POLITICS

California’s two U.S. Senators pushed top military officials Tuesday for more information about how hundreds of U.S. Marines were deployed to Los Angeles over the objections of local leaders and what the active-duty military will do on the ground.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla asked the Pentagon to explain the legal basis for deploying 700 active-duty Marines amid ongoing protests and unrest over immigration raids across Southern California.

“A decision to deploy active-duty military personnel within the United States should only be undertaken during the most extreme circumstances, and these are not them,” Schiff and Padilla wrote in the letter. “That this deployment was made over the objections of state authorities is all the more unjustifiable.”

California is challenging the legality of the militarization, arguing in a lawsuit filed Monday that the deployment of both the National Guard and the Marines violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which spells out the limits of federal power.

Schiff and Padilla asked Hegseth to clarify the mission the Marines will be following during their deployment, as well as what training the troops have received for crowd control, use of force and de-escalation.

The senators also asked whether the Defense Department received any requests from the White House or the Department of Homeland Security about “the scope of the Marines’ mission and duties.”

Hegseth mobilized the Marines Monday from a base in Twentynine Palms. Convoys were seen heading east on the 10 Freeway toward Los Angeles on Monday evening.

Schiff and Padilla said that Congress received a notification from the U.S. Northern Command on Monday about the mobilization that said the Marines had been deployed to “restore order” and support the roughly 4,000 members of the state National Guard who had been called into service Saturday and Monday.

The notification, the senators said, “did not provide critical information to understand the legal authority, mission, or rules of engagement for Marines involved in this domestic deployment.”

The California National Guard was first mobilized Saturday night over Newsom’s objection.

The last time a president sent the National Guard into a state without a request from the governor was six decades ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson mobilized troops in Alabama to defend civil rights demonstrators and enforce a federal court order in 1965.

Trump and the White House have said the military mobilization is legal under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Forces. The statute gives the president the authority to federalize the National Guard if there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” but also states that the Guard must be called up through an order from the state’s governor.

Trump has said that without the mobilization of the military, “Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”

Days of protests have included some violent clashes with police and some vandalism and burglaries.

“It was heading in the wrong direction,” Trump said Monday. “It’s now heading in the right direction. And we hope to have the support of Gavin, because Gavin is the big beneficiary as we straighten out his problems. I mean, his state is a mess.”

On Tuesday morning, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said city officials had not been told what the military would do, given that the National Guard is already in place outside of federal buildings.

“This is just absolutely unnecessary,” Bass said. “People have asked me, ‘What are the Marines going to do when they get here?’ That’s a good question. I have no idea.”

On Tuesday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sought a restraining order to block the deployment.

California on Tuesday asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of both state National Guard forces and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles amid mass protests over sweeping federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The request was filed in the same federal lawsuit the state and California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed Monday, in which they alleged Trump had exceeded his authority and violated the U.S. Constitution by sending military forces into an American city without the request or approval of the state governor or local officials.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is handling the litigation on behalf of both Newsom and the state, said the restraining order was necessary to bring an immediate stop to the deployments, which local officials have contended are not needed and only adding to tensions sparked by sweeping immigration detentions and arrests in communities with large immigrant communities.

“The President is looking for any pretense to place military forces on American streets to intimidate and quiet those who disagree with him,” Bonta said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s not just immoral — it’s illegal and dangerous.”

Newsom, in his own statement, echoed Bonta, saying the federal government “is now turning the military against American citizens.”

“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

The state’s request Tuesday asked for the restraining order to be granted by 1 p.m. Tuesday “to prevent immediate and irreparable harm” to the state.

Absent such relief, the Trump administration’s “use of the military and the federalized National Guard to patrol communities or otherwise engage in general law enforcement activities creates imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” the state contended.

The request specifically notes that the use of military forces such as Marines to conduct domestic policing tasks is unlawful, and that Trump administration officials have stated that is how the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles may be used.

“The Marine Corps’ deployment for law enforcement purposes is likewise unlawful. For more than a century, the Posse Comitatus Act has expressly prohibited the use of the active duty armed forces and federalized national guard for civilian law enforcement,” the state’s request states. “And the President and Secretary Hegseth have made clear — publicly and privately — that the Marines are not in Los Angeles to stand outside a federal building.”

At Trump’s direction, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the state’s National Guard on Saturday after Trump said L.A. was descending into chaos and federal agents were in danger, then mobilized another 2,000 members on Monday. The Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 U.S. Marines from the base in Twentynine Palms to the city Monday, with the stated mission of protecting federal buildings and agents.

Hegseth said the deployments would last 60 days, and the acting Pentagon budget chief said the cost would be at least $134 million. He told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee that the length of the deployments was intended to “ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Local officials have decried acts of violence, property damage and burglaries that have occurred in tandem with the protests, but have also said that Trump administration officials have blown the problems out of proportion and that there is no need for federal forces in the city.

Constitutional scholars and some members of Congress have also questioned the domestic deployment of military forces, especially without the buy-in of local and state officials — calling it a tactic of dictators and authoritarian regimes.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass questioned what Marines would do on the ground, while Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the arrival of military forces in the city without “clear coordination” with local law enforcement “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city.”

Bonta had said Monday that the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits federal power around such deployments, that the deployment of National Guard forces to quell protests without Newsom’s consent was “unlawful” and “unprecedented,” and that the deployment of Marines would be “similarly unlawful.”

On Tuesday, he said the state was asking the court to “immediately block the Trump Administration from ordering the military or federalized national guard from patrolling our communities or otherwise engaging in general law enforcement activities beyond federal property.”

AUSTIN, Texas — Protests that sprang up in Los Angeles over immigration enforcement raids and prompted President Trump to mobilize National Guard troops and Marines have begun to spread across the country, with more planned into the weekend.

From Seattle to Austin to Washington D.C., marchers have chanted slogans, carried signs against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and snarled traffic through downtown avenues and outside federal offices. While many were peaceful, some have resulted in clashes with law enforcement as officers made arrests used chemical irritants to disperse crowds.

Activists plan more and even larger demonstrations in the coming days, with so-called “No Kings” events across the country on Saturday to coincide with Trump’s planned military parade through Washington.

The Trump administration said it would continue its program of raids and deportations despite the protests. “ICE will continue to enforce the law,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted Tuesday on social media.

A look at protests sprouting up across the country:

AUSTIN

Four Austin police officers were injured and authorities used chemical irritants to disperse a crowd of several hundred demonstrators Monday night that moved between the state Capitol and a federal building that houses an ICE office. State officials had closed the Capitol to the public an hour early in anticipation of the protest.

Austin police used pepper spray balls and state police used tear gas when demonstrators began trying to deface the federal building with spray paint. The demonstrators then started throwing rocks, bottles and other objects at a police barricade, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said. Three officers were injured by “very large” rocks and another hurt a shoulder while making an arrest, she said.

Austin police arrested eight people, and state police arrested several more. Davis said her department is prepared for Saturday’s planned protest downtown.

“We support peaceful protest,” Davis said. “When that protests turn violent, when it turns to throwing rocks and bottles …. That will not be tolerated. Arrests will be made.”

DALLAS

A protest that drew hundreds to a rally on a city bridge lasted for several hours Monday night before Dallas police declared it an “unlawful assembly” and warned people to leave or face possible arrest.

Dallas police initially posted on social media that officers would not interfere with a “lawful and peaceful assembly of individuals or groups expressing their First Amendment rights.” But officers later moved in and local media reported seeing some in the crowd throw objects as officers used pepper spray and smoke to clear the area. At least one person was arrested.

“Peaceful protesting is legal,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, posted on X. “But once you cross the line, you will be arrested.”

SEATTLE

About 50 people gathered outside the immigration court in downtown Seattle on Tuesday, chanting with drums and holding up signs that said “Free Them All Abolish ICE” and “No to Deportations.” The protest was initially peaceful but protesters began putting scooters in front of the entryways to the building before police arrived.

Mathieu Chabaud, with Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Washington, said they were there in solidarity with the protesters in Los Angeles, “and to show that we’re opposed to ICE in our community.”

Legal advocates who normally attend the immigration court hearings as observers and to provide support to immigrants were not allowed inside the building. Security guards also turned away the media. The hearings are normally open to the public.

SANTA ANA

In Santa Ana near Los Angeles, armored vehicles blocked the road Tuesday morning leading into the Civic Center, where federal immigration officers and numerous city and county agencies have their offices.

Workers swept up plastic bottles and broken glass from Monday’s protests. Tiny shards of red, black and purple glass littered the pavement. Nearby buildings and the sidewalk were tagged with profane graffiti slogans against ICE and Trump’s name crossed out.

A worker rolled paint over graffiti on a wall to block it out. National Guard officers wearing fatigues and carrying rifles prevented people from entering the area unless they worked there.

Vertuno writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Martha Bellisle in Seattle and Amy Taxin in Santa Ana contributed.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was met with sharp questions and criticism Tuesday by lawmakers who demanded details on his move to deploy troops to Los Angeles, and they expressed bipartisan frustration that Congress has not yet received a full defense budget from the Trump administration.

“Your tenure as secretary has been marked by endless chaos,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told Hegseth. Others, including Republican leaders, warned that massive spending projects such as President Trump’s desire for a $175-billion space-based “Golden Dome” missile defense system will get broad congressional scrutiny.

The troop deployment triggered several fiery exchanges that at times devolved into shouting matches as committee members and Hegseth yelled over one another.

After persistent questioning about the cost of sending National Guard members and Marines to Los Angeles, Hegseth turned to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who said it would cost $134 million. Hegseth defended Trump’s decision to send the troops, saying they are needed to protect federal agents as they do their jobs.

And he suggested that the use of troops in the United States will continue to expand.

“I think we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland,” he said.

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing was the first time lawmakers have been able to challenge Trump’s defense chief since he was confirmed. It is the first of three congressional hearings he will face this week.

Lawmakers take aim at Pentagon’s planned spending

Lawmakers complained widely that Congress hasn’t yet received details of the administration’s first proposed defense budget, which Trump has said would total $1 trillion, a significant increase over the current spending level of more than $800 billion. And they said they are unhappy with the administration’s efforts to go around Congress to push through changes.

