Marines detain first civilian in LA amid immigration raid protests
U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles on Friday for the first time detained a civilian as part of a protest against federal immigration raids, U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) confirmed to The Hill.
The Marines 'temporarily detained a civilian earlier today,' Northcom said in a statement, adding that forces may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances under Title 10.
'The temporary detention ends immediately when the individual(s) can be safely transferred to the custody of appropriate civilian law enforcement personnel,' the statement noted.
The incident reportedly took place at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, where Marines earlier on Friday were charged with protecting the building.
Images circulated on social media showed Marines apprehending a man with his hands zip-tied behind his back
Reuters reported that the man, identified as Marcos Leao, 27, was handed over to civilians from the Department of Homeland Security.
Marcos, an Army veteran, told reporters that he was on his way to an office of the Department of Veterans Affairs when he crossed a yellow tape boundary and was asked to stop.
Around 200 Marines armed with rifles, riot control equipment and gas masks have been deployed to the streets of Los Angeles to join the more than 2,000 California National Guard troops already there. The service members, tasked with protecting federal property and personnel, will be joined by an additional 500 Marines and 2,000 Guard soldiers meant to accompany ICE agents on raids, according to officials.
While the troops are authorized to detain people, they are not allowed to arrest them, as the Posse Comitatus Act largely forbids the U.S. military from taking part in civilian law enforcement.
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USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Trump's policies on immigration, economy and trade are unpopular with Americans
Five months into his second term as president, Americans are deeply unsatisfied with how Trump has handled the economy, immigration and tariffs. No wonder his approval rating is underwater. Anyone who saw Donald Trump rally his supporters for reelection heard him make sweeping promises on three key pillars of his campaign ‒ improving the economy, deporting undocumented immigrants and penalizing other countries with tariffs. Five months into his second term as president, Americans are deeply unsatisfied with how Trump has handled those three issues, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll released Thursday, June 26. Immigrants have been Trump's favorite boogeymen for a solid decade, ever since he declared his first run for president in 2015. And he found supporters by demonizing undocumented immigrants, winning elections in 2016 and 2024. But now that Trump holds the power to deport those immigrants, as he repeatedly promised, Americans appear to be repulsed by what that looks like. Turn on any television news broadcast or open any social media platform. You'll see heavily armed men in masks, wearing body armor, refusing to show identification as they grab men, women and children ‒ sometimes with wanton and unnecessary violence ‒ on streets, in warehouses and meatpacking plants, and on farm fields across the country. Unfortunately for Trump, Americans have some empathy A Dec. 18 Quinnipiac Poll, released a month before Trump took office, found that 55% of registered voters preferred giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to legal status here in America, while 36% wanted to deport most of them. Six months later, Quinnipiac finds a 9-point swing on the issue, with 64% now saying they want a pathway to citizenship and 31% still preferring deportation. It leaps off the page: a significant shift in public opinion that has to be attributed to Americans seeing Trump getting what he has always wanted when it comes to immigrants. The poll also found that 56% disapprove of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is doing its job, while 39% approve. Opinion: Trump pivots to distractions as polls show collapsing support for his agenda ICE raids in California provoked protests that Trump tried to politicize by sending in the military. American voters don't like that either, disapproving of deploying the Army National Guard by 55-43% and disapproving by 60-37% his decision to also deploy U.S. Marines. Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac University polling analyst, told me that "there's a lot of empathy for people who want to stay here," reflected in the poll, and that American compassion rings out even during a time of international turmoil and conflict. "Keep in mind," Malloy added, "this all happened in the midst of Gaza, Russia, and Iran, and yet those videos coming out of California of ICE raids in fields and Marines in LA top the news." It turns out Americans also like democracy Something else jumps out from the poll ‒ Americans are worried about America. The economy was the top concern cited by voters in Quinnipiac Polls in late January (24%) and in mid-March (30%). But "preserving democracy" was the top concern in the June poll ‒ at 24% ‒ while the economic concern fell to 19%. Malloy told me that's the first time he's seen "the economy eclipsed by concern about the very bedrock of the country." Opinion: Red states push religion in public schools. Supreme Court is their endgame. No wonder Trump's approval rating is underwater, with 54% disapproving of the way he is handling the presidency and just 