Name: California National Guard arrives in LA in response to immigration protests
Uploaded: 2025-06-09T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 9 min 21 s
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Now to California, President Trump deploying 2,000 members of the National Guard in response to clashes in Los Angeles between demonstrators and authorities over immigration enforcement.

ABC's Trevor Ault has the latest from Compton.

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Amid intensifying clashes around Los Angeles, President Trump deploying the National Guard, sending in 2,000 National Guardsmen as angry crowds protest his administration's aggressive deportation efforts.

Demonstrations now entering their third consecutive day after coordinated ICE operations across Los Angeles, sparking outrage and devolving into disarray.

Dramatic images capturing the escalating chaos, protests centered around the city of Paramount, agents swarming this Home Depot there.

Some protesters setting fires, breaking glass and vandalizing buildings, police in riot gear attempting to disperse crowds, pelting the groups with tear gas, flash bangs and rubber bullets.

Governor Gavin Newsom slamming Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard, warning the move is, quote, purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.

But the White House says it will address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.

And Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posting online, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized.

Video showing this man clashing with ICE officers, the Department of Homeland Security identifying him as Joaquin Rosario Espinal of the Dominican Republic.

Authorities say he resisted arrest after his immigration proceedings were dismissed.

Espinal arrested alongside another woman who allegedly assaulted an officer, despite what authorities called interference by members of the public.

The tensions reaching a breaking point just as Kilmar Obrego-Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, arrived back in the United States on Friday.

He's now facing two federal criminal charges, his attorney calling those charges preposterous and an abuse of power.

Trevor, we can see those National Guardsmen behind you.

The FBI says multiple people have been arrested, that more arrests are coming.

And the FBI deputy director posting, you bring chaos, we'll bring handcuffs, law and order will prevail.

What else can we expect to happen there today?

Well, Jeanette, we definitely have all the ingredients for another intense day of potential clashes between these demonstrators and law enforcement.

Of course, the big difference here is that the National Guard has now arrived on scene where we are in downtown Los Angeles this morning.

They've been setting up here, bringing in all of these armored vehicles, riot gear.

Now, it's possible that this could just be posturing that they are trying to send a message to these activists ahead of time that they are ready to respond.

But of course, everything that we've been hearing from these people who are demonstrating is that they have no plans of stopping until the ICE raids stop in the neighborhoods where they live.

They believe that they are protecting their neighbors as this process goes on.

Now, all this morning we saw the remnants of some of these clashes.

We were in Compton, debris littered all over the street.

Police surveillance that was set up had been toppled over, a gas station, some of the windows had been smashed too.

This turned into about 12 hours of sometimes violent clashes between responding officers and all of these demonstrators.

Of course, a lot of the responding officers were local.

This time though, it does look like the National Guard could be ready to respond swiftly.

Whether or not we see some similar crowds here in downtown Los Angeles or Compton remains to be seen.

But from everything that we heard from those demonstrators, they plan on being out once again today, Janae.

And Trevor, Governor Gavin Newsom is opposing Trump's order, calling the decision a quote, spectacle.

Yeah, so this is a unique circumstance in that the president deployed these thousands of National Guard troops here without the request of Governor Newsom.

In fact, the president had to evoke a provision from the U.S.

Code of Armed Services that essentially allows the president to call in members of the National Guard if there is, according to the code, rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the United States government.

So essentially what the Trump administration is arguing is that these are not just protesters, these are rebels that are out in the street undermining the authority of these ICE agents, federal government workers that are trying to execute these raids.

Of course, Governor Gavin Newsom disagrees with that.

He has not called in the National Guard and we've heard from him and a few other Democratic lawmakers that they believe by calling in more of these federal officials to respond, you are simply fanning the flames.

It creates, in the word that you referenced, a spectacle when you have all of these National Guard members and also police officers with their riot gear.

We, of course, have tear gas, rubber bullets that were fired.

There's still actually the air of tear gas where we are.

You can still feel it in your eyes and taste it a little bit this morning.

Whether or not that is warranted depends on which official you ask.

Even the Democratic lawmakers say you have the right to protest, but you do have to remain peaceful.

This, of course, is a significant escalation.

Having these members of the National Guard here today, it is very likely we are going to see them face-to-face with at least some demonstrators on yet another day of protests against these ICE raids,  And this comes as administration officials say that they are not ruling out bringing in active duty Marines from Camp Pendleton.

Trevor, thank you so much for being out there.

I wanna now bring in ABC News contributor and former Department of Homeland Security official, Elizabeth Newman.

As ICE ramps up its operations across the country, what reactions do you think we'll see from people who support the agency and those who are against the way the Trump administration is handling all of this?

Well, I do think it's unfortunate that we have the administration nationalizing our National Guard.

It does appear in one sense it is lawful he's allowed to do this, but it is rather unprecedented.

My biggest concern right now is not so much that we have people protesting immigration raids, local law enforcement and state law enforcement have the capability to address that.

And the concern I have though, is this is a really big step almost towards what you see in authoritarian governments to try to take members of the military.

That's effectively what the president has done is taken members of the National Guard.

And when you federalize them, they become members of the military and putting them on US streets.

We have a long history dating back to our founding saying like, no, we are not gonna use our military domestically.

And so I really don't like the precedent this sets.

We know that this administration has been preparing for this moment.

There was an executive order earlier in the term trying to kind of lay the legal groundwork for being able to do just this.

And I think they were waiting for the moment when they could take advantage of some violent rioters.

And again, just as Trevor noted, there is no place for violence when you're exercising your first amendment rights.

But the issue here is not necessarily a violent protest that does happen in America from time to time.

The issue is you don't need the federal government to nationalize the National Guard to address it.

We have strong state and local law enforcement.

From a rule of law perspective, it is rather concerning.

So Elizabeth, what are the protocols that DHS typically follows when its agents face an escalation like the protests that we are seeing in Los Angeles?

Yeah, you know, this is not the first time that ICE has received both threats and that federal buildings have been attacked.

You might remember the last time we had kind of a summer of unrest was in June of 2020.

And a lot of that was tied to the George Floyd protests, but there were also protests happening at a federal courthouse in Portland.

And we did see a lot of cross deputizing and sending DHS law enforcement to try to protect that federal building.

So it's not without precedent to have DHS law enforcement be the target of riots and attacks.

The proper way to address this is to work with state and local law enforcement to make sure that you can carry out your law enforcement duties or protect that federal building.

We, I think, learned from the summer of 2020 that using overt force, in fact, there's a long history here in policing, learning how do you deescalate tension to reduce the amount of violence and sending in,

while it's important to send a signal that you are going to protect your people, doing it the way that this administration is doing it is more likely to escalate tensions.

It goes against everything that we've learned about how you deal with riots.

So it is rather concerning, the approach that they are taking.