CalMatters
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By Nigel Duara and Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters
When he took office, President Donald Trump made every indication that California’s politics and policies were directly in his sights. He started with a list of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, a designation that includes the entire state, and promised to defund them.
Since then, he has challenged California’s approach to the environment, health care, education and LGBTQ rights, mostly in federal court – there are four pending lawsuits titled “State of California v. Trump,” and another 16 that the state has joined against the president.
Last week, the conflict escalated when White House officials told CNN Trump was planning to cut federal funding to California. On Sunday, he sent in the troops.
Trump deployed hundreds of California National Guard soldiers in downtown Los Angeles as part of a rolling immigration enforcement action throughout Southern California that entered its third day.
The mobilization, made over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the mayor of Los Angeles, was the first time a president has called in the National Guard since 1965, when Lyndon Johnson ordered the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights protesters marching from Selma to Montgomery.
“This is intentional chaos,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference. “There was no need to federalize troops. And so to have this here is really just a provocation and something that was not needed in our city.”
Tensions in the city ratcheted up again in downtown Los Angeles, where protesters on Sunday faced off with police officers who fired dozens of less-lethal rounds attempting to disperse people in the streets surrounding the 300 North Los Angeles Federal Building.
At least two self-driving vehicles were set on fire near the protest, and police continued to pepper the rally with rubber bullets well into the late afternoon.
At one point, a protester threw an object at the police skirmish line. In response, an officer fired a foam projectile from a 40 mm grenade launcher. The projectile missed the person who threw the object and struck a nearby woman in the head. She was sitting down when she was hit.
Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California – which includes Los Angeles – told KNBC-TV that immigration enforcement agents were under duress while conducting raids in Paramount and Compton.
“You have thousands of people forming and gathering in crowds, rioting, attacking our agents, throwing rocks, throwing eggs, throwing Molotov cocktails,” Essayli told the news station.
Protesters follow ICE agents
In Pasadena on Sunday, a group of local activists homed in on the AC Hotel in the city’s downtown, where they said they had located immigration enforcement agents along with their vehicles parked in the garage next door.
About 350 people gathered on the largest intersection bounding the hotel, holding signs that said “Not Here” and “F— ICE.”
“We got reports that the people staying here, the (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents that were staying here, were asking the workers and chefs and people that clean the rooms about their immigration status,” said Jose Madera of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
A restaurant employee in downtown Pasadena said the hotel workers left in the morning or never arrived, evinced by all the open parking on the street that would have been crowded on any other Sunday.
“A lot of people just didn’t show up to their job,” Airam Gurrola, 22, said.
Mercedes Woolsey of Pasadena said the departure of migrant workers from the hotel was a portent of what the U.S. would look like with fewer immigrant workers, and pledged to return to the protest at the hotel until immigration enforcement agents left.
“Be a menace, that’s all we can do,” Woolsey said. “We want to make sure that the AC Hotel knows that they decided to do this and we are not OK with that.”
At the Urth Caffé across the street, indoor and outdoor brunch service continued without interruption.
California Democrats condemn raids
The escalation by the Trump administration could be a turning point for a state with the third-most Trump voters in the country behind Texas and Florida.
Democratic politicians started the year quieter than usual resisting Trump’s immigration crackdowns, and with the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, lawmakers and Newsom were antsy about losing federal funding. That was especially true of Newsom, who was depending on a relatively harmonious relationship with the federal government to secure aid for Los Angeles wildfire recovery.
But California Democrats have since struck a more defiant tone. Last week they advanced numerous bills to discourage warrantless ICE visits to hospitals, schools and shelters. Over the weekend, they condemned the raids and sided with protesters, especially after federal agents arrested prominent union president David Huerta on Friday during a clash with protesters outside an immigration raid of a garment company’s warehouse.
Newsom sent a letter on Sunday afternoon to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting that the administration withdraw the troops and questioning the legality of their deployment.
“There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation,” Newsom’s legal affairs secretary, David Sapp, wrote in the letter.
The governor had previously spoken to Trump on the phone for about 40 minutes on Friday night, a spokesperson said.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat, called the raids “an authoritarian assault on our immigrant communities.”
