LA imposes partial curfew amid protests, looting over Trump’s immigration raids
A limited curfew will be in effect from Tuesday in several parts of downtown Los Angeles in US’s California, after several nights of violent protests, arson, and looting over the Donald Trump administration’s immigration raids, Mayor Karen Bass said.
The curfew will be imposed from 8 pm. to 6 am and may remain in place for several days, Mayor Karen Bass added. However, she said that the curfew does not apply to residents and people working in the area.
After US President Donald Trump announced the deployment of more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines, Bass accused his administration of trying to override California Governor Gavin Newsom’s authority.
“People have asked me what the Marines are going to do when they get here. That’s a good question, I have no idea,” Bass told reporters, announcing the partial curfew.
Calling the protests an “assault on peace and public order,” Trump on Tuesday threatened to deploy the military to rein in protesters by invoking the rarely used and controversial Insurrection Act.
Defending his move to “liberate Los Angeles,” Trump said, “What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags,”
Since the National Guard falls under the joint jurisdiction of both state and federal governments in the US, California is preparing to sue President Trump for overriding the governor’s authority and failing to seek his permission for the deployment of National Guard troops.
Even after Governor Newsom insisted that California’s local forces were well-equipped to maintain law and order, President Trump invoked three specific provisions of a federal law that allow the president to deploy National Guard troops in any state in case of an invasion or the fear of if and when “the president is unable to with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
Asking Trump to “return control to California”, Governor Newsom on Sunday took to X and wrote, “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved. This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed.”
In her press conference today, Mayor Bass stated the Los Angeles Police Department was in need of additional help, but not from the Trump administration.
She said that the real solution to check the deteriorating law and order situation is for the Trump administration to “stop the raids.”
Bass was referring to the Trump administration’s crackdown on day labourers and workers in Los Angeles last week. Tensions flared on Friday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted raids on more than 40 immigrants at a Home Depot parking lot and at a clothing manufacturer in the city.
