Members of the California National Guard have trained to detain protesters in the Los Angeles demonstrations prompted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the area.
The commander in charge, Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, said 500 National Guard members have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations and said he expects the situation to escalate after correcting previous comments that troops had detained protesters, citing photos and videos that were not of guard members in the city.
“We are expecting a ramp-up,” he said, noting that additional protests across the United States are expected. “I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re very concerned.”
Sherman is the commander of Task Force 51, a group of more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles by President Donald Trump to quell unrest there.
Trump said the city would be “burning to the ground right now” if troops didn’t go in.
“If our troops didn’t go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now, just like so much of their housing burned to the ground,” he posted on Truth Social. “The great people of Los Angeles are very lucky that I made the decision to go in and help!!!”
Trump has publicly feuded with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) over the president’s decision to send the National Guard in. He’s called Newsom incompetent, while the governor has said Trump is “politicizing our military and pulling them off critical missions to further his own agenda.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the deployment “a drastic and chaotic escalation and completely unnecessary.”
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A curfew has been implemented in parts of the city and will be extended as necessary, she said.
The protests continued in Los Angeles on Wednesday and in other cities nationwide.