His counterpart in the state Senate, Healdsburg Democrat Mike McGuire, said the National Guard deployment “reeks of fascism.”
Workers brace for more sweeps
Marissa Nuncio, director of the Los Angeles-based Garment Worker Center, said garment workers were reeling after immigration enforcement agents detained 20 of them in a raid at Ambiance Apparel in the city’s Fashion District on Friday. The amassing of troops downtown made her members worry about a second raid.
The Garment Worker Center held a know-your-rights seminar on Saturday, one day after the raid.
Attendees “wanted to know, how can we stop this,” Nuncio said. “How can we resist these attacks on our community? They wanted to know if it’s safe to go to work, to go to church, to go to the clinic.”
Garment workers are particularly vulnerable because they are often employed in illegal production facilities that pop up and then disappear overnight. They’re paid by the piece, usually 5 cents to 12 cents per piece of clothing, a controversial practice that has drawn scrutiny from the Legislature.
Their weekly take-home pay is about $300, or $5.50 per hour, paid in cash.
“We feel the best we can do is inform workers of what’s going on,” Nuncio said, “and remind them that they have power in their rights.”
CalMatters reporters Sergio Olmos and Mikhail Zinshteyn contributed to this story.
Violent protest feeds right into trump’s desires.
I detest the man, his presidency and his administration. I have since 2015 — and before.
I am NOT discounting the protests; I support most of them.
“Trump says he would invoke Insurrection Act to deal with protests if needed
President Donald Trump said he would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 if necessary to address the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.
“If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “We’ll see. But I can tell you … last night was terrible. The night before that was terrible.”
Later, Trump dismissed the idea that deploying the Marines to Los Angeles was escalatory and could cause tensions to get out of hand.
“You would have had a horrible situation had I not sent them. … You’d be reporting on a lot of death and a lot of destruction. That’s not going to take place,” Trump said. “I think if you look every night, it got less and less. They were met with very strong force, the bad people, the bad sick people that do what they do.”
I agree, ANON. Much like all the Democrat leaders in this country are saying, the violence needs to stop. Let them attack peaceful protesters (even more than they already are) with the military. See what happens.
The violent agitators are detracting from the message and only making things worse.
Trump sent in the Guard when they weren’t needed, KNOWING it would escalate things so he could then send in the Marines. That’s what’s happening.
I know it much be tough to refrain from violence on the front lines, but it’s imperative for the cause that they keep it as peaceful, YET LOUD AND IN THIER FACE, as possible. Setting fires won’t help.
Shameful that the fascist fat sack and his svengalis have brought us to this.
Those ICE cowards better be low key when they go order in restaurants. I’d hate to think what type of biological or chemical “additives” chefs would add to their boring cheeseburgers.
So lame.
Why is being concerned about people having their food tainted, lame?
You out of boogers yet?
sacjon, Why do you say that they are cowards?
Because instead of actually targeting violent criminals, they’re going after the undocumented immigrants who are just trying to survive and actually do it the “right way” as you all want. Picking off families at schools, church, work and even while they’re trying to obey the laws and go to their immigration court hearings is just cowardly.
All the while wearing plain clothes and masks. That is cowardice to me.
Paramilitary government forces wearing masks with no identifying marks is the hallmark of dictatorships and banana republics. When armed men wear masks while interacting with civilian protesters who are 98% unarmed, it encourages the worst excesses and abuses because there is no accountability.
When cowards put on masks and carry guns they only become more cowardly.
Tell me I’m wrong.
I wonder why these rioters think that burning cars, dropping concrete blocks on cars from overpasses, marching with foreign country flags, etc. is supposed to make us change our minds about letting them remain in OUR country.
And for the LA and Sacramento politicians to claim that these riots are peaceful demonstrations or, as one said, people just having fun, is disingenuous or straight out lying.
ANON – much like in every large scale protest, there are peaceful protests which then become less peaceful as agitators come in with black helmets, masks, backpacks (the ANTIFA types) to stir up trouble. Those are the ones primarily responsible for violence.
Don’t forget, for 2 days on Friday and Saturday these were pretty peaceful except for a handful of isolated incidents.
