LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Marines that deployed to Los Angeles on orders from President Donald Trump have not yet been called to respond to the city’s immigration protests and are there only to protect federal officials and property, the Marine Corps commandant said Tuesday.
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The 700 Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to LA on Monday, escalating a military presence that local officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom do not want and that the police chief says makes it harder to handle the protests safely.
Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill that the battalion has not yet been sent to any protests. The Marines were trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority and are there to protect government property and personnel, he said.
Trump doubled the number of Guard troops being deployed soon after the first wave of 2,000 began arriving Sunday following days of protests driven by anger over the president’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws that critics say are breaking apart migrant families.
The demonstrations continued Monday but were far less raucous, with thousands of people peacefully attending a rally at City Hall and hundreds more protesting outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids across the city.
The protests in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million people, have largely been centered in several blocks of downtown and a few other spots. At daybreak Tuesday, guard troops were stationed outside the detention center, but there was no sign of the Marines.
Obscene slogans directed at Trump and federal law enforcement remained scrawled across several buildings. At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, workers were busy washing away graffiti Tuesday morning.
In nearby Santa Ana, armored vehicles blocked a road leading to federal immigration and government offices. Workers swept up plastic bottles and broken glass near buildings sprayed with graffiti.
What is there to wait for?! Is this another case of Trump Always Chickens Out? I hope not, but it looks like what it looks like.
And there I was happily thinking that Trump finally got his testosterone injections, and he will crash the Dem terrorist cockroach immediately and decisively, as opposed to waiting until all other big cities go on fire, like he waited in the Saint Floyd “mostly peaceful” riots, sponsored by Soros and other Dem oligarchs, in the summer of 2020.