Key spending issues that have raised questions in recent weeks include plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security upgrades to turn a Qatari jet into Air Force One and to pour as much as $45 million into a parade recently added to the Army’s 250th birthday bash, which coincides with Trump’s birthday Saturday.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) quizzed Hegseth on deploying about 700 Marines to assist more than 4,100 National Guard troops in protecting federal buildings and personnel during immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.

She engaged in a testy back-and-forth with him over the costs of the operation. He evaded the questions but later turned to MacDonnell, who provided the estimate and said it covers the costs of travel, housing and food.

Hegseth said the 60-day deployment of troops is needed “because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops are prohibited from policing U.S. citizens on American soil. Invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to do that, is incredibly rare, and it’s not clear if Trump plans to do it.

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, told lawmakers at a separate budget hearing Tuesday that the Marines who have arrived in Los Angeles have not yet been called on to respond. He said they have no arrest authority and are there only to protect federal property and federal personnel.

When asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, whether a possible use of lethal force by the Marines could result in injuries and deaths, Smith said, “I have great faith in my Marines and their junior leaders and their more senior leaders to execute the lawful tasks that they are given.”

Pentagon learns from Ukraine but will cut funding

Committee members pressed Hegseth on Ukraine’s surprise drone attack in early June that destroyed a large number of Russian bomber aircraft. And they questioned the administration’s future funding for Kyiv.

Hegseth said the strikes caught the U.S. off guard and represented significant advances in drone warfare. The attack has the Pentagon rethinking drone defenses “so we are not vulnerable to a threat and an attack like that,” he said, adding that the department is learning from Ukraine and is focused on how to better defend its own military airfields.

He acknowledged, however, that funding for Ukraine military assistance, which has been robust for the past two years, will be reduced in the upcoming defense budget. That cut means that Kyiv will receive fewer of the weapons systems that have been key to countering Russia’s onslaught.

“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” he said. “We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests.”

The U.S. to date has provided Ukraine more than $66 billion in military aid since Russia invaded in February 2022.

What Hegseth has focused on so far

The panel zeroed in on funding issues, with only a few mentions of other entanglements that have marked Hegseth’s early months. They touched only briefly on his moves to fire key military leaders and purge diversity programs. And there was no discussion of his use of the Signal messaging app to discuss operational details of strikes in Yemen.

Hegseth has spent vast amounts of time during his first five months in office promoting the social changes he’s making at the Pentagon. He’s been far less visible in the administration’s more critical international security crises and negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Iran.

Hegseth has posted numerous videos of his morning workouts with troops or of himself signing directives to purge diversity and equity programs and online content from the military. He has boasted of removing transgender service members from the force and firing so-called woke generals, many of whom were women.

He was on the international stage about a week ago, addressing an annual national security conference in Asia about threats from China. But a trip to NATO headquarters last week was quick and quiet, and he deliberately skipped a gathering of about 50 allies and partners where they discussed support for Ukraine.

Baldor and Copp write for the Associated Press. Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., contributed reporting.

American history has the receipts. As we approach the 250th anniversary of this nation’s birth, it ought to be common knowledge that putting the National Guard into the center of turmoil is not to be taken at all lightly. Federalizing the California Guard to quell a supposed insurrection on the streets of greater Los Angeles is a bold move of presidential showmanship and look-tough opportunism. It is also risky on many fronts.

We have been here before, and we would be wise to heed history’s caution. In the spring of 1894, a nationwide railroad strike, spreading out from the outskirts of Chicago, paralyzed freight and passenger rail traffic up and down California. Strikers took to the streets, occupied railroad depots, often with their families, waved signs, and erected tents and hastily constructed shanties. In Oakland, strikers who had “killed” a locomotive covered it in black crepe.

Political leaders and railroad officials insisted that the strikers were insurrectionists ripping at the fabric of the republic. But the public did not necessarily see things the same way. Strikers who were hunkered down in Northern California depots took in provisions from farmers loyal to their cause. A U.S. marshal sent to Sacramento to clear them out and get the trains moving was beaten up and insisted later that the local police force was sympathetic to the strikers.

Judging the Sacramento situation as an insurrection, Gov. H.H. Markham of Pasadena called up the National Guard, which mustered first in San Francisco on July 3. Some elderly Civil War veterans volunteered for duty but were politely turned away. Instead, young California guardsmen, each given 20 rounds of ammunition, marched to the Bay amid a jeering crowd, took a ferry to Oakland and tried to get to Sacramento by train.

But all train service had been interrupted by the strike, and skilled rail operators did not want to cross the picket lines. After nine hours, the exhausted guardsmen arrived in Sacramento early on the morning of July 4 — having taken a train through a circuitous route to avoid trouble. They marched to the city armory, then on to the occupied depot, where they were met by Sacramento members of the National Guard who were already deployed. Guardsmen — about 1,000 weekend warriors — stood in the hot sun, rifles at the ready alongside the Gatling gun they brought, facing the railroad strikers camped out in the depot with their wives and children. One Guardsman’s gun went off accidentally, killing a bystander. Officers ordered their men to fix their bayonets and, if ordered to shoot, to “aim to kill.”

One Sacramento unit reported that its men would not fire on their friends and relatives. Other Guardsmen wore their sympathies on their sleeves and lapels: pro-striker buttons. The strikers and their families began to mingle with the phalanx of guardsmen. “Frank, if you kill me you make your sister a widow,” one striker informed her brother-in-law in the Guard. Some guardsmen removed the ammunition from their weapons; others lowered them and just wandered away — toward the lemonade and ice that the protesters themselves provided. The strikers stayed in the depot for weeks. The whole thing was a chaotic farce.

Matters were hardly any less tense in Southern California. People lined the streets of downtown Los Angeles, chanting and cheering for the strikers, many of whom wore American flag lapels. Photographs of goings on in Sacramento and the Bay Area got passed from one Angeleno to another in the crowd. Guardsmen in L.A. expressed the same kind of trepidation about bringing militarized force to bear on the strikers. “If we had to fight Indians or some common enemy,” one guardsman offered in a revelatory admission, “we might have some fun and excitement. But this idea of shooting down American citizens simply because they are on strike for what they consider their rights is a horse of another color. All of the boys are against it from first to last, and many are in sympathy with the strikers.”

In hindsight, the federal and state response to the rail strike of 1894 appears to have lacked some consideration of unintended consequences. Calling in the Guard only created chaos, emboldened the strikers and, for a time at least, sustained much of the public’s support. The federal government, with some seeing 1894 as “the greatest crisis in our history,” allied with the rail corporations in a set of legal maneuverings that led to the deployment of federal troops across the country. As the strike dissipated, each side tried to take the high ground of intention and behavior: The crisis was lawlessness or it was unwarranted government overreach.

Though it is too soon to know how things will play out here in L.A. this time, nothing looks good from the rough scenes in downtown and the adjacent freeway exits and entrances.

Mark Twain said that “history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” Here we have that rhyme written in the latest Los Angeles verse of our tense world. The administration’s move to federalize the Guard in the name of quelling a domestic insurrection has poured more gasoline onto the tinder of our times here in the Southland.

Deverell is a professor of history at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.

The crowd near Los Angeles City Hall had by Sunday evening reached an uneasy detente with a line of grim-faced police officers.

The LAPD officers gripped “less lethal” riot guns, which fire foam rounds that leave red welts and ugly bruises on anyone they hit. Demonstrators massed in downtown Los Angeles for the third straight day. Some were there to protest federal immigration sweeps across the county — others appeared set on wreaking havoc.

Several young men crept through the crowd, hunched over and hiding something in their hands. They reached the front line and hurled eggs at the officers, who fired into the fleeing crowd with riot guns.

LAPD officers stage on Los Angeles Street.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Jonas March, who was filming the protests as an independent journalist, dropped to the floor and tried to army-crawl away.

“As soon as I stood up, they shot me in the a—,” the 21-year-old said.

Violence and widespread property damage at protests in downtown L.A. have diverted public attention away from the focus of the demonstrations — large-scale immigration sweeps in such predominantly Latino cities as Paramount, Huntington Park and Whittier.

Instead, the unrest has trained attention on a narrow slice of the region — the civic core of Los Angeles — where protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.

A person lobs a large rock at CHP officers stationed on the 101 Freeway.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The escalating unrest led LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Sunday night to break with Mayor Karen Bass, who has condemned President Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to the city.

“Do we need them? Well, looking at tonight, this thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference. The chief said he wanted to know more about how the National Guard could help his officers before he decided whether their presence was necessary.

McDonnell drew a distinction between protesters and masked “anarchists” who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.

CHP officers on the 101 Freeway.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“When I look at the people who are out there doing the violence, that’s not the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” McDonnell said. “These are people who are all hooded up — they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on.”

“They’re people that do this all the time,” he said. “They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics frequently. And they are connected.”

McDonnell said some agitators broke up cinder blocks with hammers to create projectiles to hurl at police, and others lobbed “commercial-grade fireworks” at officers.

“That can kill you,” he said.

The LAPD arrested 50 people over the weekend. Capt. Raul Jovel, who oversaw the department’s response to the protests, said those arrested included a man accused of ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers and another suspect who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail.

California National Guard troops watch as protesters clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said investigators will scour video from police body cameras and footage posted on social media to identify more suspects.

“The number of arrests we made will pale in comparison to the number of arrests that will be made,” McDonnell said.

Representatives of the Los Angeles city attorney and Los Angeles County district attorney’s office could not immediately say whether any cases were being reviewed for prosecution. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said those who “hurl cinder blocks, light vehicles on fire, destroy property and assault law enforcement officers” will be charged.

On Sunday, the LAPD responded to a chaotic scene that began when protesters squared off with National Guard troops and Department of Homeland Security officers outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Around 1 p.m., a phalanx of National Guard troops charged into the crowd, yelling “push” as they rammed people with riot shields. The troops and federal officers used pepper balls, tear gas canisters, flash-bangs and smoke grenades to break up the crowd.

No one in the crowd had been violent toward the federal deployment up to that point. The purpose of the surge appeared to be to clear space for a convoy of approaching federal vehicles.

