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They were deployed by the Trump administration to fight “violent and rebel mobs” in and around Los Angeles, but the only thing that seems like many troops in the US Marines and California State Guard are fighting has been boring these days.
“There’s not much to do,” one Marine said this week that she was protecting security guards outside the towering Wilshire Federal Building in Westwood.
Many units were chatting and joking about energy drinks as the first fiery protests encountered in downtown Los Angeles were not seen anywhere along Wilshire Boulevard or Veteran Avenue. The Marine, who refused to give his name because he was not allowed to speak to reporters, said his duty consists primarily of authorizing access to federal workers and visitors to the Veterans’ Affairs Office.
More than five weeks after Trump mobilised an extraordinary show of military power against the will of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and La Mayor Karen Bass, the National Guard and Marines retreating to a local military base in Orange County are not in public view.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses ordered the release of 2,000 National Guard troops. Currently, Bass, Newsom and others are calling for complete removal of the remaining troops, or complete removal of approximately 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines.
“Thousands of members still have the federal government in Los Angeles for no reason and are unable to fulfill their important duties statewide,” Newsom, accusing Trump of using the California State Guard troops as “political pawns.”
“After this theatre we’re going to send everyone home,” the governor said.
Bass said the military’s primary mission in Los Angeles is to protect federal buildings “frankly, it doesn’t have to be protected.”
“They had to leave their families. They had to leave their education. They had to leave their jobs,” Bass said at a press conference Tuesday. “We had no issues for weeks so why were they here?”
Steve Woolford said he is a resource counselor for GI Rights Hotline, a nonprofit that provides free, confidential information to service members, and said calls from the military had dropped dramatically last month.
“The latest people I spoke to sounded bored without doing it,” Woolford said. “And they’re happy with it. They don’t want to do more. At the same time, I don’t think people see a real purpose in what they’re doing.”
The majority of the National Guard troops are stationed at joint military training bases in Los Aramitos, according to military officials and officials of the governor’s office who spoke about the conditions of anonymity.
Over the past few weeks, a massive tent town has risen at an Orange County base about 25 miles southeast of downtown Tent. On a recent morning, we’ve seen National Guard troops (some wear total combat fatigue, others wear T-shirts and shorts), but exercising, milling and playing touch football games.
Another group of Marines and National Guard remained in Westwood Federal buildings for a month. According to a Marine who spoke with the Times, federal buildings are equipped with sleep and diet arrangements for the military.
Certainly, some California State Guards have embarked on tense missions with federal immigration agents with sweeps on farms, warehouses and public roads.
On July 7, the security forces accompanied federal agents as they descended on a show of horse MacArthur Park and a massive militarized force of armored vehicles. It is still unknown whether an arrest was made that day, but the crowd quickly formed around federal agents and troops, yelling, “Let’s get the F!”
A few days later, security guards wearing riot-faced shields and long wooden batons faced hundreds of protesters in Ventura County, while immigration agents arrested about 200 undocumented immigrants at Glasshouse Farm, a massive licensed cannabis greenhouse in Camarillo.
However, most of the deployed security and Marines have not appeared to have been engaged in raids or even the security of federal buildings in recent weeks.
An estimated 90% of the National Guard forces stationed in the LA area over the past few days are not deployed on daily missions, according to sources in Newsom’s office, who have knowledge of military operations.
“Most of the time… they’re sitting,” the source said.
A source who spoke anonymously on condition because he was not allowed to publicly talk about the deployment said 3% of the 4,000 troops of around 120 soldiers are taking part in a daily mission consisting mainly of federal building security.
Hundreds more confronted the “quick response” mission. They are ready to mobilize for immigrant raids or crowd control operations within hours. However, he said that even if all those troops were used daily, about 88% of the 4,000 troops (about three-quarters of the remaining 2,000) were underutilized.
The Pentagon and Task Force 51, a military designation for the Los Angeles Regional Forces, refused to answer questions about the number of security and Marines engaged in protecting federal buildings or accompanying immigration agents on daily missions. He also did not comment on the allegations from Newsom’s office that most of the troops were “sitting.”
Security guards and Marines read a statement from the task force “while carrying out immigration enforcement activities, including warrant services, while protecting federal facilities on fixed sites and protecting federal law enforcement agencies.”