“Marching with foreign country flags” isn’t a “riot,” it’s showing solidarity or pride in being multicultural. I know that’s scary for some ignorant folks around here, but it’s not violent in and of itself.
Hardly as violent as the criminals who attacked police officers with American flag poles, Trump flag poles and even some, get this….. Blue Lives Matter flag poles…. on January 6th. Funny how the same people who supported letting over 600 violent criminals who were convicted of assaulting and almost killing cops (many with prior convictions for rape and child molestation) were released into our communities, are the ones crying about a few angry protestors throwing water bottles and walking onto the 101, demanding the marines come in.
Yeah, OUR country. My country. Your country–my people have been here since before the American Revolution, I don’t know about yours. Too bad you and your ilk are selling it out to a dictator.
The rioting has been minimal. Is any rioting or damage bad, yes. And what’s worse is using that as a pretext to invade our state and city with paramilitary and military forces who were not needed or requested. Bringing the Marines? Insanity.
The constant threats and demonization by your ilk of people who are LESS criminally inclined or active than our citizens is the top of dishonest xenophobia which has been leveraged by dictators to brutalize innocent people for as long as there have been dictators.
The fact that you don’t understand this and support it is disgusting.
“The rioting has been minimal”!!
Yeah, keep that mindset. Now that’s entertaining to hear. Unfortunately you’re full of it.
Yep, the rioting has been minimal. It’s a fact. I know you’re allergic to those. Go outside and get triggered by a rich guy in a Tesla.
Looting businesses and attacking law enforcement is a great way to get your way. Nice work anarchists and the Democrats supporting this fiasco. Karen Bass and Gavin are absolutely clowning.
“They will call you Flounder” Karen.
Good news is all these fools are going to keep getting arrested. Bad news, it’s a giant waste of taxpayer money and nothing productive is coming out of these tantrum riots.
More like CA’S feud with Law and order and civilized society. These are NOT peaceful protest and the Governor and Mayor are NOT protecting the citizens of LA. Who is going to stop the destruction of citizens shops and cars? Who is going to pay for this. The CA taxpayer? In a State just coming around from horrendous fires, arson is being allowed by the Mayor and Governor??
Go home, KOOK
A very different point of view, if you are willing to accept points that don’t conform to your preconceived ideas.
OK, and? You’ve said that on 2 different articles now.
Especially points that don’t conform with the facts!
NO KINGS Santa Barbara
Saturday, June 14 10:30am
Chase Palm Park 236 E Cabrillo Blvd.
https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/788033/
https://indivisiblesb.org/no-kings-day/
Indivisible Santa Barbara invites you to join us this Saturday, June 14th, as we assemble along Cabrillo Blvd and then stand shoulder to shoulder in a nonviolent demonstration all along Cabrillo Blvd. from 10:30am to noon, to loudly proclaim that in America, we don’t put up with would-be kings.
Time:
June 14, 2025
10:30am-12pm
Location:
Cabrillo Blvd between Calle Cesar Chavez and Castillo St.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP! https://indivisiblesb.org/no-kings-day/
Yeah, good ole LAPD.
If you haven’t seen the beat down and mounted police activity yet, search “lapd horse patrol beating protester”
A LONE protester.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I don’t want to invite criticism of the facts by posting one source and have people criticize the source. A picture is worth a thousand words. There’s a Newsweek article with the video but they have more popups than any other site I’ve ever seen. But here it is anyways: https://www.newsweek.com/la-protestor-stomped-police-horseback-violence-video-2082637
Or the X xwitter link from the Newsweek article:
https://x.com/hearinladotcom/status/1931938103939436672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1931938103939436672%7Ctwgr%5Ec2d9da701b146efae2f781d6ea6ba3cec6e33a64%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fla-protestor-stomped-police-horseback-violence-video-2082637
So much for the “pretty capable cops” and the LAPD having it under control. Of course they do, with tactics like these.
YIN – they may be bullies and abusive, but they were able to contain it just fine without the need for the Guard and definitely not the Marines
I agree.
But not much has changed since May 2020.
Gov’t. efficiency and cost savings?
