PinnedUpdated June 8, 2025, 1:19 a.m. ETPresident Trump on Saturday ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County to assist immigration agents who were clashing with demonstrators protesting workplace raids, saying that any protest or act of violence that impeded officials would be considered a “form of rebellion.”Mr. Trump’s order was an extraordinary escalation that puts Los Angeles squarely at the center of tensions over his administration’s immigration crackdown. It was issued as officers faced off with hundreds of protesters for a second consecutive day in the Los Angeles area, in some cases using rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.As night fell in California, demonstrators near a freeway entrance about 18 miles south of downtown Los Angeles were hurling fireworks and rocks at a police officers, who responded with volleys of rubber projectiles. As some demonstrators in the area took over an intersection after setting a car ablaze, others hurled glass bottles filled with a substance that smelled like gasoline at a police line.In downtown Los Angeles, the police declared an unlawful assembly for a block that included the Metropolitan Detention Center, a site of protests over the past two days. The police ordered protesters to disperse, saying on social media that officers were authorized to use less-than-lethal munitions.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California pushed back against Mr. Trump’s order, saying it was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.” He later said that the federal government was mobilizing National Guard troops “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.”As of 9:30 p.m. local time, there were no immediate sign of any National Guard troops on streets in the Los Angeles area. Thomas D. Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, had told Fox News earlier that the administration was planning to bring the National Guard there on Saturday night.Protests broke out in the L.A. area on Friday and Saturday as federal agents mounted raids on workplaces in search of undocumented immigrants.One site of demonstrations on Saturday was Paramount, a city about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The area has a large Latino population and had been rumored to be the target of an immigration operation. There were also clashes and demonstrations in Compton, a city across a freeway from Paramount.Here’s what else to know:Workplace raids: The recent raids appeared to be part of a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in which officials say they will increasingly focus on workplaces. Read more>Arrests: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 121 immigrants across Los Angeles on Friday, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Trump administration: Trump administration officials spent much of Saturday criticizing the protests in the region. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, repeatedly posted on social media about the protests, describing them at various points as an “insurrection.”ICE: Mr. Homan on Fox News indicated that the ICE operation would continue. “They’re not going to shut us down,” he said. “We’re out there right now doing operations.”June 8, 2025, 1:52 a.m. ETSenator Alex Padilla, left, Democrat of California, and Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California.Some of California’s Democratic lawmakers on Saturday blasted President Trump’s order to activate the National Guard in Los Angeles County as an inappropriate use of power, while Republicans criticized the state’s political leadership over protests there against recent immigration raids.Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, called Mr. Trump’s order for at least 2,000 National Guard members to assist immigration agents in the county “a completely inappropriate and misguided mission” that will sow “more chaos and division in our communities.”Adam Schiff, the other California senator, also a Democrat, said on social media that the move “will erode trust in the National Guard and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral misuse of the guard across the country.”Mr. Schiff urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.“There is nothing President Trump would like more than a violent confrontation with protestors to justify the unjustifiable — invocation of the Insurrection Act or some form of martial law,” he wrote.The Los Angeles Police Department said that demonstrations in the city of Los Angeles on Saturday were peaceful. But protesters in other areas, including Compton and Paramount, were more confrontational. Some burned cars, lobbed fireworks at police officers and spray painted government buildings.California Republicans were quick to blame the violence on Democrats.“Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have a real habit of letting Los Angeles burn,” wrote Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican. That was an apparent reference to how Governor Newsom and Ms. Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, responded to the wildfires that devastated two communities in January.Representative Kevin Kiley, a California Republican, criticized sanctuary policies that limit law enforcement’s ability to coordinate with immigration officials.