(Washington) The White House announced on Saturday the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard in California, after clashes in Los Angeles during demonstrations against the massive arrests of people in an irregular situation in this democratic state.
President Donald Trump “signed a presidential memorandum providing for the deployment of 2,000 national guards to remedy anarchy that we have left prosperous,” the White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in the evening, by rejecting the fault of “incapable” Californian leaders.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, regularly plagued by the American leader’s attacks, denounced a “voluntarily incendiary” decision.
The American president had little before threatened with such a measure, after a second day of incidents.
“If the governor of California, Gavin Newscum, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, cannot do their job, what everyone knows, then the federal government will intervene and solve the problem,” he said on his social social network, designating Mr. Newsom by a quolibet.
Screenshot of Donald Trump’s Social Truth Account
For the second consecutive day in Los Angeles, clashes opposed demonstrators opposed to the massive expulsions of irregular migrants as part of the policy launched by Mr. Trump and the federal agents of the immigration police (ICE).
They pulled deafening grenades and several people were arrested in Paramount, a suburb of a very large phrase from Los Angeles.
Photo Daniel Cole, Reuters
A police officer uses deafening grenades as the demonstrators approached.
“We peel the videos to identify the authors. You bring chaos, we bring the handcuffs, ”wrote the deputy director of the Federal Police (FBI), Dan Bongino.
Attack of a police bus
Members of the ICE gathered on Saturday morning near a home Depot DIY department store, where workers traditionally come to offer their services for the day.
It is not clear if the agents of the ICE were preparing to stop undocumented people, or if they simply gathered there for this place for another operation.
But demonstrators began to regroup and the sheriff’s office said they had deployed agents on the spot at the end of the morning while tensions were riding.
Photo Eric Thayer, Associated Press
A protester holds a sign while members of the border police in riot clothes and with gas masks are ongoing custody outside an industrial park in the Paramount section of Los Angeles.
Protesters have thrown objects on the police and tried to prevent a coach from leaving the premises. The agents postponed them using tear gas and deafening grenades.
Protesters also attacked a bus from US Marshals Service which came out of a neighboring highway, leading the authorities to close the access straps.
The streets were strewn with debris and overturned caddies, according to images of the American media which also report that demonstrators set fire to an American flag.
Photo Daniel Cole, Reuters
Protesters are held on a car destroyed during a confrontation between the police and the demonstrators following multiple immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the city of Paramount, in the County of Los Angeles, California, United States, June 7, 2025.
Incidents of the same type had already occurred on Friday in Los Angeles, where demonstrators had thrown eggs on ICE vehicles after agents arrested undocumented migrants.
“Zero tolerance”
Images shared on X Saturday by the chief of the border police Michael Banks, and relayed by Stephen Miller, one of the close advisers of Donald Trump, showed dozens of agents in khaki military unit, armed and equipped with gas masks, facing demonstrators.
The Trump administration applies a zero tolerance policy with regard to criminal behavior and violence, especially when this violence aims at police officers who try to do their job.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt
Stephen Miller, after Friday’s incidents, spoke of X “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”.
For Gavin Newsom, the decision to deploy the National Guard “is deliberately incendiary and will only increase tensions”.
“We are in close coordination with the city and the county, and there is currently no unsatisfied need,” he said on X.
Photo Daniel Cole, Reuters archives
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom
“Everyone has the right to demonstrate peacefully, but let’s be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and officials will have to account,” said Los Angeles, Karen Bass.
The last deployment of the National Guard in California for civilian disorders dates back to 2020, following the violent riots caused by the death of George Floyd, an African-American killed by a police officer in Los Angeles.
Since his return to power in January, the American president and his government have multiplied the initiatives to expel as many undocumented migrants in the country, while seeking to extend their prerogatives in this area.
