Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Monday evening that he is sending 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles “to restore order.”
“We have an obligation to defend federal law enforcement officers—even if Gavin Newsom will not,” Hegseth said, criticizing the California governor following the irruption of anti-immigration enforcement riots in LA on Friday.
The Marines will join the California National Guard troops that have arrived in Los Angeles as rioting continues there. The primary role of some 2,000 National Guard troops President Donald Trump pledged to deploy is the protection of federal property and federal employees.
The National Guard troops “may perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property,” the White House explained as it announced the deployment of the troops.
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized the president’s action, and California state Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday called it “unnecessary, counterproductive, and unlawful.”
While the role of National Guard troops is somewhat limited to protecting federal property, Julio Rosas, a former Marine Corps reservist and author of “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful,” says the presence of the federal troops frees local law enforcement to focus on keeping the peace and “puts manpower back into the streets.”
Trump reaffirmed his commitment to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles on Monday, writing on Truth Social, “We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
Trump sharply criticized Newsom and Bass, writing in the post that the two Democrats should be thanking him for sending the troops.
Both Newsom and Bass have been critical of Trump’s action to deploy the National Guard on his own authority and without their request. But Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, says the president does have the authority to federalize National Guard troops, pointing to an old memo from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.
The president has “inherent authority to use troops for the protection of federal property and federal functions,” according to the memo issued in 1971.
Rosas, a national correspondent for The Blaze, arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday night and estimates a couple hundred protesters were on the streets. After covering many of the riots in cities across America during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Rosas says the rioters are “running the same playbook” he saw five years ago.
“They’re overreacting to something,” Rosas said of the rioters, who began demonstrating Friday in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations targeting illegal aliens in the city.
The rioters become “violence, so naturally authorities respond,” he said, adding that then rioters complain about the response from law enforcement and claim that police are “’being too violent’ or ‘that it’s unjust,’ or you know, whatever, bull—-.”
“This is a riot. It’s not mostly peaceful,” he added.
Rosas shared footage early Monday morning of rioters pulling a dumpster fire into the street and reported that law enforcement is using rubber bullets against violent rioters.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
