What to know about the Los Angeles immigration protests over ICE operations
Protests in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are expected to carry into a fifth day Tuesday, after the U.S. military activated about 700 active-duty Marines to join the National Guard troops previously deployed to the city to respond to the demonstrations.
A defense official told CBS News on Tuesday morning that the Marines have arrived in the greater Los Angeles area. The Marines join about 2,100 members of the California National Guard who are now operating in Los Angeles, Paramount and Compton.
In an earlier , the U.S. Northern Command had said the Marines would "seamlessly integrate" with guard members to assist them in "protecting federal personnel and federal property." They are trained in "de-escalation, crowd control and standing rules for the use of force," the statement said.
Tensions in parts of the city had escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Trump's deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bangs to control the crowd.
The state of California on Monday sued the Trump administration for deploying the Guard without consulting Gov. Gavin Newsom, a move the governor had in a social media post. In Monday morning, Newsom said Mr. Trump "illegally acted to federalize the National Guard," adding, "We're suing him."
Newsom suggested late Monday that his office could pursue additional legal action against the administration over its planned use of Marines, which the governor also called illegal.
As of midday Monday, 53 people have been arrested, officials said. The LAPD said it had arrested 31 people on a range of charges, including failure to disperse, objects and fireworks thrown at officers, looting and arson. California Highway Patrol had arrested 17 people and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department made five arrests, the agencies told CBS News.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell on Sunday addressed complaints accusing the police department of responding too slowly to the unrest.
"We can't participate in any way in civil immigration enforcement," McDonnell said.
He reminded reporters that police must comply with the California Values Act, a Los Angeles "sanctuary city" ordinance also known as SB 54, which prevents local and state law enforcement agencies from assisting federal immigration enforcement activity.
On Sunday, many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and arresting people who didn't leave.
But some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.
CBS News Los Angeles reported that several fires were set in dumpsters and trash bins, and at least one store had windows shattered by alleged looters. Dozens of buildings were tagged with graffiti, including the LAPD Headquarters, the U.S. Courthouse and the old Los Angeles Times building.
Footage from the CBS News Los Angeles helicopter showed that multiple windows of the police headquarters had been shattered as well.
Separately, police in San Francisco issued a statement late Monday saying, "Thousands participated in demonstrations today that were overwhelmingly peaceful. At the very end of the night, two small groups broke off and committed vandalism and other criminal acts. Detained multiple individuals who refused to comply and made arrests." The statement referred to protests at the city's Civic Center and in its Mission District.
The protests came just a day after 154 people were arrested there during demonstrations denouncing ICE raids.
L.A. demonstrations intensified
Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Mr. Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents.
The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention center where protesters concentrated.
McDonnell, the L.A, police chief, said officers were "overwhelmed" by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who show up at demonstrations to cause trouble.
Dozens of people were arrested throughout the weekend.
Mr. Trump responded to McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks.
"Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!" he wrote.
Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted "shame" and "go home." After some closely approached the Guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.
Minutes later, L.A. police fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, whom they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 Freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon.
Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
Flash-bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening.
National Guard troops mobilized and Marines activated
The military said Monday that it was mobilizing another 2,000 members of the California National Guard to respond to the protests.
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell that the additional troops have been "called into federal service to support ICE & to enable federal law-enforcement officers to safely conduct their duties."
The move adds to 2,000 National Guard troops who were by the president late Saturday to protect federal personnel and property.
The military also activated about 700 active-duty Marines on Monday to assist the Guard, U.S. Northern Command said in a . The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines are based in Twentynine Palms, a city east of Los Angeles.
How the demonstrations started
The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.
Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.
The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement.
What are officials saying?
In addition to suing the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard members, Newsom suggested late Monday that California would also sue over the deployment of the Marines to L.A.
"U.S. Marines serve a valuable purpose for this country — defending democracy. They are not political pawns," the governor wrote in . "The Secretary of Defense is illegally deploying them onto American streets so Trump can have a talking point at his parade this weekend. It's a blatant abuse of power."
Newsom had requested that Mr. Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a "serious breach of state sovereignty." He was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials.
The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts.
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on the president's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to enflame tensions. They've both urged protesters to remain peaceful.
"What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration," Bass said in an afternoon press conference. "This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety."
But McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days.
He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said.
Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Mr. Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Mr. Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called the president a "stone-cold liar."
The admonishments didn't deter the administration.
"It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters on Sunday strongly rebuked the president's decision to deploy the National Guard, calling the situation "outrageous" and "horrible" and adding that she believes Mr. Trump is using L.A., a sanctuary city, as an example.
"He's using deportation as a way to enhance his position with all those right-wingers out there who do not want this country to be a country of people coming from other places," the Democrat told a reporter outside the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I think he's up to creating martial law."
Former Vice President Kamala Harris also condemned the Trump administration's actions in L.A. on Sunday, calling the deployment of the National Guard "a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos."
"In addition to the recent ICE raids in Southern California and across our nation, it is part of the Trump Administration's cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division," said Harris, who also previously served as a senator and attorney general of California. "This Administration's actions are not about public safety — they're about stoking fear. Fear of a community demanding dignity and due process."
Some perspective on the protests
The protests didn't reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.
The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