Department of Homeland Security police officers had asked protesters to keep vehicle paths clear earlier in the morning, but their commands over a loudspeaker were often drowned out by protesters’ chants. They offered no warning before charging the crowd.

California National Guard troops stand guard at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Some in the crowd lobbed bottles and fireworks at the LAPD. Two people rode motorcycles to the front of the crowd, revving their engines and drawing cheers from bystanders. Police accused them of ramming the skirmish line, and the motorcycles could be seen fallen over on their sides afterward. The drivers were led away by police, their feet dragging across asphalt lined with shattered glass and spent rubber bullets.

On the other side of the 101, vandals set fire to a row of Waymos. Acrid smoke billowed from the autonomous taxis as people smashed their windows with skateboards. Others posed for photographs standing on the roofs of the burning white SUVs.

After California Highway Patrol officers pushed protesters off the 101 Freeway, people wearing masks flung chunks of concrete — and even a few electric scooters — at the officers, who sheltered under an overpass. A piece of concrete struck a CHP car, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Los Angeles Police Department officers shoot tear gas as they advance on demonstrators who formed a makeshift barricade.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Closer to City Hall, the LAPD pushed demonstrators toward Gloria Molina Grand Park, where some in the crowd wrenched pink park benches from their concrete mounts and piled them into a makeshift barricade in the middle of Spring Street.

The crowd, which included a Catholic priest wearing his robes and a woman with a feathered Aztec headdress, milled behind the barricades until LAPD officers on horseback pushed them back, swinging long wooden batons at several people who refused to retreat. Video footage circulating online showed one woman being trampled.

The crowd moved south into the Broadway corridor, where the LAPD said businesses reported being looted around 11 p.m. Footage filmed by an ABC-7 helicopter showed people wearing masks and hooded sweatshirts breaking into a shoe store.

McDonnell said the scenes of lawlessness disgusted him and “every good person in this city.”

Before any chaos erupted on Sunday, Julie Solis walked along Alameda Street holding a California flag, warning protesters not to engage in the kind of behavior that followed later in the day.

Solis, 50, said she believed the National Guard was deployed solely to provoke a response that would justify further aggression from federal law enforcement.

“They want arrests. They want to see us fail,” she said. “We need to be peaceful. We need to be eloquent.”

A phalanx of police officers on horseback surround a person who has been knocked to the ground and repeatedly pummeled with batons.

An Australian TV news reporter winces in pain as she’s shot by a rubber bullet while wrapping up a live broadcast.

A crowd milling above the 101 Freeway lobs rocks and chunks of concrete down on California Highway Patrol officers detaining protesters, prompting a volley of flash-bang grenades.

Those incidents and others captured on video have gone viral in recent days as immigration protests reached a boiling point in Los Angeles.

Leaders at the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have long maintained that they have no role in civil immigration enforcement. And yet the region’s two largest police agencies are suddenly on the front lines of the Trump administration’s crackdown, clashing in the street with demonstrators — most peaceful and some seemingly intent on causing mayhem.

Waymo taxis burn on Los Angeles Street as thousands protest ICE immigration raids throughout the city.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell condemned the actions of those carrying out the “disgusting” violence.

“This thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference Sunday when asked whether he supported President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops. After news broke Monday that the president was sending hundreds of Marines to the city, McDonnell said that without “clear coordination,” adding more soldiers to the mix creates “a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.”

Sheriff Robert Luna told The Times that deputies are prepared to support federal agents in certain circumstances — even as the department maintains its official policy of not assisting with immigration operations.

“They start getting attacked and they call and ask us for help, we’re going to respond,” Luna said.

Both publicly and behind the scenes, the situation has led to tensions with Los Angeles officials who have questioned whether local law enforcement is crossing the line with aggressive crowd control tactics — or being put in a lose-lose situation by Trump, who has cast blame on the LAPD chief and others for not doing enough.

“The federal government has put everybody in the city, and law enforcement in particular, in a really messed up situation,” said City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. “They started a riot, and then they said, ‘Well, you can’t handle the riot, so we’re sending in the military.’”

Los Angeles police officers push back protesters near a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The LAPD said in a statement that officers made a combined 50 arrests on Saturday and Sunday, mostly for failure to obey a dispersal order. They also arrested a man who allegedly rammed a motorcycle into a skirmish line of officers, and another for attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail.

Five officers were injured while policing the protests, the department said, while five police horses also suffered minor injuries. The department said officers fired more than 600 so-called less lethal rounds to quell hostile crowds.

Although the LAPD has changed the way it handles protests in recent years — moving away from some of the heavy-handed tactics that drew widespread criticism in the past — the city still pays out millions for crowd control-related lawsuits every year.

As of Monday, Internal Affairs had opened investigations into seven complaints of officer misconduct, including the shooting of the Australian TV news reporter, said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Additionally, he said, the department’s Force Investigations Division, which reviews all serious uses of force, was investigating two incidents “because of possible significant injury,” including one incident in which a protester was struck in the head with a rubber bullet.

“We’re continuing to review video and monitor the situation,” he said.

The high-profile incidents caught on video — combined with mixed messaging by L.A. officials — have created opportunities for the White House to control the narrative.

On Saturday, Mayor Karen Bass told reporters that the protests were under control, while the LAPD chief publicly lamented that his department was overwhelmed by the outbursts of violence. Trump seized on those comments, writing in a post on Truth Social that the situation in Los Angeles was “looking really bad.”

“Jim McDonnell, the highly respected LAPD Chief, just stated that the protesters are getting very much more aggressive, and that he would ‘have to reassess the situation,’ as it pertains to bringing in the troops,” Trump wrote on the right-wing social media platform shortly after midnight on Monday. “He should, RIGHT NOW!!! Don’t let these thugs get away with this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Protesters clash with police downtown near the VA Outpatient Clinic on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

On the streets over the weekend, local cops often found themselves playing defense while confronting unruly crowds.

Cmdr. Oscar Barragan in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Operations Division described the scene Sunday when his unit responded to a protest near a Home Depot in Panorama. While rumors of a raid targeting migrant workers at the store spread on social media, Barragan said the real issue was a federal immigration office nearby that was being used as a staging area.

“Social media took over and a false narrative started growing and it just grew out of control,” he said.

Barragan said there were “people launching mortars at us and rocks and things” as the scrum moved west toward the 710 Freeway and the Compton border. He said some people put nails and cinder blocks in the street trying to block the police response.

“It got pretty hairy,” Barragan said. “They just kept launching every type of firework you can imagine and it was consistent.”

He said local law enforcement tolerates protests — but has to step up to restore order when things start to get out of hand.

“The sheriff has made it clear that we allow the peaceful protests to occur, but once violence occurs we’re not gonna tolerate it,” he said.

On Sunday outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, a group of roughly 100 protesters spent hours chiding California National Guard members and Department of Homeland Security officers near the entrance to the immigration jail, calling them “Nazis” and urging them to defy orders and defend the public instead of a building.

At one point, a Homeland Security officer approached one of the more vocal demonstrators and said he “didn’t want a repeat” of Saturday’s violence, urging protesters to stay off federal property and clear a path for any vehicles that needed to enter. But around 1 p.m. on Sunday, guardsmen with riot shields moved to the front of the law enforcement phalanx on Alameda and charged into the protest crowd, screaming “push” as they rammed into people. They launched tear gas canisters and smoke grenades into the street, leaving a toxic cloud in the air.

A protester is hurt near the 101 Freeway in clashes with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

It left an enraged crowd of protesters, who had otherwise been peaceful all morning, for the LAPD to contend with.

After National Guard troops and Homeland Security officers retreated to the loading dock, LAPD officers found themselves in an hours-long back and forth with protesters on Alameda. Officers used batons, less lethal launchers and tear gas to slowly force the crowd of hundreds back toward Temple Street, with limited success.

The LAPD repeatedly issued dispersal orders from a helicopter and a patrol car loudspeaker. Some members of the crowd hurled water bottles and glass bottles at officers, and the windshield of a department vehicle shattered after it was struck by a projectile.

One officer grabbed a sign from a protester who was standing near a skirmish line, broke it in half and then swung a baton into the demonstrator’s legs. Another officer was seen by a Times reporter repeatedly raising his launcher and aiming at the heads of demonstrators.

In one particularly wild moment, two people riding motorcycles inched their way to the front of the protest crowd, revving their engines and drawing cheers. At some point, they got close to the LAPD’s skirmish line and skidded out.

Both were handcuffed and led away, their feet dragging across asphalt covered in shattered glass and spent rubber bullets. LAPD later alleged at least one of the motorcyclists rammed officers.

The tensions spilled into Monday.

City workers repair broken windows on Spring Street at Police Headquarters.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

At police headquarters, where city workers were spotted boarding up the ground-level windows, a row of officers in riot gear began assembling outside. With some government offices urging their employees to work from home, the surrounding streets were emptier than usual. Those who came downtown kept their heads down as they hustled past the now-ubiquitous “F— ICE” graffiti.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday afternoon that Trump had ordered another 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, doubling the previous total. In response, the governor said, he had worked with other law enforcement agencies on a “surge” of an additional 800 state and local law enforcement officers “to ensure the safety of our LA communities.”

McDonnell said at a news conference that the department was seeking to strike a balance between “dealing with civil unrest on the streets, [while] at the same time trying to protect peaceful protests.”

Some community leaders were left deeply unsatisfied with the police response.

Eddie Anderson, a pastor at McCarty Memorial Christian Church in Jefferson Park, argued that the LAPD was effectively doing the work of protecting Trump’s immigration agents.

“We asked them to pick a side: Are they going to pick the side of the federal government, which is trying to rip apart families?” Anderson said. “Donald Trump would like nothing more than for Angelenos to resort to violence to try to fight the federal government, because his whole scheme is to try to show L.A. is a lawless place.”

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.

MIAMI — President Trump’s new ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens from 12 mainly African and Middle Eastern countries took effect Monday amid rising tension over the president’s escalating campaign of immigration enforcement.

The new proclamation, which Trump signed last week, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don’t hold a valid visa.

The new ban does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list, according to guidance issued Friday to all U.S. diplomatic missions. However, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting Monday. Travelers with previously issued visas should still be able to enter the U.S. even after the ban takes effect.

