates the 250th anniversary of the US Army but also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday and will be the first time tanks and other heavy weaponry has rolled through the capital city in three decades.
A “No Kings” movement has sprung up promising to stage protests in more than 2,000 places across the country in response.
Trump dispatched about the California National Guard to Los Angeles last weekend following mostly peaceful, but occasionally violent protests against a surge in immigration raids in the second-largest US city.
In a show of political force, Trump overrode the objections of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom who usually would control the Guard. The president repeatedly exaggerated the scale of violence, claiming that without troops, Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground right now.”
Late Thursday, District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump’s actions were “illegal” and ordered that he return control of the guard to Newsom. Breyer said the LA unrest fell “far short” of the “rebellion” that Trump had described.
However, a higher court quickly paused the order pending an appeal hearing with the Trump administration next Tuesday.
The Department of Justice slammed Breyer’s ruling as “an extraordinary intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief.”
The dispute mirrors multiple other tussles over Trump’s attempts to expand the limits of presidential power, but is the first to involve troops.
The use of Marines is especially controversial, although those deploying Friday will be at a building nowhere near the site of last week’s protests.
‘Voices for the people’
Many in Los Angeles are angry about immigration raids carried out as part of Trump’s ambition to deport vast numbers of undocumented migrants around the country.
Outrage at Trump’s raids and the use of masked, armed immigration agents backed by uniformed soldiers has already sparked protests in other cities, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas.
“What brings me out here? The people that were taken, people who don’t have voices. We are the voice for the people,” Jasmine, a protester in Los Angeles, told AFP on Thursday.
Tensions hiked further Thursday when California Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, was handcuffed and forcibly removed from a news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The incident “reeks of totalitarianism,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, calling for an investigation.
The White House hit back, claiming despite video evidence to the contrary, that Padilla “lunged toward Secretary Noem.”
