US President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area amid intense protests against immigration raids targeting local businesses.
The move marked an intensification of Trump’s immigration crackdown; while the National Guard has been deployed to California before, it happened during times of widespread civil unrest — not isolated immigration protests that saw demonstrators clash with police, The Los Angeles Times wrote.
Democrats criticized the president’s order as an unnecessary escalation, with California’s governor saying administration officials “want a spectacle.”
That may be the point, The Economist argued: The deployment signals to other Democratic-run cities that “retribution awaits those who would stand between immigrants and the administration’s deportation machine.”