During Trump’s first term, a hastily written executive order mandating the denial of entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries created chaos at numerous airports and other ports of entry, prompting successful legal challenges and major revisions to the policy.

In the hours after the new ban took effect, no disruptions were immediately discernible at Los Angeles International Airport. And passengers appeared to move steadily through an international arrival area at Miami International Airport, where green card holder Luis Hernandez returned to Miami after a weekend visiting family in Cuba.

“They did not ask me anything,” said Hernandez, a Cuban citizen who has lived in the U.S. for three years. “I only showed my residency card.”

Magda Moreno and her husband also said things seemed normal when they arrived Monday in Miami after a trip to Cuba to see relatives. Asked about the travel restrictions for Cubans, Moreno, a U.S. citizen, said: “It is difficult not being able to bring the family and for them not being able to enter into the U.S.”

Many immigration experts say the new ban is more carefully crafted and appears designed to beat court challenges that hampered the first by focusing on the visa application process.

Trump said this time that some countries had “deficient” screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. He relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the U.S. after their visas expired.

Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump’s proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries.

Trump also tied the new ban to a terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. U.S. officials say the man charged in the attack overstayed a tourist visa. He is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump’s restricted list.

The ban was quickly denounced by groups that provide aid and resettlement help to refugees.

“This policy is not about national security — it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,” said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organization.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council said in a social media post Monday that the ban “is likely to indiscriminately affect all Haitians.” Acknowledging “fierce fighting” against gangs controlling most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, the council said it is strengthening Haiti’s borders and would negotiate with the U.S. to drop Haiti from the list of banned countries.

Gang violence has prevented many Haitians from risking a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Sheena Jean-Pierre, a 27-year-old civil engineer, went recently to see whether long lines had formed because of the ban. She had previously requested a visa three times to study in the U.S. but was rejected.

Jean-Pierre is now looking to continue her studies in other countries such as Brazil and Argentina. She said she doesn’t oppose the travel ban, saying the U.S. “has law and order,” unlike Haiti.

The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban does make exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas, generally people who worked most closely with the U.S. government during the two-decade-long war there.

Afghanistan had been one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement his first day in office.

Solomon writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.

California officials on Monday filed a federal lawsuit over the mobilization of the state’s National Guard during the weekend’s immigration protests in Los Angeles, accusing President Trump of overstepping his federal authority and violating the U.S. Constitution.

As thousands of people gathered in the streets to protest raids and arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that state officials could handle the situation and that Trump was sowing chaos in the streets for political purposes.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the decision by Trump and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which spells out the limits of federal power. Bonta said the state will seek a restraining order for the “unlawful, unprecedented” deployment of the National Guard, and argues in the 22-page lawsuit that an impending deployment of U.S. Marines was “similarly unlawful.”

“Trump and Hegseth ignored law enforcement’s expertise and guidance and trampled over our state’s, California’s, sovereignty,” Bonta said at a news conference.

Experts and state officials say Trump’s actions and the subsequent lawsuit have thrust the U.S. into uncharted legal territory. Bonta said there have not been many court rulings on the questions at play because the statute Trump cited “has been rarely used, for good reason.”

“It is very unusual and unnecessary, and out of keeping with our constitutional tradition, that they are there without the consent of the governor, in a situation where the governor says that state authorities have the situation under control,” said Laura A. Dickinson, a professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Whether Trump’s action was illegal, Dickinson said, “is really untested.”

Trump and the White House say the military mobilization is legal under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Forces. The statute gives the president the authority to federalize the National Guard if there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” but says the Guard must be called up through an order from the state’s governor.

Because founders distrusted military rule, the Constitution allows the president to deploy the military for civil law enforcement only in “dire, narrow circumstances,” Bonta’s complaint argues. But, the lawsuit says, the Trump administration appears to be using the statute “as a mechanism to evade these time-honored constitutional limits.”

Trump has said that the mobilization was necessary to “deal with the violent, instigated riots,” and that without the National Guard, “Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”

Days of protests after the ICE raids included some violent clashes involving protesters, local police and federal officials and some vandalism and burglaries. Local officials have decried those actions but have defended the right of Angelenos to peacefully demonstrate.

“It was heading in the wrong direction,” Trump said at the White House. “It’s now heading in the right direction. And we hope to have the support of Gavin, because Gavin is the big beneficiary as we straighten out his problems. I mean, his state is a mess.”

The part of the law that “the Trump administration is going to have difficulty explaining away” requires that orders to call up the National Guard “be issued through the governors, which is obviously not happening here,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

Less black and white, she said, is what happens “if the president tries to exercise the authority provided by that law to federalize the National Guard and the governor refuses to issue the orders.”

As the governor, Newsom is the commander in chief of the California National Guard. On Saturday night, Hegseth sent a memo to the head of the California Guard to mobilize nearly 2,000 members. The leader of the state National Guard then sent the memo to Newsom’s office, the complaint says. Neither Newsom nor his office consented to the mobilization, the lawsuit says.

Newsom wrote to Hegseth on Sunday, asking him to rescind the troop deployment. The letter said the mobilization was “a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation, while simultaneously depriving the state from deploying these personnel and resources where they are truly required.”

Hegseth issued another memo Monday night deploying another 2,000 members of the National Guard, the lawsuit says.

Newsom has warned that the executive order that Trump signed applies to other states as well as to California, which will “allow him to go into any state and do the same thing.”

Legal experts said the statute that the White House used to justify the National Guard mobilization is usually invoked in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807, a wide-reaching law that gives presidents the emergency power to call up the military in the United States if they believe the situation warrants it.

Goitein said presidents generally invoke the Insurrection Act, then use the statute that Trump cited as the “call-up authority” to actually mobilize the military. How the law stands on its own, she said, “is one of the legal questions that have not come up before in the courts.”

The Insurrection Act has been invoked 30 times in the history of the country, and Trump has not invoked it in Los Angeles. It was last invoked in 1992, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to federalize the National Guard in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

The last time a president sent the National Guard into a state without a request from the governor was six decades ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson mobilized troops in Alabama to defend civil rights demonstrators and enforce a federal court order in 1965.

Bonta’s office said the specific statute that Trump is using has been invoked only once before, when President Nixon mobilized the National Guard to deliver the mail during a U.S. Postal Service strike in 1970.

The argument that Trump has violated the 10th Amendment is a clever subversion of a line of thinking that has traditionally been backed by conservative judges, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The 10th Amendment says that the federal government has only the powers specifically assigned by the Constitution, and other powers are controlled by the states.

“Deploying over 4,000 federalized military forces to quell a protest or prevent future protests despite the lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety during such protests represents the exact type of intrusion on state power that is at the heart of the 10th Amendment,” state lawyers argue in the lawsuit.

“The state has a strong argument that … by nationalizing the state guard, that Trump is commandeering the state,” Chemerinsky said.

He said the Supreme Court has ruled on the 10th Amendment only a handful of times in recent decades, including saying that Congress couldn’t require states to accept federal mandates related to sports betting, background checks for guns and radioactive waste disposal.

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

Well, what did you expect?

When la migra raids workplaces and tries to enter schools and is vowing to do even more, L.A. ain’t going to roll out the red carpet and throw roses at them.

When Donald Trump calls up 2,000 National Guardsmen to clear the way for his immigration goons, over the strenuous objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, this city is going to push back even harder.

When Trump takes to social media to claim that “once great” Los Angeles “has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals” and that his administration will stop at nothing “to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion,” we’re going to do something about it.

But this?

Throwing cinder blocks and e-scooters at California Highway Patrol cars from a 101 Freeway overpass? Ripping out the pink tables and benches from Gloria Molina Grand Park to create a makeshift barricade on Spring Street near City Hall? Tagging small businesses, vandalizing the old Los Angeles Times headquarters, skidding a car around the bandstand at La Placita Olvera?

That’s supposed to keep immigrant families safe and defeat Trump?

This is what many people are muttering to themselves after a weekend of protests that ended with chaos in downtown Sunday night. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell called the damage “disgusting.” Bass posted on social media that “destruction and vandalism will not be tolerated in our City and those responsible will be held fully accountable.” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla told KTLA 5 News that it was “counterproductive.” In a statement, Eastside Assemblymember Mark González decried “agitators [whose] actions are reckless, dangerous and playing into exactly what Trump wants.”

Uprisings have a time and place, but not when they’re a trap you willingly run into. That’s what L.A. is dealing with now, and for weeks, if not months — years! — to come.

Trump called in the National Guard to set in motion his dream of crushing the city and using us as an example for other sanctuary jurisdictions of what happens if they dare defy him. L.A. is everything he loathes: diverse, immigrant-friendly, progressive and deeply opposed to him and his xenophobic agenda. He called in the Guard, even though the skirmishes between protesters and law enforcement that happened Friday in the Garment District and Saturday in Paramount were about as rowdy as when the Dodgers lose in the National League championship series.

The president knew the deployment would be incendiary, and that was the point: Goad L.A. into setting itself on fire.

A demonstrator waves a Mexican flag in front of a dumpster fire Sunday after another night of unrest during a protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

The National Guard has largely stood by as police officers and sheriff’s deputies beat back unruly crowds who see them as an invading force, even though McDonnell and Sheriff Robert Luna have repeatedly stated that their agencies don’t enforce immigration laws. The clashes led to visuals — protesters flying the flags of Mexico and other Latin American countries as a counterpoint to the Trump administration’s white supremacy, cars in flames, graffiti — that went worldwide and cast the City of Angels as a City in Hell.

Now, Trump is pouncing on L.A. like a cat on a mouse.

Now, Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth has taken a break from his plan to scrub the names of civil rights heroes from naval ships — instead, he’s threatening to send Marines to L.A.

Now, Trump is roaring on social media — “Paid insurrectionists” and “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” — like the mad king he is. Now, law enforcement from across Southern California are descending on L.A. to keep the peace.

This is what Los Angeles deserves?

At moments like these, I remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous maxim that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” even as he described riots in the same 1967 speech as “socially destructive and self-defeating.” Most who took to the streets last weekend are righteously angry at what Trump has done, and plans to do, to L.A. But their fury was too easily co-opted by the few who want to wantonly destroy and used the cover of protest to do so.

