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Sunday, June 22, 2025

Trump defends National Guard deployment as protests spread to other cities

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
12 days ago
20250610
National Guard stand guard near the metropolitan detention center Monday, June 9, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

National Guard stand guard near the metropolitan detention center Monday, June 9, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

Eric Thayer

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is de­fend­ing his de­ci­sion to send an­oth­er 2,000 Na­tion­al Guard troops along with 700 Marines to Los An­ge­les, es­ca­lat­ing a mil­i­tary pres­ence lo­cal of­fi­cials and Gov. Gavin New­som don’t want and the po­lice chief says cre­ates lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges for safe­ly han­dling protests.

Ad­di­tion­al protests against im­mi­gra­tion raids are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue in oth­er cities Tues­day. —(AP)

What to know:

Pen­ta­gon re­veals cost: Af­ter per­sis­tent ques­tion­ing from mem­bers of Con­gress on Tues­day, De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth turned to his act­ing comp­trol­ler, Bryn Wool­la­cott Mac­Don­nell, who said it would cost $134 mil­lion to send the Na­tion­al Guard and Marines to Los An­ge­les. She said the mon­ey will come from op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance ac­counts.

Cal­i­for­nia push­es back: Cal­i­for­nia At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Rob Bon­ta filed a law­suit Mon­day over the use of Na­tion­al Guard troops fol­low­ing the first de­ploy­ment, telling re­porters that Trump had “tram­pled” the state’s sov­er­eign­ty.

Mon­day’s protests: Com­pared to Sun­day’s demon­stra­tions, Mon­day’s were far less rau­cous, with thou­sands peace­ful­ly at­tend­ing a ral­ly at City Hall and hun­dreds protest­ing out­side a fed­er­al com­plex that in­cludes a de­ten­tion cen­ter where some im­mi­grants are be­ing held fol­low­ing work­place raids across the city.

Here are the lat­est de­vel­op­ments…

Trump sug­gests he’s open to in­vok­ing In­sur­rec­tion Act to quell protest in LA

By AAMER MAD­HANI

The pres­i­dent dur­ing his Oval Of­fice en­gage­ment with re­porters left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­vok­ing one the most ex­treme emer­gency pow­ers avail­able to a U.S. pres­i­dent.

“If there’s an in­sur­rec­tion, I would cer­tain­ly in­voke it. We’ll see,” Trump said. “But I can tell you last night was ter­ri­ble, and the night be­fore that was ter­ri­ble.”

The In­sur­rec­tion Act au­tho­rizes the pres­i­dent to de­ploy mil­i­tary forces in­side the Unit­ed States to sup­press re­bel­lion or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or to en­force the law in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions.

It is of­ten re­ferred to as the “In­sur­rec­tion Act of 1807,” but the law is ac­tu­al­ly an amal­ga­ma­tion of dif­fer­ent statutes en­act­ed by Con­gress be­tween 1792 and 1871.

Cal­i­for­nia Re­pub­li­can Con­gress­man de­nounces ‘vi­o­lence and van­dal­ism’ while ex­press­ing con­cern about ICE raids

By MATT BROWN

Rep. David Val­adao, a mod­er­ate Re­pub­li­can who rep­re­sents much of the state’s San Joaquin Val­ley, urged for peace­ful protest and said he was al­so con­cerned over how the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is con­duct­ing ICE raids in the Gold­en state.

“I sup­port the First Amend­ment right to peace­ful­ly protest, but the vi­o­lence and van­dal­ism hap­pen­ing in Los An­ge­les is un­ac­cept­able and I stand with our law en­force­ment of­fi­cers work­ing to pro­tect peo­ple and re­gain con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion,” Val­adao wrote on so­cial me­dia.

“I re­main con­cerned about on­go­ing ICE op­er­a­tions through­out CA and will con­tin­ue my con­ver­sa­tions with the ad­min­is­tra­tion—urg­ing them to pri­or­i­tize the re­moval of known crim­i­nals over the hard­work­ing peo­ple who have lived peace­ful­ly in the Val­ley for years,” he added.

Peace­ful protests out­side Seat­tle’s im­mi­gra­tion court

By MARTHA BEL­LISLE

About 50 peo­ple gath­ered out­side the im­mi­gra­tion court in down­town Seat­tle on Tues­day, chant­i­ng with drums and hold­ing up signs that said “Free Them All Abol­ish ICE” and “No to De­por­ta­tions.”

Le­gal ad­vo­cates who nor­mal­ly at­tend the im­mi­gra­tion court hear­ings as ob­servers and to pro­vide sup­port to im­mi­grants were not al­lowed in­side the build­ing. Se­cu­ri­ty guards al­so turned away the me­dia.