41% approving. The June Quinnipiac poll also shows that on immigration, 57% disapprove and 41% approve. On the economy, 56% disapprove and 39% approve. And on trade, after Trump's fruitless tariff wars with international allies, 55% approve and 38% disapprove. Trump's signature policy proposal ‒ the so-called Big Beautiful Bill being batted about by Republicans in Congress to continue tax breaks for America's wealthiest people while stripping health care from some of the poorest ‒ is also deeply unpopular, with 55% opposing it and 29% supporting it. That tracks with recent polling, which shows the more people learn about the budget bill, the more they hate it. Trump will spin his lies on poor polling, but the numbers won't Expect pushback from Trump and his supporters, who won't like what Quinnipiac found in this latest survey. That's to be expected. Trump always touts polls that tell him what he wants to hear and flouts polls that give him bad news. So keep this in mind: On at least three occasions from late March to early June in 2024, Trump's campaign emailed journalists news releases pointing to Quinnipiac polling that showed him performing well in the race for president. Trump, using his Truth Social platform while running for office, repeatedly bragged about Quinnipiac polls that pleased him and attacked Quinnipiac if he didn't like a poll's results. A shorter version of that point ‒ you can't trust anything Trump says about polling. But, as Malloy noted, Trump has been in worse spots when it comes to the approval of Americans. His disapproval rating hit 60% in a Quinnipiac poll released Jan. 11, 2021, just five days after he incited supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol because he could not accept that he had lost the 2020 election. I counted 41 times in Quinnipiac polls done monthly during Trump's first term, from January 2017 to January 2021, when his approval rating was lower than in this new poll. Trump could take that as good news. I doubt he will. But here's another chunk of good news in the June poll ‒ Americans are clearly concerned about the state of America, but they don't think our democracy will end during their lifetime: 49% said our democracy is not working, compared with 43% who say it is. But 73% think democracy will outlast this, while just 17% say it won't. "There are major domestic and international crises the country is facing," Malloy said. "And, at the same time that we're politically divided, there's a belief that democracy will survive. And that's heartening." Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump is trying to turn California into a police state. Here's what's coming next
The stage is set for one hot summer on America's streets. Last week's U.S. Court of Appeals hearing on whether President Trump exceeded his authority — first, by unilaterally calling up thousands of California's National Guard troops to restore order in roughly six city blocks of Los Angeles and then by deploying hundreds of active-duty Marines specializing in urban warfare — was jaw-dropping. A Trump administration attorney argued before the court that his boss has the unreviewable power to call up the guard, not only as he has already done in the Golden State, but simultaneously in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. And to deploy, alongside these guard members, unlimited numbers of active-duty armed forces, such as the Marines, whose primary mission Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly pledged will focus on 'lethality, warfighting and readiness.' The court signing off on this shocking authoritarian overreach was paired with Trump's recent comments suggesting that Los Angeles is just the beginning ('We are going to have troops everywhere'), and Hegseth's belligerent refusal in last week's Senate oversight hearing to answer the simple question of whether or not he had given the order authorizing 'live ammunition' (one might, reasonably, assume the answer is 'yes'). Outrage over the court's sanctioning of Trump's military deployments was quickly overwhelmed by his bombing of Iran. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement has continued its provocations in Los Angeles — including the apparent racial profiling and arrest of a U.S. citizen on her way to work — with military backing. National Guard troops were also deployed last week more than 130 miles away from Los Angeles to assist in the raid of a suspected marijuana farm in Riverside County. The 'legal rationale' the administration has thus far successfully floated to justify these actions was an obscure 1798 law whose Fox News-friendly statutory nomenclature has quickly evolved into a MAGA-embraced, immigrant-bashing, chest-pounding rallying cry: The wording fits perfectly with the outright lies told during Trump's presidential campaign, about how Haitian immigrants were allegedly eating everyone's cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, and how a Venezuelan street gang had somehow turned Aurora, Colo., (conveniently located near an ICE detention center) into a 'war zone.' The Trump administration will almost certainly ride the Alien Enemies Act train until it jumps the court-sanctioned tracks, then simply catch the next train and then the next until they/we/all of us arrive at their chosen destination: A police state. The term 'police state,' as we all know, gets tossed around a lot. But few have a clear idea of what it is. A country becomes a police state when the line between civil and military authority is rendered meaningless. We're not there yet. But here's one scenario of how we might arrive at