LA protesters burn cars and block road as thousands rally against Donald Trump's immigration crackdown

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles on Sunday in response to Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major road and setting cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas and rubber bullets to control the crowd.

Police patrolled the streets on horseback while other officers in riot gear lined up behind Guard troops deployed to protect federal facilities, including a detention centre where immigrants were taken in recent days. Police declared an unlawful assembly.

Protesters grabbed chairs from a nearby public park to form a makeshift barrier, throwing objects at police on the other side. Others standing above the closed motorway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the motorway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.

It was the third day of demonstrations against an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, with the arrival of around 300 federal troops spurring anger and fear among residents.

Mr Trump ran for election last year on a campaign promise to conduct the largest deportation drive in the nation's history. Since taking office, he has charged US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal law enforcement agency, with detaining people living in the US without documentation.

The White House recently set a goal for its agents to arrest at least 3,000 migrants a day. Thousands have been swiftly deported, sometimes without due process.

The sweeping raids have also affected people with no criminal record and others who are legal residents in the US. More than 200 migrants, primarily from Venezuela, have been sent to a prison in El Salvador.

On Sunday in downtown Los Angeles at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky as the electric vehicles burned. By the evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks. Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening.

Mr Trump wrote on his on Truth Social platform that the National Guard were doing a “great job”.

“These radical left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will not be tolerated,” he said, adding that protesters would not be allowed to wear masks.

He had previously directed his administration to take all “necessary” action to “liberate” Los Angeles. “Order will be restored, the illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free,” he said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom requested in a letter that Mr Trump remove the National Guard, calling their deployment unlawful and a “serious breach of state sovereignty”.

Mr Newsom accused Mr Trump of trying to manufacture a crisis. “These are the acts of a dictator, not a President,” he wrote in a post on X.

The deployment of National Guard troops appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass echoed Mr Newsom's comments. “What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “This is about another agenda, this isn’t about public safety.”

Their admonishments did not deter the Trump administration. “It’s a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement in response.

The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began on Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino area south of the city, and neighbouring Compton.

Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the US, is home to a large immigrant community, predominantly from Mexico and other parts of Central and South America.

On Friday federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot car park and at several other locations. The next day, agents were seen at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.

The week-long tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area has climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement.

The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots of the 1960s and 1990s, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Mr Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.

In a directive on Saturday, Mr Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”.

Mr Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in New Jersey on Sunday that there were “violent people” in Los Angeles “and they’re not gonna get away with it”.

“We’re gonna have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden,” he said.

About 500 Marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 200 kilometres east of Los Angeles, were in a “prepared to deploy status” on Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lives in Los Angeles, said the immigration arrests and National Guard deployment were designed as part of a “cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division”.

She said she supports those “standing up to protect our most fundamental rights and freedoms”.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the National Guard are “specifically trained for this type of crowd situation”.

“Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions,” Ms Noem told CBS on Sunday. “The President knows that he makes bad decisions, and that's why the President chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity.”