“The Trump administration’s military response to unrest in Los Angeles is expected to cost $134 million for 60 days of operations, a senior Pentagon official told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The estimate includes food, transportation, housing and other associated costs, said Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who testified before the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The money is expected to come out of operations and maintenance accounts, funds that can be used to pay for a variety of things, including military training.
The testimony came in response to a question from Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-California), who told Hegseth that he had “severe concern” about the deployment of the troops without consultation with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has called the dispatching of troops inflammatory and unnecessary. It marks the first time since 1965 that a president has federalized National Guard troops and deployed them without a request from state officials.
Hegseth defended the deployment and how the troops have been cared for, saying they responded “incredibly rapidly to a deteriorating situation.” He called it disingenuous to question whether enough had been done to ensure the troops have the food, water and accommodations they need.
The defense secretary said the deployment is planned for 60 days “because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”
Sorry, forgot to add attribution:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/10/trump-presidency-news/
Charming. American government and president threatening to arrest a state governor. Just great…
“Trump repeatedly ridiculed Newsom, a Democrat, calling him “grossly incompetent” and saying he has done “a terrible job.” Asked about a threat by his border czar, Tom Homan, to arrest the governor, Trump said, “I would do it if I were Tom.”
“I think it’s great,” Trump added, without specifying any alleged criminal wrongdoing or charges. “Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”
To all those crying about “violence,” please explain why out of the hundreds of arrests across the country in the last few days, only a handful of protesters have been charged with violent crimes and/or vandalism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/la-protest-arrests-immigration.html?smid=url-share
Meanwhile, cops are shooting peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, including deliberately aiming at and shooting a news reporter WHILE she was reporting with a mic and a cameraman….
This is just too entertaining and enlightening to not share the whole thing:
(the Post now asks for an email to read a gift article so I don’t share gift links anymore)
Wa Post Opinion Marc Fisher
“Trump got shipped off to military school. Now we all pay the price.
The president’s D.C. parade is an ego trip, 79th birthday party and boyhood fantasy rolled into
one.
Young Donald Trump was anything but happy to be sent to military school. His father, Fred, had had it up to here with his son’s disobedience. Trump was 13 and being shipped to New York Military Academy, a boarding school about an hour north of the city, near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
From the moment Trump arrived in 1959, a stocky teen suddenly stripped of the conveniences of wealth, he was looking for a lifeline, scrambling for something he could master. Trump was never going to be a stellar student. He played on sports teams and did well, but he found his true home by mastering military rituals and discipline. He had no interest in going to actual war — he managed to win four deferments and a medical waiver to avoid service during the Vietnam conflict — but he was drawn to the school’s strict
rules and instant accountability. He liked setting the pace for other cadets, he liked putting on white gloves and full dress uniform, and he loved the pageantry — especially the parades.
And so, six decades later, on Saturday, we will all get a hefty dose of Trump’s boyhood fantasy of military
showmanship. This combined 79th birthday party and wild ego trip — a wayward president’s version of an aging dad buying the red sports car — could cost taxpayers up to $45 million and threatens to rip the District’s streets to smithereens.
Just as Trump did in high school, when he was put in charge of a special NYMA drill team to march in New York City’s Columbus Day parade, now, as leader of the vaguely free world, he will star as drillmaster in chief. There will be tanks! Men in lockstep! Helicopters! The Army’s Golden Knights parachuting down to the Ellipse to present an American flag to El Presidente himself!
It’s a grand old American tradition to put a fair amount of energy into living out high school fantasies, but this is ridiculous.
It is also thoroughly in character for Trump.
As a child, Trump, by his own account, was something of a terror. He has boasted that he once gave a teacher in elementary school a black eye. He defied his father’s directive to stay in Queens, instead sneaking onto the subway with a friend to buy switchblades in Manhattan.
But his father had the last word: Off to NYMA with you. By all accounts, Trump’s start at military school was rough. There was no family cook, no private bathroom, no mother to excuse his misbehavior. Instead, he lived in boot-campstyle barracks, marched on the 300-acre campus’s sprawling parade grounds and learned to obey the adults — or else.
