The tension is at its height in Los Angeles. Members of the National Guard, sent by Donald Trump despite the opposition of the local authorities, fired tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators opposing Washington’s migration policy. The president said he was ready to send troops to the country wherever it is necessary.
The streets of Los Angeles were still quiet when the first of some 2,000 members of the National Guard-normally deployed in the event of a natural disaster or war-landed in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, on the orders of the White House.
Towards the middle of the day, hundreds of demonstrators were massaged in front of the Los Angeles metropolitan detention center, where people were detained following raids of immigration and customs services (ICE).
“Ice is Donald Trump’s favorite institution and that which, at present, knows the most important resurgence of means and objectives,” said the president of the UQAM’s United States, Charles-Philippe David. “It aims to deport irregular residents, which they call illegal,” he adds.
Photo Omar Younis, Reuters
Police wrapped in a cloud of smoke from tear gas and grenades, on a highway ramp
ICE agents are strongly present in Los Angeles, where we find the most important Spanish-speaking community in the United States.
Their presence there is far from a coincidence.
Charles-Philippe David, president of the UQAM United States Observatory
“You should be ashamed!” “,” Go home! “Shouts demonstrators to the members of the National Guard, equipped with anti -grip shields. Participants launched objects to police officers, in addition to fire vehicles.
Over the hours, the demonstrators have multiplied, blocking three important intersections, including the entry of the highway 101. While some of them approached, members of the National Guard launched smoke grenades. A few minutes later, the Los Angeles police pulled anti -assembly ammunition to disperse the demonstrators. She asked everyone to leave the premises, threatening to arrest vision.
Photo Étienne Laurent, Agency France-Presse
Fireworks explode before the police.
On social networks, several images have circulated showing injured participants, especially after being pushed by shields, or struck by batons. Australian correspondent Lauren Tomasi was reached by a leg by a rubber bullet during a report on live television. The day before, the British photojournalist Nick Stern had been injured by this same type of ammunition.
“I crossed the street when I felt a strong leg pain,” he said to Guardian. “I had a hole of five centimeters in my leg, with hanging muscles and blood everywhere,” he said, after having undergone surgery in the emergency room.
“Alarming abuse of power”
Videos broadcast by local media showed police officers using tear gas and deafening grenades to disperse Paramount and Compton crowds. Despite these scenes, local police said that the rallies were held “generally peaceful”.
Photo Eric Thayer, Associated Press
A protester launches a smoke to the police.
Donald Trump hammered his disagreement. According to him, California reacted too slowly to the demonstrations. “You have violent people and we’re not going to let them get away,” said the Republican president.
This is why he ordered the deployment of the National Guard, for 60 days, despite the opposition of the Governor of California, the Democrat Gavin Newsom, supported by his peers. “President Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard in California is an abuse of alarming power,” insisted Democratic governors from across the country in a joint statement.
The deployment of the National Guard “is the last thing Los Angeles needs,” said Mayor Karen Bass, judging him “completely disproportionate”. “People are terrified,” she added.
Donald Trump put the pressure on Sunday on Sunday, indicating that he “did not dismiss” the possibility of sending marine members to Los Angeles.
Photo Haiyun Jiang, The New York Times
President Donald Trump when he arrived in Hagerstown, Maryland on Sunday
We will be very, very strong in terms of law and order.
Donald Trump
This is the first time that the National Guard has been deployed without the approval of the local governor since March 1965, according to former chief of the NGO Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth. At that time was to stand for the civil rights of African-Americans from Selma to go to Montgomery, in Alabama.
Photo Daniel Cole, Reuters
“Do not be accomplices”, we can read on this sign brandished by a protester denouncing the raids led by the American immigration police.
“According to the law, the National Guard can only be deployed when the governor asks, or if there is an insurrection, a calamity or a disaster. We are far from that in Los Angeles, ”says Charles-Philippe David.
Photo Eric Thayer, Associated Press
A man plated on the ground by the police officers
Important raids
According to Donald Trump, the Los Angeles demonstrators prevent the members of the ICE from “doing their job”. This unit has carried out major arrest operations throughout the United States for weeks in the streets, businesses or even the courts.
They seek and stop immigrants without permanent legal status. These highly publicized searches mark a new phase of the repression of immigration by the Trump administration.
According to Mexico President, Claudia Sheinbaum, 35 Mexicans have been arrested in the United States in recent days.
“The Mexicans who live in the United States are (…) Honest men and women who have gone to seek a better life and provide for their family. They are not criminals, ”she insisted.
The work of migrants “also supports the economy of the United States,” she said.
With information from the France-Presse agency, Washington Postof New York Timesof Guardian and Nine News Australia
