The mayor of Los Angeles has issued a curfew for the city’s downtown after five days of intense protests against immigration raids, which saw clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.
The curfew began at 8pm local time on Tuesday and will last until 6am local time on Wednesday and apply to a 1-sqaure-mile area in downtown.
With five minutes until the curfew took effect, hundreds of protesters faced police with their hands raised, chanting ” “peaceful protest.”
It came as hundreds of US Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area under orders from Donald Trump, ratcheting up tensions in America’s second largest city, as California’s Democratic governor warned “democracy is under assault.”
Trump’s extraordinary measures of sending more than 4,000 National Guard and Marines to quell protests fuelled demonstrations for a fifth day in Los Angeles, and sparked protests in several other cities.
Caption: A woman holding a Mexican flag stands on Sixth Street Bridge, after a curfew for downtown Los Angeles was issued (Photo: David Swanson/Reuters)Police officers enforce a curfew (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)Gavin Newsom, widely seen as preparing for a presidential run in 2028, has called the deployments an illegal waste of resources.
He and the state sued Trump and the Defence Department on Monday, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops.
In an a video address, Newsom said: “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.
“He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety. … Democracy is under assault.”
LA’s mayor said the protests were limited to about five downtown streets, but declared a curfew for parts of the downtown area due to violence and looting.
Police arrested another 197 people on Tuesday – more than double the total number of arrests to date.
Trump, voted back into office last year largely for his promise to deport undocumented immigrants, used a speech honoring soldiers on Tuesday to defend his decision.
He told troops at the Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina: “Generations of Army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third-world lawlessness.”
“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,” Trump said, adding his administration would “liberate Los Angeles.”
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