Trump was just one more plebe, one more subject to the drill sergeant, Theodore Dobias — known as “Doby.” Dobias smacked students with his open hand if they committed an infraction. He ordered misbehaving cadets to fight each other. He rode Trump hard, pushing the rich kid from Queens to make his bed, shine his shoes, clean the sink.
Trump studied Dobias’s tactics and adopted many as his own, his classmates said. Trump loved wielding authority — one student called him “Mr. Meticulous” — and when Trump became a junior supply sergeant in Company E, he relished ordering punishments for younger cadets.
When one student broke formation, Trump allegedly delivered whacks on the rear with a broomstick. When another boy left his bed unmade, the young disciplinarian tore the sheets off the bed, threw them on the floor and fought the boy, trying to push him out a second-story window, the former schoolmate, Ted Levine, told The Post years later.
That Columbus Day parade in 1963 was in many ways a culmination of Trump’s military career. He was in charge, front and center, back on his home turf. But when the NYMA boys got to Fifth Avenue — passing exactly the spot where the developer’s son would one day build his own Trump Tower — they saw a group of Catholic schoolgirls were lined up to lead the parade. Trump had been told his contingent was going to be in front.
“Leave this to me,” Trump told Dobias. He went and found someone in charge, had a little talk and came back victorious. He led the parade. It made him feel large.
Many years later, Trump would boast that although he didn’t serve in the military, he believed he had received more military training in high school than actual service members did. “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people,” he told biographer Michael D’Antonio.
High school fantasies die hard. Most of us keep them to ourselves. On Saturday, all 340 million of us get to live Trump’s.
Somebody, please, buy the old man a pair of white gloves for this birthday. It’d make him so happy, maybe he’d leave us alone for a bit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/11/trump-parade-military-school-dad/
“On June 12, 2024, a day when Joe Biden was still president, the U.S. Army filed a permit in the hopes of celebrating its 250th birthday on the National Mall the following year.
The event would involve as many as 300 soldiers and civilian personnel. There would be a concert by the U.S. Army Band. Four cannons would be fired. Some 120 chairs would be set up.
All told, it would be a fairly modest affair, another event on a summer’s day on the national lawn, a few weeks before Fourth of July festivities would bring a much grander display.
Then President Donald Trump was elected — and plans for the day changed dramatically.”
More than two dozen tanks will now roll through D.C., and 50 helicopters will fly overhead. Thousands of troops, many in period costume from past wars, will participate, and several musical acts will perform.”
D.C. hopes their roads withstand the tanks.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/how-much-will-the-dc-military-parade-cost-heres-a-tally/3932636/
edhat posted a Cal Matters article about Huerta’s arrest, but this was shocking at the time and is getting the expected and deserved response:
“Federal agents arrested David Huerta — the well-known head of California’s largest public sector union — while he was demonstrating outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a worksite in Los Angeles on Friday.
Huerta’s arrest helped fuel the intense, days-long protests in Los Angeles over the weekend, as calls for his release mounted among unions and protesters. It also inspired smaller rallies in cities across the country, many of the latter organized by the union Huerta belongs to, the Service Employees International Union. The United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, demanded Huerta’s release alongside SEIU.”
Another example of trump’s administration arresting politicians and leaders. He thinks it’s good press for him. We’ll see…
77 million Americans put Donald Trump in the White House to enforce immigration laws.
And that’s what he is doing.
If you have a problem with that then you are the enemy of America.
This is a nation of law and order whether you like it or not.
Voters did not agree to American citizens being arrested without due process and thrown into foreign gulags. Your leader lied to you.
If you believed in law and order, you would be regretting that the trumpfelon isn’t in prison, and that he pardoned the truly violent insurrectionists. Stop being a fascist patsy and acquire some critical thinking skills.
77 million out of 245 million Americans who were eligible to vote. That’s less than 32% of eligible Americans.
31.4%
31.4%
31.4%
31.4%
That is all.
What I find most amusing about the habitual bootlickers is the fact that they very boot they lick is the one that will kick them in the face. YUM YUM JAMES
As sad as that day will be for our democracy, it will be absolutely wonderful to see these bigots get what they voted for.