that fate, using Los Angeles (as Trump is doing in real life) as a case study. The last time a U.S. president sent the National Guard somewhere to address civil unrest was, of course, Los Angeles in 1992 during the riots after police officers were acquitted of the Rodney King beating. The initial request for a federal response originated with the governor, rather than the president. Then, as it is now, local police, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, train and practice alongside National Guard soldiers under a federal mandate known as Defense Support of Civil Authority. These joint preparations occur during weekend training drills of National Guard and reserve units and help to identify possible weaknesses in the chain of command and in general operations. One illustrative example of how crucial a role this authority plays in emergency operations — and how quickly things can turn bad, quickly — comes from the Rodney King riots and their aftermath. As the disturbances were winding down, an L.A. police sergeant who had taken fire some days earlier returned to the scene where shots were fired. With him was a Marine Corps infantry platoon led by a young lieutenant. With the Marines stationed in front of the house, the police sergeant sent two of his men around back. Before starting across the street to investigate, the police sergeant told the Marine lieutenant to 'cover him.' The entire platoon opened up with automatic weapons fire. 'Cover me' means something very different to a Marine than it means to a police officer. To a Marine, trained only for combat, 'cover me' means opening fire when a member of your team begins to advance on a target. Most people have probably seen this in a movie, if not in a modern war video game. That, however, is not what it means to police; it's a request to raise weapons to be ready to fire should the need arise. Fortunately, no one died that day. But we may not be so lucky on today's streets, given the lack of coordination and cooperation endemic to Trump's style of leadership. Should such a tragic incident come to pass, we can expect more civil unrest — possibly even riots — and for Trump to weaponize that straight out of the fascist playbook, something he's already doing with his ICE provocations: Stir something up, wait for your loyal base to call on its dear leader to restore order. Send in more troops, provide that 'iron fist' for which your followers yearn, tighten your grip on power. Wrap yourself in the flag, flood the zone with propaganda, rinse/repeat. The aggressive actions in Los Angeles have not, as of yet, resulted in significant injury and harm to civilians or police. But other cities, other states might not be so lucky. As Trump almost certainly seeks to expand his operations in the coming weeks and months to New York or perhaps Chicago, Democratic governors likely to find themselves in the crosshairs would be well-advised to begin preparing now, while their National Guard is still under their command and control. Make no mistake, America: Our mettle and our intestinal fortitude are about to be tested. We hold out hope that the Supreme Court will issue an emergency ruling telling the president he has exceeded his powers. Especially if people start to die. This would put some daylight between what Trump is trying to pull and his actual official powers. If he then persists in issuing orders to the military, which the court has declared illegal, you can rest assured the military has ways, largely unfamiliar to civilians, to maintain 'good order and discipline' in its ranks. Arresting a superior officer (including a commander-in-chief) may be contemplated where his or her actions warrant such. Especially when that becomes necessary to fulfill their sacred oath to 'protect and defend the Constitution.' Semper fi. Brett Wagner, now retired, served as a professor of national security decision making for the U.S. Naval War College and adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. J. Holmes Armstead, now retired, served as a professor of strategy and international law at the U.S. Naval War College and as a judge advocate general, inspector general and civil affairs officer in the U.S. Army, Army Reserves and National Guard.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
California hopes law from bloody era of U.S. history can rein in Trump's use of troops
California's fight to rein in President Trump's deployment of troops to Los Angeles hinges on a 19th century law with a a blood-soaked origin and a name that seems pulled from a Spaghetti Western. In a pivotal ruling this week, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered the federal government to hand over evidence to state authorities seeking to prove that the actions of troops in Southern California violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids soldiers from enforcing civilian laws. 'How President Trump has used and is using the federalized National Guard and the Marines since deploying them at the beginning of June is plainly relevant to the Posse Comitatus Act,' Breyer wrote Wednesday in his order authorizing 'limited expedited discovery.' The Trump administration objected to the move and has already once gotten a sweeping Breyer ruling that would've limited White House authority over the troops overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This time, the Northern District of California judge made clear he would 'only allow discovery as to the Posse Comitatus Act' — signaling what could be the state's last stand battle to prevent Marines and National Guard forces from participating in immigration enforcement. The Posse Comitatus Act dates back to the aftermath of the Civil War when the American government faced violent resistance to its efforts to rebuild Southern state governments and enforce federal law following the abolition of slavery. The text of the law itself is slight, its relevant section barely more than 60 words. Yet when it was enacted, it served as the legal epitaph to Reconstruction — and a preface to Jim Crow. 