Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Wednesday night that National Guard troops deployed to the city for immigration enforcement operations have departed, calling their withdrawal “another win for Los Angeles.”
The presence of Guard troops in the city had been largely confined to two federal buildings, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. Some soldiers were assigned to protect federal agents during immigration raids.
In one notable operation on July 7,National Guard troops,armed with guns and accompanied by horses,participated in an event at MacArthur Park,a neighborhood with a meaningful immigrant population,which concluded abruptly.
The majority of the National Guard troops remained at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos throughout their deployment in Southern California and were not observed in Los Angeles. Demonstrations related to immigration arrests in the city and surrounding areas in recent weeks have been characterized as small and scattered.
California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the deployment, stating that President Donald Trump’s actions were “political theater” and that “the women and men of our military deserve more than to be used as props in the federal government’s propaganda machine.”
Newsom had previously filed a lawsuit against the federal government in June, challenging the deployment of the National Guard. He argued that Trump had violated federal law by activating the troops without prior notification to the state. Newsom also sought an emergency injunction to halt the troops’ involvement in immigration raids.
Although a lower court had ordered the return of the National Guard’s control to California, the 9th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals subsequently issued a temporary block on that order.
