By JAIMIE DING and DAVID KLEPPER, Related Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Pentagon stated Thursday it’s ending the deployment of all however 250 Nationwide Guard troops that have been initially despatched to Los Angeles to cope with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 1,350 Nationwide Guard members to depart this week. The remainder will stay to guard federal personnel and property, in accordance with the assertion attributed to Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson.
Roughly 4,000 Nationwide Guard troopers and 700 Marines have been deployed to Los Angeles in early June over the objections of state and native officers. Half of the Guard have been pulled again roughly two weeks in the past, and the Marines have been ordered to depart a couple of days later.
“We tremendously admire the assist of the greater than 5,000 Guardsmen and Marines who mobilized to Los Angeles to defend Federal features towards the rampant lawlessness occurring within the metropolis,” Parnell stated.
Native leaders have contested the presence of federal troops within the metropolis, blaming them for inflaming tensions within the area and stated their presence was pointless. Mayor Karen Bass known as the departure of extra troops “one other win for Los Angeles” in a publish Wednesday night time on X.
The presence of Guard troops within the metropolis had been largely restricted to 2 areas with federal buildings in Los Angeles, together with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace and detention facility downtown. Some troopers have been defending federal brokers throughout immigration raids.
Nationwide Guard troops not too long ago accompanied federal authorities with weapons and horses at a July 7 operation at MacArthur Park, a neighborhood with giant Mexican, Central American and different immigrant populations, that ended abruptly.
A overwhelming majority of the troops remained on the Joint Forces Coaching Base in Los Alamitos throughout their time in Southern California and weren’t seen deployed in Los Angeles. Demonstrations within the metropolis and the area in latest weeks have largely been small, scattered impromptu protests round immigration arrests.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom stated in an announcement that President Donald Trump’s “political theater backfired.”
“The men and women of our navy deserve greater than for use as props within the federal authorities’s propaganda machine,” Newsom stated.
Newsom sued the federal authorities in June over the deployment of the Nationwide Guard, arguing that Trump violated the regulation when he activated the troops with out notifying him. Newsom additionally requested the decide for an emergency cease to troops serving to perform immigration raids.
Whereas a decrease court docket ordered Trump to return management of the Guard to California, the ninth U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals quickly blocked the decide’s order.
Klepper reported from Washington, D.C.
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