'It has these very ignoble beginnings,' said Mark P. Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University and one of the country's foremost experts on the statute. Before the Civil War, the U.S. military was kept small, in part to avoid the kinds of abuses American colonists suffered under the British. Authorities back then could marshal a crew of civilians, called a posse comitatus, to assist them, as sometimes happened in California during the Gold Rush. States also had militias that could be called up by the president to pad out the army in wartime. But law enforcement by the U.S. military was rare and deeply unpopular. Historians have said the use of soldiers to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act — which saw escaped slaves hunted down and returned to the South — helped spark the Civil War. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has used constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to justify using troops to round up immigrants. Experts said leaders from the antebellum South demanded similar enforcement of the law. 'The South was all for posse comitatus when it came to the Fugitive Slave Act,' said Josh Dubbert, a historian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library in Ohio. But by the time Congress sent federal troops to begin Reconstruction in earnest in 1867, the landscape was very different. After white rioters razed Black neighborhoods in Memphis and mobs of ex-Confederate soldiers massacred Black demonstrators in New Orleans in the spring of 1866, 'most of the South [was] turned into military districts,' said Jacob Calhoun, a professor of American history at Wabash College and an expert on Reconstruction. 'Most scholars, let alone the American public, do not understand the scale of racial violence during Reconstruction,' Calhoun said. 'They only send these troops in after unimaginable levels of violence.' At the polls, Black voters were met by white gangs seeking to prevent them from casting ballots. 'For most of American history, the idea of an American army intervening in elections is a nightmare,' Calhoun said. '[Posse Comitatus] is reemphasizing this longstanding belief but for more nefarious purposes.' The Posse Comitatus language was tucked into an appropriations bill by Southern Democrats after their party won control of Congress in the election of 1876 — 'possibly the most violent election in American history,' Calhoun said. Historians say white lawmakers in the post-war South sought to enshrine their ability to keep Black men from voting by barring federal forces from bolstering the local militias that protected them. 'Once they're in control of Congress, they want to cut the appropriations for the army,' Dubbert said. 'They attach this amendment to [their appropriations bill] which is the Posse Comitatus Act.' The bill won support from some Republicans, who resented the use of federalized troops to put down the Railroad Strike of 1877 — the first national labor strike in the U.S. 'It is a moment in which white Northern congressmen surrender the South back to ex-Confederates,' Calhoun said. 'With the Posse Comitatus Act, racial violence becomes the norm.' Yet the statute itself largely vanished from memory, little used for most of the next century. 'The Posse Comitatus Act was forgotten for about 75 years, from after Reconstruction to basically the 1950s, when a defense lawyer made a challenge to a piece of evidence that the Army had obtained,' Nevitt said. 'The case law is [all] after World War II.' Those cases have largely turned on troops who arrest, search, seize or detain civilians — 'the normal thing the LAPD does on a daily basis,' Nevitt said. The courts have stood by the bedrock principle that military personnel should not be used to enforce the law against civilians, he said, except in times of rebellion or other extreme scenarios. 'Our nation was forged in large part because the British military was violating the civil rights of colonists in New England,' Nevitt said. 'I really can't think of a more important question than the military's ability to use force against Americans.' Yet, the law is full of loopholes, scholars said — notably in relation to use of the National Guard. Department of Justice has argued Posse Comitatus does not apply to the military's current actions in Southern California — and even if it did, the soldiers deployed there haven't violated the law. It also claimed the 9th Circuit decision endorsing Trump's authority to call up troops rendered the Posse Comitatus issue moot. Some experts feel California's case is strong. 'You literally have military roaming the streets of Los Angeles with civilian law enforcement,' said Shilpi Agarwal, legal director of the ACLU of Northern California, 'That's exactly what the [act] is designed to prevent.' But Nevitt was more doubtful. Even if Breyer ultimately rules that Trump's troops are violating the law and grants the injunction California is seeking, the 9th Circuit will almost certainly strike it down, he said. 'It's going to be an uphill battle,' the attorney said. 'And if they find a way to get to the Supreme Court, I see the Supreme Court siding with Trump as well.'
