The Battle of Los Angeles: did Donald Trump send the National Guard illegally?

Confronted with protests against ICE and its anti-immigration policies, Donald Trump has hardened his aggressive rhetoric against protesters, the mayor of Los Angeles and California governor Gavin Newsom.

Over the weekend, Trump ordered the deployment of the National Guard without the governor’s approval, referring to the protesters as “paid insurrectionists”.

In an unprecedented turn of events, Trump even expressed the wish that members of the U.S. Army Navy be sent to Los Angeles against the protesters, placing 500 Marines on high alert!

The protests erupted in response to a series of coordinated ICE raids in Los Angeles, which were perceived as particularly aggressive. Gatherings of protesters quickly formed in the neighborhoods targeted by these operations, notably in Compton.

The anti-ICE protests were quickly labeled by Donald Trump as “migrant riots”, claiming that Los Angeles had been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals”.

On Truth Social, he declared that the demonstrators were not mere protesters, but troublemakers and “paid insurrectionists”, calling for their immediate arrest: “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!”.

Tension reached a climax when some of the demonstrators provoked violent clashes with the police, accompanied by acts of vandalism, fireworks and vehicle burning. The situation calmed down slightly during the day on Monday, according to local authorities. For Governor Gavin Newsom, Donald Trump’s actions are only fanning the flames of an already extremely fragile situation. The governor of California gave a powerful interview to MSNBC, revealing that the state would sue the Trump administration because the use of the National Guard was, in his opinion, illegal in the current context and without his approval as governor.