“If Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom would rather ICE not conduct targeted immigration operations, there’s a simple solution: stop being a sanctuary city and sanctuary state,” he wrote, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Cooperate with federal authorities and stop egging on violent agitators.”June 8, 2025, 1:38 a.m. ETOpponents of the immigration raids were calling for a “mass mobilization” in response to President Trump’s order to send in the National Guard. The Los Angeles branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation circulated a social media post saying, “ICE out of LA. National Guard Go Away,” and calling for a demonstration at City Hall at 2 PM on Sunday.June 8, 2025, 1:32 a.m. ETIn Compton, the sheriff’s department has pushed demonstrators out of the intersection they had occupied for hours. A line of deputies is now staged under the iconic Randy’s donut sign.June 8, 2025, 1:32 a.m. ETIn a residential street just a block away, Saturday night plans carried on in a mostly Latino neighborhood, undeterred by the violence nearby. The echoes of a Spanish language birthday song boomed from a backyard birthday party. At another home, a live norteno band performed on a front lawn.June 8, 2025, 1:29 a.m. ETThe Los Angeles Police Department said on social media that several people had been detained for failing to leave the area around the Metropolitan Detention Center where the police declared an unlawful assembly on Saturday night.⚠️Traffic Advisory⚠️ Alameda remains closed to all vehicle and pedestrian traffic between 2nd St and the 101 freeway.Multiple people have been detained for failing to disperse after multiple warnings were issued. Remaining people in the area of the UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY will be…— LAPD Central Division (@LAPDCentral) June 8, 2025June 8, 2025, 1:28 a.m. ETSeveral streets have been closed off in parts of downtown Los Angeles near the federal building where people detained on Friday are being held. Protesters were ordered to disperse earlier after the Los Angeles Police Department declared an unlawful assembly in the area.June 8, 2025, 1:25 a.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.Demonstators shattered the glass doors of a gas station next to the protest in Compton, walking into the store to grab cigarettes, beer, and other items. Attendant Jesus Martinez, 56, had closed the store when a rock came through the window, he said, adding that he called the police two hours ago but nobody had come.June 8, 2025, 1:22 a.m. ETWatching a protest in Compton, Calif., on Saturday.Credit...Ethan Swope/Associated PressVera Moran, the owner of a bakery in Compton, got a call from an employee on duty Saturday afternoon saying she was going home because she was afraid of the dozens of sheriff’s patrol cars lined up outside.Mrs. Moran knew that there had been an immigration raid in nearby Paramount, and headed to the business that her family has operated since 2006, La Villa Bakery on East Alondra Boulevard, to keep an eye on the protests.Arriving at the bakery, she walked over to the nearby intersection of Atlantic Avenue and East Alondra Boulevard, where she was exposed to pepper spray.“I’ve never seen this much chaos,” Mrs. Moran, 39, said as she touched her face that had been irritated by the spray. “My grandfather and uncle were bakers, and so is my father,” she added. “We are a Latino-owned bakery, and lots of our clients are Latinos. So we feel for them. This is not right.”By early evening, a large group of protesters had gathered in the shopping strip in front of her bakery. A rock bounced off one of the windows. She decided to close up early, lock the door and pray that her business would not be vandalized by the growing number of people who were throwing items at police, starting fires, and setting off what appeared to be fireworks.Mrs. Moran said she had empathy for undocumented immigrants and hoped the violent protests settled down.June 8, 2025, 12:53 a.m. ETThe Los Angeles Police declared an unlawful assembly for a block in downtown Los Angeles that included the Metropolitan Detention Center, a site of protests over the past two days. The police ordered protesters to disperse, saying on social media that officers were authorized to use less-than-lethal munitions.June 8, 2025, 12:09 a.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.As night fell, some demonstrators in Compton started to throw glass bottles filled with a substance that smelled like gasoline at the police. Some have barricaded themselves behind a dumpster. As some protesters slowly advance toward a police line, others are waving flags and beating a drum.VideoJune 7, 2025, 11:53 p.m. ETIn Compton, a city south of Los Angeles that sits across a freeway from Paramount, some demonstrators are zipping through the dark in off-road vehicles, blasting music, while others chant near a police line. Most are standing around chatting or filming on their phones. There’s no indication that this crowd plans on leaving anytime soon.Credit...Ethan Swope/Associated PressJune 7, 2025, 11:21 p.m. ETDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X that active duty Marines were “on high alert” at Camp Pendleton, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles, and could also be mobilized.June 7, 2025, 11:03 p.