LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Hundreds of U.S. Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area by Tuesday under orders from President Donald Trump, who has also activated 4,000 National Guard troops to quell protests in the city despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local leaders.
The city has seen days of public outrage since the Trump administration launched a series of immigration raids on Friday. State officials said Trump’s response was an overreaction to mostly peaceful demonstrations.
About 700 Marines were in a staging area awaiting deployment to specific locations, a U.S. official said.
There were approximately 2,100 Guard troops in greater Los Angeles on Tuesday, with more on the way, the official said.
The troop deployments are estimated to cost about $134 million, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday. Bryn MacDonnell, who is performing comptroller duties at the Pentagon, told lawmakers the cost included travel, housing and food for troops.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told KABC that more than 100 people had been arrested on Monday but that the majority of protesters were nonviolent.
Trump has justified his decision to deploy active military troops to Los Angeles by describing the protests as a violent occupation, a characterization that Newsom and Bass have said is grossly exaggerated.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump said Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground right now” if he had not deployed troops to the city.
Newsom accused Trump of sending troops to deliberately inflame the situation for political reasons and said the president’s actions made it more difficult for local law enforcement to respond.
The protests since Friday have been largely peaceful and mostly concentrated in downtown Los Angeles. But there have been clashes, with some demonstrators throwing rocks and other objects at officers, blocking an interstate highway and setting cars ablaze.
Police have responded by firing projectiles such as pepper balls, as well as flash-bang grenades and tear gas.
The Los Angeles Police Department said it arrested at least 40 people over the weekend on charges including attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail and assaulting an officer, and officials said they expected more arrests after reviewing video.
Trump’s Marine deployment escalated his confrontation with Newsom, who filed a lawsuit on Monday asserting that Trump’s activation of Guard troops without the governor’s consent was illegal. The Guard deployment was the first time in decades that a president did so without a request from a sitting governor.
The use of active military to respond to civil disturbances is extremely rare.
“This isn’t about public safety,” Newsom wrote on X on Monday. “It’s about stroking a dangerous President’s ego.”
The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, said he was “gravely troubled” by Trump’s deployment of active-duty Marines.
“Since our nation’s founding, the American people have been perfectly clear: we do not want the military conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil,” he said.