L.A. is famously a city that turns on itself when people have had enough, from the Zoot Suit riots to the George Floyd protests, the Watts rebellion of 1965 and the L.A. uprising of 1992.

“We might fight amongst each other/But I promise you this: we’ll burn this bitch down, get us pissed,” Tupac Shakur famously sang in “To Live and Die in L.A.”

It’s a tendency I can’t fully embrace or condemn — because I get both sides. But we can always do better — and we usually do. L.A. is also the city of the 2006 Day Without Immigrants, where hundreds of thousands peacefully marched through the same downtown streets now in shambles. Where students organize walkouts and sit-ins to fight for a better education. Where working class folks stage electoral upsets against the powers that be.

Revolts in L.A. don’t always need literal flames — because the ones that burn brightest and longest are moral and philosophical.

Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway on Sunday as they clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles over the immigration raids in L.A.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

So I challenge all the folks simmering with rage against Trump’s war against L.A. and itching to do something about it — and that should be every Angeleno right now — to rebel smarter.

It’s easy to chuck rocks at a cop car. How about becoming a political prisoner a la SEIU California President David Huerta, who was arrested Friday for allegedly blocking a law enforcement van from executing a search warrant?

Setting fires to garbage cans in the middle of a street is old hat — how about providing shelter to undocumented families living with the terrifying reality that their time in this country might soon be up? Fanning out across downtown with no real destination is an L.A. tradition — what about joining the many immigrant rights groups who have set up rapid response networks to show up where la migra does?

The feds don’t play — but neither does L.A. Let’s show the world what we do at our best.

NEW YORK — Imagine this: You’re home for the evening, winding down. There’s a knock at the door.

Who’s there? It’s Anthony Weiner. And he wants your vote.

Yes, that Weiner: The guy whose once-promising political career was derailed by sexting scandals and then seemingly ended forever when he was imprisoned for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl.

But now Weiner’s hoping to convince enough voters in Lower Manhattan that he deserves yet another chance in a comeback bid — for a seat on the New York City Council.

On a recent weekday at an apartment complex on the Lower East Side, the former congressman, 60, was knocking on doors, reintroducing himself to voters and reminding them about the election. And, on that Thursday at least, the would-be constituents aren’t slamming their doors in the registered sex offender’s face.

“It’s Anthony Weiner!” the candidate said after knocking on a door.

A man opens the door, his face lighting up with surprise.

“It is Anthony Weiner!” the man said, a big smile spreading across his face.

After some pleasantries and a reminder about the race, the man had an important question for the candidate: “Mind if I get a picture with you?”

And so it went as Weiner walked down floor after floor, knocking on doors. A quick hello here, a fast thank you there. Campaign literature flowed into hands. People seemed happy to see him.

It isn’t always this friendly. Weiner said he still struggles with how to speak about his scandal, calling it the “fundamental, unsolvable problem of the campaign.”

“Sometimes it’s with like real painful, kind of, honesty about what happened and sometimes it’s a little bit defensive, and sometimes, like, a woman at this street fair last week, she’s like, ‘I love you and I’m going to vote for you, but I voted for you before and how can I ever trust you?’” he said.

But, he notes, some people would rather talk about anything else.

“They’re like, ‘I don’t want to hear about that. I want to hear about me and I want to hear about how come there aren’t cops on the street and I want to hear about why my taxes are so high,’” he said.

From Congress to prison

Weiner, a brash and ambitious politician whose New York accent and wily, kinetic style made for solid theater on the House floor, was once someone worth watching in the Democratic Party. Back then, he represented a district in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

His latest return to the political stage — this time for a City Council seat that covers Union Square and the East Village — pits him against state lawmaker Harvey Epstein, whose name’s unfortunate proximity to convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein inspired a “Saturday Night Live” bit, along with a handful of other low-key candidates.

The primary, on June 24, is considered the defining contest of the election, given the district’s heavy Democratic bent. It’s hard to know how it’ll turn out in a low-turnout, early-summer primary where there’s no deep political polling.

The comeback attempt comes more than a decade after his career imploded for sending a lewd picture of himself to a college student over Twitter in 2011.

He first tried to claim his account was hacked but eventually admitted to having inappropriate online interactions with at least six other women and resigned from Congress after serving there for more than a decade.

After leaving Washington, Weiner mounted a campaign for New York City mayor but was again undone after it was disclosed that he sent explicit photos under the alias “Carlos Danger” to at least one woman after leaving the House. The revelation tanked his mayoral bid.

Along the way, his marriage collapsed.

In 2017, his scandal entered the criminal realm after prosecutors said he had illicit online contact with a high school student. During the proceedings, his lawyer said Weiner probably exchanged thousands of messages with hundreds of women over the years and had been communicating with up to 19 women when he encountered the student.

He eventually pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. He was required to register as a sex offender after his release in 2019.

Since then, he’s worked as the chief executive of a countertop company in Brooklyn and hosted a radio show where he would muse about politics, eventually finding himself ginning up his own ideas and wondering: Why not get back in the game? He opened a campaign account and donations started flowing in. He’d go out on the street and people wanted to sign his petitions.

“I knew I had things I wanted to say and I knew that I thought it was important that everyone try to do something at this point,” he said.

The elephant in the room

Still, his scandals are so much an elephant in the room that his campaign recently started circulating a mailer that, on one side, features a massive elephant alongside the text “Anthony Weiner knows you may have questions.” On the other side, a note from Weiner reads: “Since I am asking you for your vote again, I want to address the elephant in the room.”

It goes on: “I accepted responsibility, I did my time (literally) and paid my debt to society in full.”

A man who answered one of Weiner’s door knocks told the candidate that he saw the mailer and said it was a smart move to address the scandals head-on.

The two then dived into political issues, chatting about crime, the subway and homeless people. As the conversation was coming in for a landing, the man told Weiner that showing up at his door to speak with him showed that he cared. He declined to give his name to an Associated Press reporter who approached him after Weiner had said goodbye and taken off down a flight of stairs.

After a few more meet-and-greets, Weiner wrapped up for the day. He left the complex, hopped on a bicycle and zipped off down the street.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.

The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.

Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.

The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.

They have not spoken since, a White House official said.

Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.

The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.

‘Subjecting himself to arrest’

Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.

“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”

“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”

The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.

“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.

“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”

A backfiring effort at deterrence

Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”

“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”

The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.

The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”

Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.

“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

‘All options on the table’

Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.

But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.

“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”

The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”

“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”

Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.

I was driving while listening to the news Sunday when I heard House Speaker Mike Johnson justify President Trump’s move to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

“We have to maintain the rule of law,” Johnson said.

I almost swerved off the road.

Maintain the rule of law?

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

Trump pardoned the hooligans who ransacked the Capitol because he lost the 2020 presidential election. They clashed with police, destroyed property and threatened the lives of public officials, and to Trump, they’re heroes.

Maintain the rule of law?

Trump is a 34-count felon who has defied judicial rulings, ignored laws that don’t serve his interests, and turned his current presidency into an unprecedented adventure in self-dealing and graft.

And now he’s sending an invading army to Los Angeles, creating a crisis where there was none. Arresting undocumented immigrants with criminal records is one thing, but is that what this is about? Or is it about putting on a show, occupying commercial and residential neighborhoods and arresting people who are looking for — or on their way to — work.

Protesters and members of the National Guard watched one another in front of the federal building in Los Angeles on Monday.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that U.S. Marines were on high alert and ready to roll, and in the latest of who knows how many escalations, hundreds are headed our way.

What next, the Air Force?

I’m not going to defend the vandalism and violence — which plays into Trump’s hands—that followed ICE arrests in Los Angeles. I can see him sitting in front of the tube, letting out a cheer every time another “migrant criminal” flings a rock or a scooter at a patrol car.

But I am going to defend Los Angeles and the way things work here.

For starters, undocumented immigration is not the threat to public safety or the economy that Trump like to bloviate about.

It’s just that he knows he can score points on border bluster and on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), so he’s going full gasbag on both, and now he’s threatening to lock up Gov. Gavin Newsom.

To hear the rhetoric, you’d think every other undocumented immigrant is a gang member and that trans athletes will soon dominate youth sports if someone doesn’t stand up to them.

I can already read the mail that hasn’t yet arrived, so let me say in advance that I do indeed understand that breaking immigration law means breaking the law, and I believe that President Biden didn’t do enough to control the border, although it was Republicans who killed a border security bill early last year.

I also acknowledge the cost of supporting undocumented immigrants is substantial when you factor in public education and, in California, medical care, which is running billions of dollars beyond original estimates.

But the economic contributions of immigrants — regardless of legal status — are undeniably numerous, affecting the price we pay for everything from groceries to healthcare to domestic services to construction to landscaping.

Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that a surge in immigrants since 2021 — including refugees, asylum seekers and others, legal and illegal — had lifted the U.S. economy “by filling otherwise vacant jobs,” as The Times reported, and “pumping millions of tax dollars into state, local and federal coffers.”

According to a seminal 2011 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, “many illegal immigrants pay Social Security and other taxes but do not collect benefits, and they are not eligible for many government services.”

In addition, the report said: “Political controversies aside, when illegal immigrants come, many U.S. employers are ready to hire them. The vast majority work. Estimates suggest that at least 75 percent of adult illegal immigrants are in the workforce.”

Trump can rail against the lunatic radical left for the scourge of illegal immigration, but the statement that “employers are ready to hire them” couldn’t be more true. And those employers stand on both sides of the political aisle, as do lawmakers who for decades have allowed the steady flow of workers to industries that would suffer without them.

On Sunday, I had to pick up a couple of items at the Home Depot on San Fernando Road in Glendale, where dozens of day laborers often gather in search of work. But there were only a couple of men out there, given recent headlines.

A shopper in the garden section said the report of federal troops marching on L.A. is “kind of ridiculous, right?” He said the characterization by Trump of “all these terrible people” and “gang members” on the loose was hard to square with the reality of day laborers all but begging for work.

I found one of them in a far corner of the Home Depot lot, behind a fence. He told me he was from Honduras and was afraid to risk arrest by looking for work at a time when battalions of masked troops were on the move, but he’s got a hungry family back home, including three kids. He said he was available for any kind of jobs, including painting, hauling and cleanup.