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.Protesters are lighting a Home Depot shopping cart on fire behind a dumpster they have set up as a barricade. The cart is melting, and the police are firing back with what appear to be flash-bangs and pepper balls.Credit...Mimi Dwyer for The New York TimesJune 7, 2025, 11:02 p.m. ETGov. Gavin Newsom said on social media that the California National Guard was being taken over by the federal government “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.”June 7, 2025, 11:01 p.m. ETPresident Trump’s memo said that any protest that got in the way of ICE officers was a “form of rebellion.”“In addition, violent protests threaten the security of and significant damage to Federal immigration detention facilities and other Federal property,” the memo said.June 7, 2025, 10:57 p.m. ETThe White House has released the memo President Trump signed ordering 2,000 National Guard troops to be sent to Los Angeles. The memo says the deployment is necessary to “temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing federal functions” and that the deployment will last 60 days or for as long as the defense secretary decides.June 7, 2025, 10:56 p.m. ETLos Angeles police officers respond to protests on Friday.Credit...Daniel Cole/ReutersAs officials struggled to control protests on Saturday, federal officials and the Los Angeles Police Department engaged in a war of words over the local law enforcement response.Federal officials criticized the Los Angeles police for what they said was a slow response on Friday night, as demonstrators descended on downtown Los Angeles, swelling the streets to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Some spray-painted a federal building with slogans criticizing U.S. immigration authorities.After at least three immigration operations across Los Angeles County on Friday, protesters gathered outside a federal building that held people detained during raids that day.As the protest grew on that evening, federal officials said they called the Los Angeles police to help control the crowd, but that the police took more than two hours to arrive.Jim McDonnell, the chief of the Los Angeles police, said that officers arrived within 55 minutes of that call.Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said on Saturday that his officers were “vastly outnumbered,” as hundreds of “rioters surrounded and attacked a federal building.”Mr. Lyons said that the Los Angeles Police Department took more than two hours to respond even after being called multiple times, and he called out Mayor Karen Bass for the city’s response.“What took place in Los Angeles yesterday was appalling,” Mr. Lyons said. “As rioters attacked federal ICE and law enforcement officers on the L.A. streets, Mayor Bass took the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement.”Ms. Bass did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday about the city’s response to Friday night’s protest.Chief McDonnell pushed back on Mr. Lyons’s depiction of events. In a statement on Saturday, Chief McDonnell said that the police arrived within 55 minutes of being called by federal officials, and said that the response time was slowed by heavy traffic.“Contrary to the claim that L.A.P.D. delayed its response for over two hours, our personnel mobilized and acted swiftly as condition safely allowed,” the police chief said.The Police Department’s response was also slowed, he said, by “irritants” that federal agents had used on protesters.Not long after Los Angeles police arrived at the protest on Friday night, the Police Department declared that the protests an unlawful assembly, and warned that those who did not disperse would be subject to arrest.The department did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday about whether any protesters had been arrested.The Los Angeles police have had a policy in place for decades that bars its officers from stopping someone for the sole purpose of determining someone’s immigration status. California state law also bars local and state resources from being used for federal immigration enforcement efforts.Because the Los Angeles police and federal agencies did not coordinate ahead of the immigration operations on Friday, Chief McDonnell said, the deployment of police officers was delayed because they had not been able to “proactively plan” the possibility of civil unrest.June 7, 2025, 10:54 p.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.The confrontation between the police and protesters is escalating, with protesters launching fireworks toward the police and police officers firing back with pepper balls and other weapons. The police are also setting up a yellow barricade in front of their vehicles.June 7, 2025, 10:52 p.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.At East Alondra Boulevard and Frailey Avenue in Paramount, a handful of protesters on motorbikes are circling the space between law enforcement and protesters as police officers shoot projectiles toward a crowd of dozens. Sheriff’s Department officers are also aiming shots at a white truck by the protesters. Protesters are throwing glass bottles toward the police.June 7, 2025, 10:46 p.m. ETPresident Trump with the California National Guard in 2020.