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ARMED US MARINES have arrived on the streets of Los Angeles as part of a large deployment of troops ordered by Donald Trump as the US braces for widespread protests to coincide with a large-scale military parade in Washington.
On his 79th birthday, Trump will preside over the parade to officially mark the 250th anniversary of the US army. It will be the first time tanks and other heavy weaponry have rolled through the capital city in three decades.
The army says the event could cost up to $45 million (€38 million).
At the same time, protests by the so-called ‘No Kings’ movement are expected across the United States against what organisers say is a Trump personality cult.
Organisers said the rallies would be the largest since Trump returned to office in January, adding that they were “rejecting authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarisation of our democracy.”
They said they expected millions of people in more than 1,500 cities to take part in the protests, which they called a “direct response to Donald Trump’s self-aggrandising” parade, “funded by taxpayers while millions are told there’s no money.”
“Unprecedented” crowds could attend, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell told reporters on Friday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, whose deputies are part of a large law enforcement response in the enormous city, urged protesters to behave properly.
“It’s a good cause, but we do not want violent agitators out there destroying property or committing acts of violence,” he said.
Mayor Karen Bass said demonstrations are expected to be “even larger because of what has happened in our city.”
“We do call on people over the weekend to demonstrate peacefully, to exercise your first amendment right, to not play into the hands where it could be used as a pretext to roll out troops in our city,” she said in a news conference.
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to turn out in Los Angeles to protest against Trump’s deployment of troops in America’s second-largest city following clashes sparked by immigration raids.
Men in fatigues and carrying semiautomatic rifles were seen around a federal building, where passersby questioned why they were in an area 18 kilometers from the protests against immigration raids.
Marines temporarily detained one man at the federal building before they handed him over to law enforcement.
The US military would not say why he was detained, despite multiple requests, but the incident appeared to be a minor – albeit extremely rare – example of federal troops detaining a US civilian.
Seven hundred Marines, normally used as crack troops in foreign conflicts, along with 4,000 National Guard soldiers are tasked with protecting federal buildings, while local police handle protests over Trump’s sweeps for undocumented migrants.
An intense legal battle is underway over Trump’s authority to deploy troops on US soil.
In a show of political force, Trump overrode the objections of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to deploy California’s National Guard.
Trump has repeatedly exaggerated the scale of violence, claiming that without troops, Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground right now.”
On Thursday, District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Trump’s actions were “illegal” and ordered that he return control of the guard to Newsom. Breyer said the LA unrest fell “far short” of the “rebellion” Trump had described.
However, a higher court quickly paused the order pending an appeal hearing with the Trump administration next Tuesday.
The US Department of Justice slammed Breyer’s ruling as “an extraordinary intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief.”
The dispute mirrors multiple others over Trump’s attempts to expand the limits of presidential power, but this one is the first to involve troops.
Many in Los Angeles are angry about immigration raids carried out as part of Trump’s ambition to deport vast numbers of undocumented migrants from the country.
On Friday, around 100 protesters gathered outside the federal detention center in Los Angeles that has been at the heart of the rallies, ahead of a nightly curfew placed on the downtown area by the mayor.
In a sign of how contained the demonstrations have been, however, those attending a performance of “Hamlet” – Shakespeare’s play about a mad prince – and other shows at nearby venues were exempt from the curfew.
Outrage at Trump’s raids and the use of masked, armed immigration agents backed by uniformed soldiers have also sparked protests in other cities, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas.
Tensions hiked further on Thursday when California Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, was handcuffed and forcibly removed from a news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
With reporting from © AFP 2025
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