Two men in a pickup truck told me they were undocumented too and available for construction jobs of any type. They said they were from Puebla, Mexico, but there wasn’t enough work for them there.

I’ve been to Puebla, a city known for its roughly 300 churches. I was passing through about 20 years ago on my way to a small nearby town where almost everyone on the street was female.

Where were the men?

Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

City workers repair broken windows at LAPD headquarters on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

I was told by a city official that the local economy was all about corn, but local growers couldn’t compete with American farmers who had the benefit of federal subsidies. So the men had gone north for work.

Another reason people head north is to escape the violence wrought by cartels armed with American-made weapons, competing to serve the huge American appetite for drugs.

In these ways, and more, the flow of people across borders can be complicated. But generally speaking, it’s simply about survival. People move to escape poverty or danger. They move in search of something better for themselves, or to be more accurate about it, for their children.

The narratives of those journeys are woven into the fabric of Los Angeles. It’s part of what’s messy and splendid and complicated about this blended, imperfect corner of the world, where many of us know students or workers or families with temporary status, or none at all.

That’s why this overheated invasion looks so ugly and feels so personal.

We’re less suspicious of our neighbors and the people we encounter on our daily rounds than the hypocrites who would pardon insurrectionists, sow division and send an occupying army to haul away members of our community.

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Los Angeles school police will set up a safety perimeter around campuses and school events — including graduations — to keep federal immigration agents away from students, employees and families, school officials said Monday.

The announcement by Supt. Alberto Carvalho comes amid widespread immigration raids in Los Angeles — including one on Monday at a Home Depot adjacent to Huntington Park High School — after a weekend of isolated but intense downtown clashes between police and protesters, some of whom set self-driving Waymo cars on fire and threw rocks and fireworks.

The move is among the most notable actions taken by the nation’s second-largest school district, whose leaders said at a news conference Monday that they will deploy their own police force to protect students and their families so they can enjoy in peace the many graduation ceremonies that will unfold this week as the school year concludes Tuesday.

“We stand strongly on the right side of law,” Carvalho said. “Every student in our community, every student across the country, has a constitutional right to a free public education of high quality, without threat. Every one of our students, independently of their immigration status, has a right to a free meal in our schools. Every one of our children, no questions asked, has a right to counseling, social emotional support, mental support.”

President Trump reversed a Biden administration policy that largely exempted schools and other potentially sensitive areas such as churches from immigration enforcement. In recent days, federal agents also have not targeted local schools. But in April federal agents were turned away by staff at two elementary schools.

Carvalho did not rule out the potential for a standoff involving school police if federal officers attempted to enter a school or an off-campus school event — such as a graduation ceremony — without a judicial warrant.

“I think that would be a preposterous condition,” Carvalho said. “But then again, we have seen preposterous actions taken recently by this administration. We are prepared for everything,” Carvalho said, adding that he’s in consultation on contingency plans with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

“I have a professional, moral responsibility to protect our kids, protect our workforce, ensure the sanctity, the protection of our buildings and their extension,” Carvalho said. “That means the school buses, the transportation of kids to school and graduation ceremonies. Nothing should interfere with that, and I will put my job on the line to protect a 5-year-old, an 11-year-old, an 11th grader or a soon-to-be graduate.”

But there are limits. Officials acknowledged that they are not legally allowed to interfere if officers arrive with a judicial warrant, which are relatively rare. All school staff — not just the school police — have received training in how to interact with immigration agents, especially to limit their access to campus and children.

Defenders of Trump’s goals counter that public employees should assist in supporting immigration laws against those who are not legally authorized to live in the United States.

For the school system, the immigration furor put a chill on a normally celebratory time — graduation season. The federal actions prompted a detailed, concerned and sometimes furious response from school district leadership.

“As I looked out at the horizon from my office this morning, I saw gray clouds over Los Angeles,” Carvalho said as he opened his remarks. “Those gray clouds could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I interpreted them as clouds of injustice, clouds of fear, intimidation — clouds that seek to scare the best of us into dark corners.”

About 100 high school graduations and end-of-year culminations were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, with graduation events continuing through June 16.

L.A. school police lack the manpower to encircle every campus and school-event venue, but when officials learn of potential immigration enforcement activity, the plan is to put one patrol car in front of a campus and another in motion around the site.

At graduation ceremonies outdoor lines to enter venues are to be minimized. And families can remain inside for as long as necessary should agents initiate a raid outside or in the neighborhood.

Where possible, a virtual option would be provided for families to watch a graduation ceremony online.

Said Carvalho: “I’ve spoken with parents who’ve told me that their daughter would be the first in their family to graduate high school, and they’re not going to be there to witness it, because they have a fear of the place of graduation being targeted. What nation are we becoming?”

Carvalho said there is confirmation so far of six or seven school district families that have been affected by raids and arrests. In one case, a student was detained with his father and transported from L.A. to Texas. The district has not identified the student or school out of privacy concerns.

A fourth-grader who attends Torrance Elementary — in a neighboring school district — and his 50-year-old father were taken into custody on May 29 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and will soon be deported, a federal official said.

The father and son entered the U.S. illegally in 2021, according to the federal government.

The superintendent also noted talk of student walkouts. He said that students’ right to protest would be respected but he asked families to urge their children to remain on campus for safety reasons.

Carvalho also advised families to update their contact and emergency information with their school. And families also should prepare backup plans should caregivers be taken into custody.

Summer school starts on June 17 and runs through July 16. Carvalho said more campuses would be opened for classes to minimize travel from home to school and more school-funded transportation would be provided.

District leaders have frequently been circumspect in their words about the Trump administration — critical, to be sure, but somewhat careful. But there was little caution Monday.

School board member Nick Melvoin demanded the removal of the National Guard and compared Trump’s heavy-handed response in Los Angeles to his delay in halting rioters who sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021.

Board member Rocio Rivas said there had been raids in the last few days in Boyle Heights, MacArthur Park, Lincoln Heights, Pico Union, Cypress Park, “just to name a few.”

“Our families are now forced to live in fear, looking over their shoulders on the way to school or their child’s graduation. This is just simply wrong. It is also very, very cruel,” Rivas said.

Said board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin: “This isn’t about keeping our community safe. This is about a backwards belief about who belongs and who should be pushed out, locked up and shut up.”

School board President Scott Schmerelson reached for a wider perspective.

“This is supposed to be the happiest time for our kids and their parents, and it’s a very sad time, but we have to remember too our kids have accomplished a lot,” Schmerelson said. “They are graduating and are trying to keep a positive attitude.”

SACRAMENTO — California’s state Democrats are shaking up leadership, with the Senate Democratic Caucus pledging unanimous support to Sen. Monique Limón (D-Goleta), who will take over as Senate president pro tem in early 2026.

Limón, who was elected to the state Senate in 2020, is chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and the Senate banking committee. The 45-year-old Central Coast native served in the Assembly for four years before her Senate campaign and worked in higher education at UC Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara County School Board before entering politics.

She highlighted the importance of the moment, noting that the caucus, amid ICE raids led by the Trump administration targeting minorities in Los Angeles and across the state, elected her — the first woman of color to hold the position.

The uncertain times, she said, were “a reminder of why leadership today, tomorrow and in the future matters, because leadership thinks about and influences the direction in all moments, but, in particular, in these very challenging moments. And for me, it is unbelievably humbling to be here.”

Recently, Limón has been vocal on the Sable Offshore Pipeline project, which aims to repair and reopen a pipeline off the coast of Santa Barbara County that spilled 21,000 gallons of crude oil in 2015. This year she wrote a measure, Senate Bill 542, in response to the project that would require more community input on reopening pipelines and better safety guidelines to find weak points that could lead to another spill.

“No one has fought harder to make college more affordable than Monique Limón,” said current Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who also applauded her work on wildfire recovery. “She is a tireless voice for the Central Coast in rural parts of this great state.”

McGuire took leadership of the Senate in a unanimous vote by Democrats with former speaker and gubernatorial candidate Toni Atkins’ blessing in February. He pledged to protect the state’s progressive ideals ahead of a problematic state budget that continued to bubble over, with the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress supporting cuts in federal aid to the state for heathcare for low-income Californians, education and research and other essential programs.

The Sonoma County Democrat’s takeover was part of a wider change — both legislative houses were led by lawmakers from Northern California this year, leaving Southern California legislators with limited control. Limón’s district covers Santa Barbara County and parts of Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties.

McGuire terms out of office next year and may be planning a run for insurance commissioner in 2026 but wouldn’t confirm his plans despite collecting more than $220,000 in contributions so far this year.

California sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday over its demand last week that local school districts ban transgender youth from competing in sports, arguing the federal agency had overstepped its authority in violation of both state and federal law.

The “pre-enforcement” lawsuit was filed “in anticipation of imminent legal retaliation against California’s school systems” for not complying with the agency’s directive by its Monday deadline, said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office, which is handling the litigation.

“The President and his Administration are demanding that California school districts break the law and violate the Constitution — or face legal retaliation. They’re demanding that our schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights,” Bonta said in a statement. “As we’ve proven time and again in court, just because the President disagrees with a law, that doesn’t make it any less of one.”

The lawsuit comes a week after Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump appointee and head of the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to school districts across California warning them that they faced potential “legal liability” if they did not “certify in writing” by Monday that they will break with California Interscholastic Federation rules and state law to ban transgender athletes from competition in their districts.

Dhillon argued that allowing transgender athletes to compete “would deprive girls of athletic opportunities and benefits based solely on their biological sex,” in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond responded last week by saying in his own letter to schools that Dhillon’s warning carried no legal weight and that school districts were still obligated to follow state law, which requires transgender athletes be allowed to compete on teams based on their gender identity.

The California Department of Education sent a letter to federal authorities Monday, informing them that California’s school districts are under no obligation to provide certifications to the Justice Department.

“There are no changes in law or circumstances that necessitate a new certification,” wrote General Counsel Len Garfinkel. “Moreover, the DOJ letter references no law that would authorize the DOJ to require another ‘certification.’”

“All students — not just transgender students — benefit from inclusive school environments that are free from discrimination and harassment,” Garfinkel added. “When transgender students are treated equally, their mental health outcomes mirror those of their cisgender peers.”