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites ”10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday night that Mr. Trump was deploying the National Guard in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.Although some demonstrations have been unruly, local authorities in Los Angeles County did not indicate during the day that they needed federal assistance.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X late on Saturday that the Pentagon was “mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY.” But he did not say when or where the troops would assemble, or identify their units.Mr. Trump’s directive authorized the secretary of defense to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.” In Mr. Hegseth’s post on X, he said that active duty Marines were “on high alert” at Camp Pendleton, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles, and could also be mobilized.Protests have occurred on Friday and Saturday in California to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces. The latest is unfolding at a Home Depot in Paramount, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.California Democrats have braced for months for the possibility that President Trump would seek to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in this way, particularly in Democratic-run jurisdictions. Privately, they have acknowledged that such a move, absent the state’s agreement, would have profound implications.Mr. Trump suggested deploying U.S. forces in the same manner during his first term to suppress outbreaks of violence during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He opted against doing so at the time, but he has repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure border states.In 2020, in the final days of Mr. Trump’s first presidential term, military helicopters were used to rout peaceful protesters demonstrating against police violence near the White House.“For the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is using the military domestically to stop dissent.”The National Guard was last federalized in 1992, Ms. Goitein said, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops to Los Angeles to control riots after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That deployment was requested by the California’s governor at the time, Pete Wilson.Mr. Trump and his aides have often lamented that not enough was done by Minnesota’s governor to quell protests that followed the death of Mr. Floyd in 2020.During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump made clear he was not going to hold back in a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” Mr. Trump said.Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Carol Rosenberg contributed reporting.June 7, 2025, 9:53 p.m. ETMayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles toed a line between condemning the deployment of National Guard troops in the region and issuing a stern warning to protesters. “Reports of unrest outside the city, including in Paramount, are deeply concerning. We’ve been in direct contact with officials in Washington, D.C., and are working closely with law enforcement to find the best path forward,” she said in a statement. “Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: Violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable.”Credit...Daniel Cole/ReutersJune 7, 2025, 9:40 p.m. ETCalifornia Democrats have braced for months for the possibility that President Trump would seek to deploy U.S. troops on American soil, in this way, particularly in Democratic-run jurisdictions. Privately, they have acknowledged that such a move, absent the state’s agreement, would have profound implications but that their legal options appear to be limited.June 7, 2025, 9:30 p.m. ETTrump and his aides have often lamented that not enough was done by Minnesota’s governor to quell protests over the murder of George Floyd in 2020. During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump made clear he was not going to hold back in a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” he said.June 7, 2025, 9:26 p.m. ETKathryn Barger, the chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, called on demonstrators to exercise caution. “I urge all those who choose to protest to do so without resorting to violence or unlawful behavior,” she said in a statement. “Engaging in vandalism, obstructing law enforcement or committing acts of violence undermines the very principles of democracy and freedom that we all value.”June 7, 2025, 9:21 p.m. ETThe sweep of ICE enforcement in Los Angeles comes as the administration has pushed for more arrests across the U.S. Recently, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News that the agency would be push to make 3,000 arrests a day — a staggering figure that ICE has yet to hit.June 7, 2025, 9:17 p.m. ETPresident Trump has signed a memo sending 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. Ms. Leavitt pointed to “violent mobs” going after immigration agents.“In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens,” she said. She indicated that law enforcement would arrest protesters who interfered with federal agents.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesJune 7, 2025, 9:15 p.m. ETMimi DwyerReporting from Compton, Calif.Dozens of protesters are still stationed outside the entrance to the Home Depot after hours of standoff with law enforcement. At its peak, the protest had hundreds of demonstrators at the scene.