After days of intense protests over federal immigrant attacks, Los Angeles residents and officials supported the arrival of hundreds of US Marines on Tuesday.
As Trump administration officials vowed to crack down on “mobs, looters and thugs,” local governments in the state condemned the mobilization of 700 troops from the Marine Air Force Combat Center in the palm of Twentinin, calling it a clear violation of law and courtesy. Mayor La Karen Bass likened the deployment to an “experiment” in which no one asked to make it part of it.
According to the US Northern Command, which oversees US-based troops, the Marines will “seamlessly” with the National Guard troops under “Task Force 51.” This is a designation of the Los Angeles army.
Air Force General Gregory Guillott told the Times Tuesday that the military has no arrest powers if he is in Los Angeles just to protect federal property and federal officials.
“They are not law enforcement officers and have no authority to arrest them,” Guillott said. “There’s a very unique situation where they can hold someone in the event they need to be detained to defend, but they were able to hold it long enough to hand it over to the right law enforcement officer.”
“We are very highly trained, professional and disciplined,” he said.
However, military experts have raised practical concerns about the unclear parameters of the Marine Corps’ objectives. They also warn that they will send it to the Marines without a request from the governor – a very unusual step in 1965 where civil rights are not being carried out can potentially inflamed into the situation.
The US Marines have been deployed in recent decades in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and are trained in conflict zones overseas. But the role they play in those countries, including providing artillery support to allied forces fighting militants in Islamic states and advising and training local security forces in Afghanistan, is quite different from what they might face when facing American protesters in Los Angeles.
“Married men are trained to fight, and that’s what they were first trained,” said Jennifer Cabana, director of military analysis for Defense Priorities, a military research group. “So I think there’s a bit of a discrepancy in the skills here.
“When they’re forced to make a snap decision in a crisis, do they have enough training and experience to make something that escalates the situation rather than escalate it? I think that’s a question mark.”
President Trump told the US military in the Fort. North Carolina’s Bragg on Tuesday after he deployed $134 million and thousands of Marines to mobilize the troops to Los Angeles to curb protests, telling lawmakers that “we will protect federal law enforcement from malicious mob attacks.”
But city and state officials have repeatedly said that they don’t need the military to contain the protest.
On Monday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit attempting to overturn the deployment, calling the Marine Corps’ deployment “a blatant abuse of power.”
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell warned that “there is no clear adjustment” – the prospect of Marines descending to Los Angeles “showing important logistics and operational challenges for us who have been charged with protecting the city.”
It remains unclear when and where the Marines will arrive.
By Tuesday afternoon, a convoy of Twentynine Palms marine vehicles had arrived under police escorts at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in Orange County.
“The Marines are on base,” said said during Chris Hendricks at the Seal Beach Police Department. “It started last night.”
The Northern Command was a member of the 2nd Battalion and only confirmed that the 7th Marines had arrived in the Greater LA area and refused to provide any specific information.
It is rare for the US Marines to be sent to American cities. Their last deployed to the United States was acquitted of four LAPD officers recorded for beating black driver Rodney G. King after the outbreak of riots in Los Angeles in 1992.
At the time, President George H.W. Bush acted at the request of California Governor Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Deploying Marines in Los Angeles is not only a dramatic escalation of the event, but could also be potentially illegal, according to Abigail Hall, a defense scholar and senior fellow at Independent Institute, an Oakland-based nonprofit think tank.
She took the Marines to Los Angeles and violated the Comittatas Act of Congress, a 1878 law enacted after the Civil War.
Trump has not yet invoked the rebellion law.
“I don’t know how this is not a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” Hall said. “We are not in the war and have not evoked the Rebellion Act of 1807. Even so, that is the purpose of the National Guard. That’s not the purpose of the Marines.”
Gregory Magalian, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said deploying active duty forces in setting up domestic law enforcement — a “another step to a very dangerous path” without the request or consent of state and local officials.
“What are they going to use these troops for?” Magalian asked. “To use the federal army for law enforcement purposes, especially active duty military purposes, Trump needs to call the Rebellion Act. That’s the next big line in the sand. When he calls the Rebellion Act, that’s even worse. That’s a real big problem.”
Kavanagh did not comment on the legality of the deployment, but called it unprecedented in modern times, and worried that it would obscure its mission and parameters for the military.
According to military experts, the last time the military was deployed without the governor’s request or approval was to promote the separation of southern states during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Koli Sheikh, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said the Trump administration appears to be trying new ways to avoid restrictions on domestic law enforcement by the US military.
“The powers the President argues are his constitutional powers under what is called the Take Care Clause. He asserts a federal responsibility to protect federal agents and federal property operations. That power has never been tested in court.”
Such an approach has been plagued by more than legal risk, Schake said.
“If you’re a rising violence, you’re running with a high temper, the Marines are armed, and this has become out of control,” Shake said.
The deployment of LA could be a jarring mission for the Marines who have gone abroad and signed up to protect American freedom, and could instead face fellow citizens.
“Does anyone know the rules of engagement?” Kabana asked about the LA mission. “Are they clear?”
“Soldiers are generally trained to respond to crises abroad, trained for offensive operations and engagement with the enemy. Not necessarily crowd control or protest control,” Kabana said. “So, unless there is an immediate need or a clear, clear gap that local law enforcement cannot meet, that is not, from my understanding – this is not when military force of any kind is summoned.”
Of all military sectors, Marines, on average, hold the youngest service member, due to the intense physical nature of their training. According to a 2022 Department of Defense report, almost three-quarters of active enlisted members of the Marine Corps are under the age of 25. The average age is 24, compared with 27 in the Army and 28 in the Air Force.
Marines may be the youngest cohort in the military, Sheikh said, but they are also well trained in de-escalation tactics.
“The wars the United States has fought for the past 25 years have required incredible discipline regarding the use of force by the military in Afghanistan and in particular in Iraq, so they are trained to eliminate conflicts,” Schake said. “In fact, I think it’s very likely that they’re trained to de-escalate violence than the police.”
Still, Schake said he was less concerned about violence than “creeping authoritarianism.”
“The way that the White House press spokesperson speaks, the president, his fatherland secretary, and the secretary of defense are talking about, is inflammatory and reckless,” Shake said.
“They call the city of Los Angeles – one in 40 Americans live – a hellish landscape, everyone in the city is a criminal. They’re explaining a truly peaceful protest as a rebellion. That’s very reckless in difficult situations.”
Times staff writers Hailey Smith and Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.
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