The hear­ings are nor­mal­ly open to the pub­lic. Or­ga­niz­ers said they were there sol­i­dar­i­ty with pro­test­ers in Los An­ge­les.

The protest was peace­ful and there were no law-en­force­ment of­fi­cers in the area in the morn­ing.

Protests over fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion raids have sprung up in cities across the US

By JIM VER­TUNO

Al­though most have been peace­ful with marchers chant­i­ng and car­ry­ing signs, some have re­sult­ed in dozens of ar­rests.

The demon­stra­tions have ranged from gath­er­ings out­side of fed­er­al of­fice build­ings or state capi­tol build­ings, and march­es through the down­town of sev­er­al ma­jor cities. A se­ries of so-called “No Kings” ral­lies were planned Sat­ur­day to co­in­cide with Pres­i­dent Trump’s sched­uled mil­i­tary pa­rade in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem post­ed on so­cial me­dia on Tues­day that the agency would con­tin­ue its pro­gram of raids and de­por­ta­tions de­spite the protests.

“ICE will con­tin­ue to en­force the law,” Noem post­ed on X.

Armoured ve­hi­cles block roads in San­ta Ana

By AMY TAX­IN

In San­ta Ana, Cal­i­for­nia, ar­moured ve­hi­cles blocked the road Tues­day morn­ing lead­ing in­to the Civic Cen­ter, where fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers and nu­mer­ous city and coun­ty agen­cies have their of­fices.

Work­ers swept up plas­tic bot­tles and bro­ken glass. Tiny shards of red, black and pur­ple glass lit­tered the pave­ment.

Near­by build­ings and the side­walk were tagged with graf­fi­ti con­tain­ing ob­scen­i­ties and Trump’s name crossed out. A work­er rolled paint over graf­fi­ti on a wall to block it out. Na­tion­al Guard of­fi­cers wear­ing fa­tigues and car­ry­ing ri­fles pre­vent­ed peo­ple from en­ter­ing the area un­less they worked there.

Few signs of tu­mult in down­town Los An­ge­les

By JAKE OF­FEN­HARTZ

A hand­ful of Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers are sta­tioned in front of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan De­ten­tion Cen­ter, long guns and wood sticks slung over their shoul­ders. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, a pass­ing dri­ver will honk at or heck­le them, draw­ing no re­sponse.

News crews are sta­tioned on the op­po­site side of the street, await­ing the pos­si­ble ar­rival of the U.S. Marines. Oth­er­wise, there are few signs of the tu­mult that has gripped the city in re­cent nights, aside from the graf­fi­ti scrawled across sev­er­al build­ings – “Abol­ish ICE,” “Amerikkka,” and ob­scene slo­gans di­rect­ed at Trump and fed­er­al law en­force­ment.

At the Walt Dis­ney Con­cert Hall, work­ers were busy wash­ing away the graf­fi­ti on Tues­day morn­ing.

Los An­ge­les de­ploy­ment to cost at least $134 mil­lion and last 60 days, Pen­ta­gon says

By LOLI­TA C. BAL­DOR, TARA COPP

U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth de­liv­ers his speech dur­ing the 22nd Shangri-La Di­a­logue sum­mit in Sin­ga­pore, Sat­ur­day, May 31, 2025. (AP Pho­to/Anu­pam Nath,File)

U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth de­liv­ers his speech dur­ing the 22nd Shangri-La Di­a­logue sum­mit in Sin­ga­pore, Sat­ur­day, May 31, 2025. (AP Pho­to/Anu­pam Nath,File)

The de­ploy­ment of Na­tion­al Guard troops and Marines to Los An­ge­les will cost at least $134 mil­lion and last at least the next 60 days, De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth and a se­nior de­fense of­fi­cial told law­mak­ers Tues­day.

“We stat­ed very pub­licly that it’s 60 days be­cause we want to en­sure that those ri­ot­ers, loot­ers and thugs on the oth­er side as­sault­ing our po­lice of­fi­cers know that we’re not go­ing any­where,” Hegseth told mem­bers of the House ap­pro­pri­a­tions de­fense sub­com­mit­tee.

Af­ter per­sis­tent ques­tion­ing from mem­bers of Con­gress, Hegseth turned to his act­ing comp­trol­ler, Bryn Wool­la­cott Mac­Don­nell, who pro­vid­ed the to­tal and said this “is large­ly just the cost of trav­el, hous­ing and food.”

She said the mon­ey will come from op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance ac­counts.


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