Federal officials also refuse to provide accurate details about the cost of deployment. Hegseth previously said that mobilizing the military would cost $134 million, but it is unclear whether the estimate is accurate.
Jennifer Cabana, director of military analysis for Defense Priorities, a military research group, said there is little evidence that military presence is necessary.
“While the need for troops in Los Angeles is low, the need for other National Guard troops in the state is growing,” Kabana said. “The fact that they are still deploying after a time they don’t think they need suggests that this is actually setting a precedent for the military to be involved in immigration enforcement and deployed to the US.”
Kori Schake, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed, “They have the real work that will train and train their people to win wars, as police in this performance is a distraction.”
Shortly after the Trump administration announced it would send 2,000 security guards to the city to quell the protest as a graffiti-filled building in downtown, the first fleet of security flew through Los Angeles on June 8, and as he tried to launch an immigrant raid, Waymo Driverless car flares up and crashed with ice agents.
The Trump administration doubled, just as California leaders protested and called for unnecessarily a rollout. On June 10, 700 Marines from the Marine Air Force Combat Center were about 150 miles west to Los Angeles a week later, and the task force swelled to 4,800 staff when Hegses added another 2,000 security forces.
Newsom denounced Trump for diverting California State Guard members, noting that units assigned to the fight against Wildfire are only 40% of their normal staffing level due to deployment. The governor’s office also accused that around 150 California security guards were being drawn from the state’s counter-drug task force.
The Trump administration ultimately approved a request to release 150 security guards to curb wildfires in the state.
Security guards had previously been deployed in Los Angeles, but they did not violate the will of the LA Mayor and the California Governor.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush mobilized the National Guard in Los Angeles after several days of riots after four white police officers acquitted in beating black driver Rodney King. A unit of about 6,000 people was eventually sent, requested by the then GOV in California. Pete Wilson and Mayor Tom Bradley defended trouble spots and gained control of the neighborhood after rioters attacked shops, caught buildings and in extreme cases beat and kill residents. The Times called it “the worst civil unrest in Los Angeles history.”
Almost 30 years later, security forces were called again during the 2020 protests after the murder of George Floyd. After downtown buildings were destroyed, graffiti was carried out and police cars were burned, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti asked Newsom to send 1,000 National Guard troops to restore and support local law enforcement.
However, last month, the federal government sent troops without the support of local politicians, driving a fierce legal showdown.
The day after National Guard forces hit the ground in Los Angeles, Newsom and Atty. General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to end the “illegal and unnecessary takeover” of the California State Guard forces. They alleged that without the consent or opinion of the governor, an unfair commander of the National Guard forces violated the US Constitution and exceeded the authority of President 10 titles.
A US district judge in San Francisco is on the side of the state and found Trump broke the law on June 12 when he deployed thousands of California State Guard troops in LA against the state’s will. The judge issued a temporary restraining order that would return control of the National Guard to California. However, the U.S. Ninth Circuit suspended its court order and allowed the military to remain in LA while the case was in federal court.
Kabana said she was interrupted by immigrant raids to see security guards accompanying federal agents. Even if they order them not to participate in law enforcement activities, conflict can escalate quickly.
“There are so many opportunities for something that spirals out of control,” she said. “We haven’t seen an unintended escalation yet, but that doesn’t mean we don’t.”
When the military was first deployed to LA, supporters of service members warned of low morale. The GI Rights Hotline has received a surge in calls to express concerns about immigration enforcement, Woolford said.
Some military personnel told the hotline they didn’t want to support ice or play a role in banishing people because they considered parts of the community and had immigrants in their families, Woolford said. Others said they didn’t want to point guns at citizens. Some people worried that the country was on the verge of turning into something like martial law, and said they didn’t want to be their own armed occupying forces.
Many were shocked that the deployment order was 60 days.
“Is there really a way for them to keep us here for a long time?” Woolford said.
But when the military brought in more contractors and set up a huge tent with cots, Woolford said callers to the hotline seemed to have stepped down more at the idea that they would stay in LA for a long time.
Asked about the pressures facing the military regarding their mission to Los Angeles, one Marine outside a building in the Wilshire Federation summed it up like this:
“It’s just an order,” he said. “We do what we say – it’s the system.”
Times staff writer Janet Marantos contributed to this report.
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