Karen Bass institutes 6am-8pm curfew for downtown LA as California governor urges people to \u2018not give in\u2019 to president<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city of Los Angeles is instituting a curfew in downtown on Tuesday night as tensions between the Trump administration<\/a> and California escalate over immigration raids and the federal deployment of military forces in response to protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayor Karen Bass announced a 10-hour curfew for a one-square mile area of downtown, where demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) have continued, while the LA police department said it had carried out more than 300 arrests of protesters in the last two days. The curfew is from 8pm to 6 am, Bass said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city\u2019s crackdown came after Gavin Newsom<\/a>, California\u2019s governor, filed an emergency request to block the Trump administration from using military forces to accompany Ice officers on raids throughout LA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of 4,000 national guard members and 700 marines to LA following four days of protests driven by anger over aggressive Ice raids that have targeted garment workers, day laborers, car washes and immigrant communities across America\u2019s second-largest city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsom and the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, alleged in a lawsuit<\/a> filed on Monday that Trump\u2019s takeover of the state national guard, against the governor\u2019s wishes, was \u201cunlawful\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A federal judge declined on Tuesday to immediately rule on California\u2019s request for a restraining order and scheduled a hearing for Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an evening speech, Newsom condemned Trump for \u201cindiscriminately targeting hard-working immigrant families\u201d and militarizing the streets of LA, recounting how in recent days, Ice agents had grabbed people outside a Home Depot, detained a nine-months pregnant US citizen<\/a>, sent unmarked cars to schools and arrested gardeners and seamstresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s just weakness masquerading as strength,\u201d the governor said. \u201cIf some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsom warned that Trump would not stop at California and encouraged people to stand up to the president: \u201cWhat Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, meanwhile, delivered a deeply partisan military speech earlier on Tuesday, calling the LA protesters \u201canimals\u201d and vowing to \u201cliberate Los Angeles\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking at a event in Fort Bragg in North Carolina to recognize the 250th anniversary of the US army, Trump made the baseless claim<\/a> that the demonstrations were being led by paid \u201crioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion\u201d. Trump also repeated a viral conspiracy theory that pallets of bricks were left out for protesters to hurl at police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday night, hundreds of troops were transferred to LA over the objections of Democratic officials and despite concerns from local law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, said he expected the military would remain in the city for 60 days at a cost of at least $134m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president said troops would remain until there was \u201cno danger\u201d and said he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act. <\/em>\u201cIf there\u2019s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We\u2019ll see,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n California\u2019s lawsuit said: \u201cTrump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth have sought to bring military personnel and a \u2018warrior culture\u2019 to the streets of cities and towns where Americans work, go to school, and raise their families. Now, they have turned their sights on California, with devastating consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday afternoon, before the curfew, the situation in downtown LA appeared largely calm. In the city\u2019s downtown core, the scene was sunny and normal \u2013 save for one heavily fortified square block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That street, near Little Tokyo, is home to several federal buildings that were the site of protests this weekend, including the Metropolitan detention center. Early on Tuesday afternoon, a small number of protesters stood in front of the federal building and the California national guard members sent in by Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While half of the block was sleepy, the other half was being aggressively cordoned off by dozens of police cars and officers in riot gear. A handful of bored-looking California national guard members were seen leaning on their riot shields in front of the heavily graffitied federal building, with 25 or so media and protesters milling around in front of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A woman carrying an upside down American flag strode up and down in front of the guard members, warning them that they were going to have to make a choice. \u201cMake the right choice!\u201d she called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The national guard is not believed to be involved in crowd control but is assigned to protect federal property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deployment of the national guard is strongly opposed by California Democrats \u2013 as well as every Democratic governor in the US. Alex Padilla, the California senator, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that protests against Ice and the subsequent legal showdown between his state and the government \u201cis absolutely a crisis of Trump\u2019s own making\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are a lot of people who are passionate about speaking up for fundamental rights and respecting due process, but the deployment of national guard only serves to escalate tensions and the situation,\u201d Padilla said. \u201cIt\u2019s exactly what Donald Trump wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Padilla said the Los Angeles sheriff\u2019s department had not been advised of the federalization of the national guard. He said his office had pressed the Pentagon for a justification, and \u201cas far as we\u2019re told, the Department of Defense isn\u2019t sure what the mission is here\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jim McDonnell, the LA police chief, said on Monday that the department and its local partners have decades of experience responding to large-scale demonstrations and that they were confident in their ability to continue doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles, absent clear coordination, presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n