Trump sends National Guard to LA as ice protests escalate
They gathered in downtown LA after National Guard forces arrived to quell protests against President Trump’s immigration policy.
More than 30 years after the Los Angeles Rodney King Riot in 1992, an order from the president once again led hundreds of national guards into California’s largest city.
The protest began on Friday, June 6th, when Homeland Security authorities detained dozens of people in multiple locations in Hispanic or Latinx cities. By that night, more than 100 people had gathered in downtown Los Angeles Federal Detention Center, where several immigrants had been held, and the demonstrations continued from Saturday until Sunday, June 8th, near Paramount and Compton.
National Guard troops deployed by President Donald Trump arrived in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, June 8th. It is not the first time the president has taken control of security guards to respond to protests and demonstrations. This sees when previous administration deployed troops in the case of civil unrest and crisis.
What is the National Guard?
Unlike other branches of the military, the National Guard is deployed by both the state and federal government, and members can serve in either the state’s national guards and in the US Army or Air Force at the same time.
National Guard members can be deployed by governors of their home countries, and statewide mobilization in the United States often supports communities during natural disasters and protests, security guards’ websites have recently been used to respond to pandemics and border security.
The president can deploy security guards to serve overseas missions. The Council of Foreign Relations has said it has pointed to developments in recent years to Afghanistan, Iraq, Poland and the Horn of Africa.
When did the president call the National Guard amid the protest?
The President has called for the National Guard dozens of times to respond to “civic unrest,” but it was not until 1967 that law enforcement agencies responding to protests and demonstrations made security guards federal government to further support.
According to a 2020 report by the National Security Agency, early cases of presidents sending security guards to subdue civil unrest were in 1794 and 1799 when President George Washington and John Adams called for state militias and volunteer troops to curb whiskey and Fliss rebellions.
The president avoided seeking militias in response to most civil disability in the 19th century, the bureau said that state militias are almost always screaming “labor riots and slave rebellions.” After the Civil War, the modern National Guard played an active role in “squealing racial insurgency and labor attacks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” saying that for 90 years, between the beginning of the reconstruction and the early years of the civil rights era, the president did not federate the forces for civil disability operations.
The Civil Rights Movement marked the beginning of more current federal security guards with examples of unrest such as protests, demonstrations and riots. Throughout this period, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson have made the National Guard federal government “to enforce civil rights expansion and ensure public order.”
The security guards were involved in many of the most important civil rights ERA events, including school separation and subsequent violence, in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, the University of Mississippi in 1962 and at the University of Mississippi in 1963.
Members of the National Guard were also called during the 1967 “Detroit Rebellion” and were called to respond to the protests and violence that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
After Trump deployed the National Guard on Sunday, June 8th, two recent presidents have made the National Guard federal government about 55 years and 33 years ago, respectively, for civil disability operations.
President Richard Nixon deployed troops in response to the postal strike, the first ever biggest strike against the federal government in 1970. Most recently, in 1992, President George W. Bush called on security guards to respond to the 1992 Rodney King Riott. According to the Bill of Rights Institute, the mayhem killed 60 people and injured 2,300 people.
National Guard Deployment in LA: A Short History
The National Guard has been deployed several times in Los Angeles in response to civil disability and natural disasters at the request of national and local officials. Security guards are particularly familiar forces to the nation’s large stripes that have experienced historic wildfires over the past decades, including Greater Los Angeles.
- In 1965, nearly 14,000 security guards were sent to Los Angeles amid Watts’ protest at the request of a California lieutenant colonel., according to Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute.
- In 1992, former President George H.W. Bush ordered Rodney King’s protests in Los Angeles to respond to Rodney King’s protests in Los Angeles, according to the Bill of Rights Institute. It was the last time a rebellion law was invoked by the president.
- In 1994, security guards were sent to help with the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake. The magnitude 6.7 earthquake caused billions of damages and killed at least 57 people in the San Fernando Valley, 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
According to Reuters, it was the first time in decades that the president has deployed the military in that way without the governor’s consent or explicit invitation, and the move prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to sue the deployment and plan to sue the administration.
Contribution: Thano Nguyen, US TOD; Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA Today. You can contact her kapalmer@usatoday.com And with x @Kathrynplmr.
