Several US cities braced for protests on Wednesday against President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration raids, as parts of the country's second largest city Los Angeles spent the night under curfew in an effort to quell five days of unrest.
The Governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, said he will deploy the National Guard this week, ahead of planned protests. Protesters and police in Austin clashed on Monday.
Trump's extraordinary measures of sending National Guard and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles has sparked a national debate on the use of military on US soil and pitted the Republican president against California's Democrat governor.
"This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That's when the downward spiral began," California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a video address on Tuesday.
"He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety. ... Democracy is under assault."
Newsom, widely seen as preparing for a presidential run in 2028, and the state of California sued Trump and the Defense Department on Monday, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops. Trump in turn has suggested Newsom should be arrested.
Hundreds of US Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday under orders from Trump, after he also ordered the deployment of 4,000 National Guard to the city. Marines and National Guard are to be used in the protection of government personnel and buildings and not in police action.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the deployments were not necessary as police could manage the protest, the majority of which have been peaceful, and limited to about five streets.
I issued a curfew starting tonight at 8pm for Downtown Los Angeles to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the President's chaotic escalation.
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 11, 2025
If you do not live or work in Downtown L.A., avoid the area.
Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and…
The curfew will run through 6 am local time on Wednesday and will last "for several days," Bass said at a separate press conference.
It will only be in effect within a roughly one square mile area in downtown that includes the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and City Hall.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump pledged to "liberate" the US's second largest city during remarks delivered to Army troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, claiming the protests sparked by his mass deportation campaign are "a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country."
He also said California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Bass are "incompetent, and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists.
They're engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders."
The president attempted to walk back those comments as well as the broader claim that the protesters are being paid when asked by reporters about his remarks.
"I didn’t say the governor or the mayor. I said somebody's paying them, I think. And if they're not, they're just troublemakers. What can I tell you? But I believe somebody's paying them," he said.
Trump has deployed roughly 4,000 US National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to the streets of Los Angeles in defiance of warnings from Newsom and Bass that the action would only serve to further inflame already-heightened tensions.
A federal judge denied Newsom's request for a restraining order to block what Newsom described as Trump's "unlawful militarization of Los Angeles." Senior District Judge Charles Breyer with the Northern District of California instead set a Thursday hearing on Newsom's request.
Protests erupted Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided local businesses and detained hundreds of people suspected of living in the US illegally.
The Trump administration has continued to carry out the raids in defiance of the community's opposition.
Critics of the raids say ICE is going after law-abiding undocumented immigrants, a vital part of the community and the local economy, rather than the criminals that Trump pledged to deport while campaigning last year to return to the White House.
Read: Trump defends LA Marines deployment amid more protests
Previously, hundreds of US Marines were expected in Los Angeles on Tuesday after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment in response to protests against immigration arrests and despite objections by state officials.
The 700 elite troops will join around 4,000 National Guard soldiers, amping up the militarization of the tense situation in the sprawling city, which is home to millions of foreign-born and Latino residents.
The small-scale and largely peaceful demonstrations — marred by sporadic but violent clashes between police and protesters — were entering their fifth day.
In downtown LA's Little Tokyo neighbourhood at night Monday, scores of protesters faced off with security officials in riot gear, some shooting fireworks at officers who fired back volleys of tear gas.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X that US Marines "shouldn't be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American."
But Trump has branded the LA protesters "professional agitators and insurrectionists."
"They're meant to be protecting us, but instead, they're like, being sent to attack us," Kelly Diemer, 47, told AFP. "This is not a democracy anymore."
LA police have detained dozens of protesters in recent days, while authorities in San Francisco and other US cities have also made arrests.
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