President Donald Trump pushes ahead with his maximalist immigration campaign in face of LA protests

WASHINGTON AP Donald Trump made no secret of his willingness to exert a maximalist approach to enforcing immigration laws and keeping order as he campaigned to return to the White House The fulfillment of that pledge is now on full display in Los Angeles The president has put hundreds of National Guard troops on the streets to quell protests over his administration s immigration raids a deployment that state and city administrators say has only inflamed tensions Trump called up the California National Guard over the objections of Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom the first time in years a president has done so and is deploying active-duty troops to encouragement the guard By overriding Newsom Trump is already going beyond what he did to respond to Black Lives Matter protests in when he warned he could send troops to contain demonstrations that turned violent if governors in the states did not act to do so themselves Trump explained in September of that year that he can t call in the National Guard unless we re requested by a governor and that we have to go by the laws But now the past and current president is moving swiftly with little internal restraint to test the bounds of his executive authority in order to deliver on his promise of mass deportations What remains to be seen is whether Americans will stand by him once it s operationalized nationwide as Trump looks to secure billions from Congress to dramatically expand the country s detention and deportation operations For now Trump is betting that they will If we didn t do the job that place would be burning down Trump advised reporters Monday speaking about California I feel we had no choice I don t want to see what happened so various times in this country A predicament of Trump s own making The protests began to unfold Friday as federal executives arrested immigrants in several locations throughout the sprawling city including in the fashion district of Los Angeles and at a Home Depot The anger over the administration s actions hastily spread with protests in Chicago and Boston as demonstrations in the southern California city also continued Monday But Trump and other administration leaders remained unbowed capitalizing on the images of burning cars graffiti and Mexican flags which while not dominant started to become the defining images of the unrest to bolster their law-and-order cause Leaders in the country s the bulk populous state were similarly defiant California leaders sued the Trump administration Monday with the state s attorney general Rob Bonta arguing that the deployment of troops trampled on the state s sovereignty and pushing for a restraining order The initial deployment of National Guard troops was expected to hurriedly expand to the full that has been authorized by Trump The state s senior Democratic senator Alex Padilla stated in an interview that this is absolutely a predicament of Trump s own making There are a lot of people who are passionate about speaking up for fundamental rights and respecting due process but the deployment of National Guard only serves to escalate tensions and the situation Padilla notified The Associated Press It s exactly what Donald Trump required to do Padilla slammed the deployment as counterproductive and stated the Los Angeles Sheriff s Department was not advised ahead of the federalization of the National Guard His office has also pushed the Pentagon for a justification on the deployment and as far as we re informed the Department of Defense isn t sure what the mission is here Padilla added Candidate Trump previewed immigration strategy during campaign Much of this was predictable During his presidential campaign Trump pledged to conduct the largest domestic deportation operation in American history to expel millions of immigrants in the country without legal status He often praised President Dwight D Eisenhower s military-style immigration raids and the candidate and his advisers suggested they would have broad power to deploy troops domestically to enact Trump s far-reaching immigration and society safety goals Trump s speedy deployment in California of troops against those whom the president has alluded to as insurrectionists on social media is a sharp contrast to his decision to issue no order or formal request for National Guard troops during the insurrection at the U S Capitol on Jan despite his repeated and false assertions that he had made such an offer Trump is now surrounded by functionaries who have no interest in constraining his power In Trump s then-Pentagon chief publicly rebuked Trump s threat to send in troops using the Insurrection Act an law that empowers the president to use the military within the U S and against American citizens Current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signaled aid on his personal X account for deploying troops to California writing The National Guard and Marines if need be stand with ICE referring to the U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency The Defense Department commented Monday it is deploying about active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to sponsorship National Guard troops already on the ground to respond to the protests White House responds to an incompetent governor Protesters over the weekend blocked off a major freeway and burned self-driving cars as police responded with tear gas rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades in clashes that encompassed several downtown blocks in Los Angeles and led to several dozen arrests Much of the city saw no violence But the protests prompted Trump to issue the directive Saturday mobilizing the California National Guard over Newsom s objections The president and his top immigration aides accused the governor of mismanaging the protests with margin czar Tom Homan asserting in a Fox News interview Monday that Newsom stoked anti-ICE sentiments and waited two days to declare unlawful assembly in the city Trump explained Newsom in a phone call Friday evening to get the situation in Los Angeles under control a White House official reported It was only when the administration felt Newsom was not restoring order in the city and after Trump watched the situation escalate for hours and White House administrators saw imagery of federal law enforcement officers with lacerations and other injuries that the president moved to deploy the Guard according to the official who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations He s an incompetent governor Trump mentioned Monday Look at the job he s doing in California He s destroying one of our great states Local law enforcement authorities explained Los Angeles police responded as promptly as they could once the protests erupted and Newsom repeatedly asserted that state and city personnel had the situation under control Los Angeles is no stranger to demonstrations and protests and rallies and marches Padilla mentioned Local law enforcement knows how to handle this and has a rapport with the public and society leaders to be able to allow for that The aggressive moves prompted blowback from certain of Trump s erstwhile allies Ileana Garcia a Florida state senator who in founded the group Latinas for Trump and was hired to direct Latino outreach called the latest escalation unacceptable and inhumane I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings in a large number of cases with credible fear of persecution suggests all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal explained Garcia referring to Stephen Miller a White House deputy chief of staff and key architect of Trump s immigration crackdown The tactics could be just a preview to what more could come from the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress GOP lawmakers are working to pass a massive tax-and-border package that includes billions to hire thousands of new officers for Edge Patrol and for ICE The goal under the Trump-backed plan is to remove million immigrants without status annually and house people in immigration detention centers