LOS ANGELES — Marines were seen standing guard outside a federal building in Los Angeles on Friday as they started to take over the post from National Guard members after protests erupted last week over immigration raids and President Donald Trump deployed the troops to the city.
Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, the commander of Task Force 51 who is overseeing the 4,700 combined troops, said the Marines finished training on civil disturbance and are starting operations by replacing Guard troops guarding the Wilshire Federal Building, which houses several federal offices. Guard soldiers can then be assigned to protect more law enforcement agents on raids, Sherman said.
About 200 Marines out of the 700 deployed to the protests are in the city, Sherman said. It’s unclear if the Marines will eventually provide security on raids.
At 12:30 p.m., two Marines were seen standing at the entrance to the 17-story Wilshire Federal Building, wearing combat gear and carrying rifles as they mingled with Guard members, who have been checking IDs of people entering the parking lot. It is the same building that Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla on Thursday was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference and handcuffed by officers as he tried to speak up about the immigration raids.
As the Trump administration targets migrants around the country for detainment and deportation, the raids have led to the arrests of asylum-seekers, people who overstayed their visas and migrants awaiting their day in immigration court.
The Marines are taking their posts a day after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order that had directed Trump to return control of Guard troops to California, shortly after a federal judge had ruled the Guard deployment was illegal, violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority.
Some 2,000 Guard troops have been in the city since last week. Some have provided protection to immigration agents making arrests. Another 2,000 Guard members were notified of deployment earlier this week.
None of the military troops will be detaining anyone, Sherman said.
“I would like to emphasize that the soldiers will not participate in law enforcement activities,” Sherman said. “Rather, they’ll be focused on protecting federal law enforcement personnel.”
Roughly 500 Guard members have been used to provide security on immigration raids after undergoing expanded instruction, legal training and rehearsals with the agents doing the enforcement before they go on those missions.
An 8 p.m. curfew has been in place in a 1-square-mile section of downtown. The city of Los Angeles encompasses roughly 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers). Protests have ended after a few hours with arrests this week largely for failure to disperse. On the third night of the curfew, officers with the Department of Homeland Security deployed flash bangs to disperse a crowd that had gathered near a jail, sending protesters sprinting away.
As with the past two nights, the hours long demonstrations remained peaceful and upbeat, drawing a few hundred attendees who marched through downtown chanting, dancing and poking fun at the Trump administration’s characterization of the city as a “war zone.”
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