Bonta’s lawsuit asks a federal court in Northern California to uphold the constitutionality of California’s antidiscrimination laws protecting transgender athletes, and to bar the Trump administration from withholding funds or taking other retaliatory actions against school districts that refuse to abide by the Trump directive.

The lawsuit falls along one of the fastest growing legal and political fault lines in America: Does the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment — the Constitution’s oft-cited guarantee against discrimination — protect transgender rights or undermine them?

Dhillon, other members of the Trump administration and anti-transgender activists nationwide have argued that the inclusion of transgender girls in youth sports amounts to illegal discrimination against cisgender girls.

Bonta’s office and other LGBTQ+ advocates argue that the exclusion of transgender girls is what constitutes illegal discrimination — and that courts, including the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs California and much of the American West, have agreed.

While Dhillon “purports that compliance with the Equal Protection Clause requires the categorical exclusion of transgender girls from girls’ sports, as courts have previously upheld, just the opposite is true: the Equal Protection Clause forbids such policies of total exclusion, as does California law,” Bonta’s office said.

State law that allows transgender students to participate in sports consistent with their identity “is squarely within the State’s authority to ensure all students are afforded the benefits of an inclusive school environment, including participation in school sports, and to prevent the serious harms that transgender students would suffer from a discriminatory, exclusionary policy.”

An attorney who supports keeping transgender athletes out of girls sports said the rights of female athletes are paramount in this situation.

Both the U.S. Constitution and federal statute provide protections for female athletes that California is violating by “allowing males into ‘girls only’ categories,” said Julie A. Hamill, principal attorney with California Justice Center, a law firm that has complaints pending with the federal Office for Civil Rights on behalf of young female athletes.

“By continuing to fan flames of division and play politics, leftist politicians and media outlets are causing further harm to American girls,” Hamill said.

Polls have shown that Americans generally support transgender rights, but also that a majority oppose transgender girls competing in youth sports. Many prominent advocates for excluding transgender girls from sports praised Dhillon’s actions last week as a bold move to protect cisgender girls from unfair competition.

Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, has called on California school systems to adopt resolutions in support of the Trump administration order.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Shaw said last week. “Our daughters deserve safe, fair competition … But radical policies are undermining that right, pushing boys into girls’ sports and threatening their opportunities. We’re not backing down.”

Shaw, a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, said other school systems could model these resolutions on one passed by her school district.

A handful of the state’s 1,000 school districts have passed such resolutions.

The lawsuit’s claim that retaliation from the Trump administration could be imminent for schools that do not comply with the administration’s demands is not entirely speculative. It is based at least in part on repeated threats and actions the administration has already taken against states over its trans-inclusive sports policies.

President Trump has said outright that he wants to cut federal funding to California over its laws allowing transgender athletes to compete in youth sports. The federal Justice Department has announced investigations into the state and the California Interscholastic Federation over its inclusive policies for transgender athletes.

U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli in Los Angeles, a longtime ally of Dhillon and whose appointment has yet to be confirmed, recently threw his office’s support behind a private lawsuit challenging the inclusion of a transgender athlete on the track and field team at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside.

Dhillon issued her letter to California school districts after another transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley High School, 16-year-old AB Hernandez, won multiple medals at the state high school track and field championships despite President Trump demanding on social media that she not be allowed to compete.

The letter came despite attempts by the state to appease concerns.

After Trump’s online threats, for example, the CIF updated its rules for transgender competitors. As a result, Hernandez was allowed to compete at the state finals in the girls’ long jump, high jump and triple jump, but her qualifying did not result in the exclusion of any cisgender girl.

In addition, while Hernandez was awarded several medals, those medals were also awarded to cisgender girls who otherwise would have claimed them had Hernandez not been competing — with the girls sharing those spots on the medal podiums.

Supporters of the rule change said it eliminated concerns about cisgender girls losing opportunities to compete and win to transgender girls, but critics said the changes did not go far enough, and that transgender athletes needed to be fully banned from competition.

Dhillon’s letter demanding school districts certify that such bans were being implemented made no mention of the CIF’s rule change.

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement carries out raids across Los Angeles, former daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw and his TV network MeritTV are covering the actions and protests in the city.

McGraw conducted an interview Friday with White House border advisor Tom Homan, who was leading the agency’s raids. A portion of the interview was posted on MeritTV’s website and the network plans to air a conversation between the men that was “taped the day before and the day after the L.A. operation” in two parts beginning Monday at 5 p.m. PT, according to a network spokesperson reached via email. MeritTV, which launched late last year, primarily features McGraw’s show “Dr. Phil Primetime,” where he comments on the news and interviews figures ranging from New York City Mayor Eric Adams to businessman and former L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso.

The TV host has previously embedded with ICE officials during raids, including in Chicago earlier this year, where he and his crew taped arrests. However, that wasn’t the case this time around in L.A., but crews from his network did capture footage from the enforcement action over the weekend.

“MeritTV news crews were on the ground during the recent ICE operation in L.A. on Friday,” a MeritTV spokesperson said. “In order to not escalate any situation, Dr. Phil McGraw did not join and was not embedded, as he previously was in Chicago.”

The interview was taped at the Homeland Security Investigations’ downtown field office. ICE declined to comment on the interview and whether McGraw was given advance notice of the raids.

McGraw was previously the host of his eponymous talk show, which ended in 2023 after 21 seasons. At the time, CBS Media Ventures, which syndicated the talk show, and McGraw said he wanted to expand his audience in a new venture because of “grave concerns for the American family.” During the 2024 election, McGraw spoke at then-presidential candidate Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, though he claimed it wasn’t an endorsement. However, he has been a proponent of the administration’s positions on immigration and he was recently named to the president’s religious liberty commission.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom resisted a fight with President Trump over transgender youth in women’s sports. He forced his way onto a runway tarmac to make peace with the Republican leader after the Los Angeles wildfires.

Just last week, he hesitated before speaking out when rumors swirled about a massive federal funding cut to California.

Newsom’s restraint ended when Trump usurped the governor’s authority over the weekend by deploying the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration raids.

“I’m still willing to do what I can to have the backs of the people I represent and whatever it takes to advance that cause, I’ll do, but I’m not going to do it when we see the trampling of our Constitution and the rule of law,” Newsom said in an interview with The Times. “So we all have our red lines. That’s my red line.”

Newsom said the arrival of troops in the largest city in the Golden State escalated tensions between protesters and law enforcement, which he blamed Trump for intentionally inflaming to sow chaos. Whether Newsom likes it or not, the president’s actions also catapulted the governor to the front lines of a Democratic resistance against Trump that he has been reluctant to embrace after his party lost the presidential election in November.

On Monday, Trump said his border czar Tom Homan should follow through on threats to arrest the governor. The president has cast California as out of control and Newsom incompetent for not stepping in and ending the unrest, or protecting federal immigration agents from protesters.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing. He’s done a terrible job.”

Newsom also baited Homan: “Come and get me, tough guy.”

Newsom’s position as the leader of a state that has become an immigration target for the federal government offers both risks and rewards for a governor considering a 2028 run for the White House.

Democrats and progressives are thirsty for a leader to challenge Trump and his controversial policies. The National Democratic Party quickly took to social media to publicize the governor’s challenge to Homan to arrest him. Being carted away in handcuffs by officials in Trump’s Justice Department would probably elevate Newsom to Democratic martyr status.

President Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One on June 9, 2025. Trump on Monday suggested California Gov. Gavin Newsom should be arrested over his handling of the unrest in Los Angeles.

(Yuri Gripas / Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“In a way, he was channeling Trump, because he knows how much Trump benefited in the Republican Party from his own criminal conviction,” said John Pitney, the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.

Even without an arrest, the political battle is likely to boost Newsom’s standing with Democrats.

But immigration is one of Trump’s best policy issues with voters and it’s not an ideal political fight for any Democrat with presidential aspirations.

“This is the brilliance of Donald Trump,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. “He’s picking these fights over executive power and over the power of federal government on a political terrain in which he’s most popular: immigration, transgender athletes, DEI, ‘woke’ universities. He’s picking these governance fights where he thinks he can win on the politics.”

For Newsom, the raids provide an opportunity to challenge the president’s narrative that his immigration policy is all about removing criminals and protecting the border, Kousser said.

In interviews, Newsom has repeated that the Trump administration is targeting children in elementary school classrooms and law-abiding citizens who have been in California for a decade or more.

He’s also framing Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles as about more than immigration.

“This is something bigger,” Newsom said. “This is certain power and control over every aspect of our lives. This is about wrecking the constitutional order. This is about tearing down the rule of law. This is about, literally, the cornerstone of our founding fathers, and they’re rolling in their graves.”

Trump’s Los Angeles takeover could derail the work the governor has put in to showcase his more moderate policy positions to America.

While judiciously picking and choosing his battles with Trump, Newsom used his podcast this year to air his belief that it’s unfair for transgender athletes to compete in women and girls’ sports. Through interviews with controversial conservative figures such as Stephen K. Bannon, the governor attempted to demonstrate his ability to be cordial with anyone regardless of their political affiliation.

Newsom has been strategic about the attacks he makes against Trump, such as criticizing the tariffs that are a political vulnerability for the president.

“Anybody who wants to lead the Democratic Party needs the support or at least the acquiescence of the progressive wing of the party, but Democrats need to appeal to the broader general public, and so far, this situation is not helping,” Pitney said of the battle over immigration.

The images streaming out of Los Angeles also create an electoral vulnerability for the governor.

“Perchance Newsom were the Democratic nominee in 2028, you would expect to see pictures of burning Waymos on the streets of Los Angeles with the tagline of ‘what Newsom did for California, he’ll do for America,”’ Pitney said.

Kousser contends that Newsom, in a presidential campaign, will be held responsible for all of California’s shortcomings, regardless of whether he stood up to Trump’s immigration raids.

Although the governor is fighting in the courts with a lawsuit announced Monday, by supporting peaceful protests and using his public podium, there’s little he can do to stop the federal government. The situation highlights the challenge for Newsom and any state leader with interest in the White House.

“This is the blessing and the curse of a governor who wants to run for higher office. When something happens in their state, they get the eyes of the nation upon them even if it’s not the political ground on which they’d rather fight,” Kousser said.

When four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush expressed the shock and horror many Americans felt.

“What you saw and what I saw on the TV video was revolting,” Bush said in a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office. “I felt anger. I felt pain. I thought: How can I explain this to my grandchildren?”

Bush spoke after dispatching National Guard troops to Los Angeles following three days of civil unrest sparked by the not-guilty verdicts — some of the worst domestic violence the country had ever seen. He acted at the request of California Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Bush offered no apologies. To the contrary, he said “there can be no excuse … for the murder, arson, theft, and vandalism that have terrorized the law-abiding citizens of Los Angeles.”

At the same time, however, Bush sought to address some of the underlying issues — the racist history of the LAPD, chief among them — that festered for decades before exploding into molten rage. And he promised to use Washington’s power to pursue justice, which eventually led to a federal trial of the officers who battered King.

That is, historically, what presidents have done: Facing volatile circumstances, confronting crises, they summon the powers of their office to explain, to ameliorate, to reassure and above all, to try to calm the situation.

Not Donald Trump.

Anger and aggrievement are the twin engines that power the president’s glowering soul. He used the pretense of some relatively modest, scattered protests to seize control of the National Guard and unilaterally dispatch troops to Los Angeles — launching an assault on the Constitution and the limits of presidential power yet again.

He demonstrated anew his eagerness to divide and conquer and, with swagger, put the bully into bully pulpit.

“He does not see that calming role as being very integral to what he does,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton historian and author of a book on Trump’s first term. “He is definitely willing to provoke conflict and to fuel division rather than to move in the opposite way. … Instead of calming a situation, it’s the opposite. It’s ramping up a situation.”

Before we continue, let’s be clear. As Bush said, there’s no excuse for arson, theft or vandalism.

Violent protest doesn’t bring about justice. It only begets more violence. It justifies crackdowns like the one Trump has so eagerly employed — playing into the president’s hands, as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it.

Moreover, waving the flag of a foreign country isn’t prideful, or politically smart in the least. Rightly or wrongly, it’s inciteful, serving only to distract from and hurt the pro-migrant cause the flag-wavers profess to champion.

And, to be clear, there are some people who use protests like the ones against Trump’s immigration raids as a cover and excuse to pursue an extraneous agenda of violence and anarchy. They’re doing more than just physical damage.

None of which, however, justifies the conduct of a president who, when faced with flames, comes running with gasoline. Instead of a steady hand or the consoler-in-chief, we have a political arsonist residing in the White House.

The fact Trump dispatched troops to tamp down protests in Los Angeles, the biggest blue megalopolis in the nation’s biggest blue state, cannot be ignored.

“The president loves to take symbolic acts,” said George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University, in this instance targeting California and a long-time nemesis, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and using immigration — long an issue at the heart of his political agenda — as his sword and shield.

“Aside from an incidental goal of keeping peace,” Edwars said,. “I think that’s important in his mind.”

You can practically see Trump salivate.

And there is something else worth noting, as the president calls in the Guard and positions himself as the savior of law-and-order.

“They spit, we hit!’” Trump blustered, warning demonstrators of the consequences they would face if they assaulted police and troops in such a manner.

This from a president who unconditionally pardoned 1,500 criminals convicted in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and its peace officers — one of whom attacked a policeman by plunging a stun gun multiple times into his neck.

“You tase, we’re unfazed!” — is that how it’s going to be, so long as the violence is conducted on Trump’s behalf?

In the decade since his descent down a gilded escalator — and emergence as the most dominant and consequential political figure of the 21st century — Trump has proven himself a peerless master of distraction and deflection. And so it is again.

Elon who?

But in looking out for his own interests, and conflating policy with personal grudges, Trump has abdicated one of the responsibilities of a president: to dampen unruly passions, to quell violence and, as the preamble of the Constitution states, to “insure domestic tranquility.”

“Any moment like this is very dangerous,” Zelizer said, “because the more force that that is there, the more potential there is for something bad to happen.”

We can hope for the best. But this will probably not end well.

In the overcast light — on a chilly, gray Monday morning in June — a cluster of city workers quietly gathered outside Los Angeles City Hall to assess the damage.

After thousands of demonstrators converged downtown over the weekend to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants in the country without documentation, the granite walls of the towering Art Deco seat of city government was marked up with fresh graffiti, with the same four-letter expletive preceding the word “ICE” in about a dozen places.

On the south and west sides of City Hall, about a dozen windows were smashed. At least 17 glass-covered light boxes surrounding the structure were busted, with broken shards of blue-gray glass covering the light fixtures.

On the front steps, insults daubed in spray paint were directed at both Mayor Karen Bass and President Trump.

The vandalism and graffiti stretched out block after block across downtown Los Angeles: “Remove Trumps head!!” was scrawled on the front facade of the Los Angeles County Law Library. The T-Mobile store on South Broadway had several windows boarded up, and glass still littered the sidewalk. Spent canisters, labeled “exact impact,” lay on the ground at various intersections.

The former Los Angeles Times building was scrawled with expletives, along with the words: “Immigrants rule the world.” The doors to its historic Globe Lobby were shattered, with graffiti on the large globe inside and across the building’s facade: “Return the homies” and “Trump is scum.”

But few Angelenos appeared outraged by the destruction.

“It’s kind of the usual. We always have protests,” said Eileen Roman as she walked her dog near Grand Central Market.

As the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, she said she understood why people were protesting. Although she didn’t plan to join them on the streets, she said, she would be involved on social media.

“I think we all are concerned about what’s going on,” Roman, 32, said of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Thomas Folland, a downtown resident and art history professor at Los Angeles Mission College, also said he wasn’t particularly concerned by the graffiti and vandalism he saw Monday morning.

“I was curious to see what the aftermath was this morning,” Folland said, noting that it was a particularly loud night at his apartment. But so far, he said, it wasn’t anything that worried him — though he noted his apartment building did start boarding up its windows in anticipation of what might come later this week.

“I’m not that offended by graffiti,” Folland said. “This is at least a genuine community expression.”

Sunday marked the third day of protests in downtown Los Angeles after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested immigrants at a Home Depot parking lot, L.A.’s Garment District, and several other locations on Friday.

As President Trump ordered the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops to the city, tensions escalated Sunday. Demonstrators blocked the 101 Freeway, set self-driving cars ablaze and hurled incendiary devices — and, in some cases, chunks of concrete — at law enforcement officers. Police, in turn, wielded tear gas and rubber bullets.

At 8:56 p.m. Sunday, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a social media post that “agitators have splintered” throughout downtown and an unlawful assembly had been declared for the Civic Center area.

“Residents, businesses and visitors to the Downtown Area should be alert and report any criminal activity,” LAPD Central Division said on X. “Officers are responding to several different locations to disperse crowds.”

About half an hour later, the LAPD expanded its unlawful assembly across downtown Los Angeles. By 10:23 p.m., police said business owners were reporting that stores were being broken into and burglarized in the area of 6th Street and Broadway.

“All DTLA businesses or residents are requested to report any vandalism, damage or looting to LAPD Central Division so that it can be documented by an official police report,” LAPD Central Division said just before midnight. “Please photograph all vandalism and damage prior to clean up.”

Eric Wright and his wife, Margaux Cowan-Banker, vacationers from Knoxville, Tenn., were on a jog Monday morning downtown and paused to take photos — past scores of police vehicles — of the graffiti-covered Federal Building at 300 N. Los Angeles St., which houses offices for ICE, the IRS, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies.

There was egg on the exterior walls and spray-painted slogans with expletives.

“When tyranny becomes law,” one graffiti said, “rebellion becomes duty,”

The couple — who laughed about being red-state denizens in L.A. during this time — said the peaceful protesters, of which they saw many Sunday night, didn’t bother them.

Though “the graffiti is tough — I appreciate the sentiment, but someone’s gotta clean it up,” said Wright, a 37-year-old physical therapist.

“But a few graffiti-ists don’t make the protest, right?”

As dawn broke Monday, city crews had already fanned out across downtown, cleaning up the aftermath.

Several yellow city street sweepers drove up and down Los Angeles Street in front of the federal courthouse, between blooming purple jacarandas and scores of police vehicles from various SoCal cities.

Just before 9 a.m., two workers from C. Erwin Piper Technical Center carried planks of plywood to City Hall to board up the windows. When they were done, they told The Times, they planned to head across the street to repair the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters.

Members of the National Guard were stationed outside the federal detention center and downtown Los Angeles V.A. clinic at Alameda and Temple streets, and police cars blocked roads around the federal buildings.

A person in a silver SUV — their head entirely covered by a white balaclava — drove by the barricade at Commercial and Alameda streets, window down. They flipped off the officers standing nearby.

Some stores that were typically open on a Monday morning remained shuttered, including Blue Bottle Coffee. But others, including Grand Central Market, were already buzzing with customers.

Octavio Gomez, a supervisor with the DTLA Alliance, quickly rolled black paint onto a wall next to Grand Central Market that had been newly covered in graffiti.

“Today’s a bad day because of … last night,” Gomez said, noting his teams had been working since 5 a.m. to respond to the damage across the city. “It’s all going to come back, right? Because there’s still protests.”

For the couple from Knoxville, the juxtaposition between their weekend in L.A. and news coverage of the protests felt bizarre.

They had an idyllic Los Angeles Sunday — a food festival, the L.A. Pride March in Hollywood, a visit to Grand Central Market.

But on TV and social media, Los Angeles was portrayed as a place of total chaos.

“People back where we live are going to completely be horrified,” said Cowan-Banker, a 42-year-old personal trainer. “I’m sure they think it’s a war zone here.”

But Wright said he thought people should be protesting the Trump administration: “They’re stealing people off the streets from their families,” he said, referring to the ICE raids. “This is America. To send the National Guard was intentionally inflammatory.”

“This feeds right into his voters,” Wright said of Trump.

“And they’re the people we go home to,” his wife added. “I’m kinda glad we’re here to carry information, though no one’s gonna listen.”

The couple, at the halfway point of their five-mile morning run, kept on snapping their photos, past a line of police cars.