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Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Pentagon ends deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES: The Pentagon said Tuesday it is ending the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, accounting for nearly half of the soldiers sent to the city to deal with protests over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines have been in the city since early June. It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the 60-day deployment to end suddenly, nor was it immediately clear how long the rest of the troops would stay in the region. In late June, the top military commander in charge of troops deployed to LA had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 200 of them to be returned to wildfire fighting duty amid warnings from Newsom that the Guard was understaffed as California entered peak wildfire season. The end of the deployment comes a week after federal authorities and National Guard troops arrived at MacArthur Park with guns and horses in an operation that ended abruptly. Although the US Department of Homeland Security wouldn't explain the purpose of the operation or whether anyone had been arrested, local officials said it seemed designed to sow fear. 'Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,' Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement in announcing the decision. On June 8, thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to Trump's deployment of the Guard, blocking off a major freeway as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire. A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way. Mayor Karen Bass set a curfew in place for about a week that she said had successfully protected businesses and helped restore order. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have been largely small impromptu protests around arrests. Bass applauded the troops' departure. 'This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong. We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court — all of this led to today's retreat,' she said in a statement, adding that 'We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.' On Tuesday afternoon, there was no visible military presence outside the federal complex downtown that had been the center of early protests and where National Guard troops first stood guard before the Marines were assigned to protect federal buildings. Hundreds of the soldiers have been accompanying agents on immigration operations. President Donald Trump ordered the deployment against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued to stop it. Newsom sued to block Trump's command of the California National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he deployed the troops despite his opposition. He also argued that the National Guard troops were likely violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on US soil. Newsom won an early victory in the case after a federal judge ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and exceeded Trump's authority. But an appeals court tossed that order, and control of the troops remained with the federal government. The federal court is set to hear arguments next month on whether the troops are violating the Posse Comitatus Act. The deployment of National Guard troops was for 60 days, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had the discretion to shorten or extend it 'to flexibly respond to the evolving situation on the ground,' the Trump administration's lawyers wrote in a June 23 filing in the legal case. Following the Pentagon's decision Tuesday, Newsom said in a statement that the National Guard's deployment to Los Angeles County has pulled troops away from their families and civilian work 'to serve as political pawns for the President.' He added that the remaining troops 'continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities.' 'We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now,' he said.
Al Arabiya
an hour ago
- Al Arabiya
Trump to Put Tariffs of Over 10% on Smaller Nations, Including Those in Africa and the Caribbean
President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he plans to place tariffs of over 10 percent on smaller countries including nations in Africa and the Caribbean. 'Well probably set one tariff for all of them,' Trump said, adding that it could be a little over 10 percent tariff on goods from at least 100 nations. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick interjected that the nations with goods being taxed at these rates would be in Africa and the Caribbean, places that generally do relatively modest levels of trade with the US and would be relatively insignificant for addressing Trump's goals of reducing trade imbalances with the rest of the world. The president had this month been posting letters to roughly two dozen countries and the European Union that simply levied a tariff rate to be charged starting August 1. Those countries generally faced tax rates on the goods close to the April 2 rates announced by the US president, whose rollout of historically high import taxes for the US caused financial markets to panic and led to Trump setting a 90-day negotiating period that expired July 9. Trump also said he would probably announce tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs at the end of the month. The president said he would start out at a lower tariff rate and give companies a year to build domestic factories before they faced higher import tax rates. Trump said computer chips would face a similar style of tariffs.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Immigration agency flexes authority to sharply expand detention without bond hearing
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has moved to detain far more people than before by tapping a legal authority to jail anyone who entered the country illegally without allowing them a bond hearing. Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, wrote employees on July 8 that the agency was revisiting its extraordinarily broad and equally complex authority to detain people, and that, effective immediately, people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Instead, they cannot be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception. The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, signals wider use of a 1996 law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court. Asked Tuesday to comment on the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, 'The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country – and they used many loopholes to do so. President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.' McLaughlin said ICE will have plenty of bed space after Trump signed a law that spends about 170 billion on border and immigration enforcement. It puts ICE on the cusp of staggering growth, infusing it with 76.5 billion over five years, or nearly 10 times its current annual budget. That includes 45 billion for detention. Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, began hearing from lawyers across the country last week that clients were being taken into custody in immigration court under the new directive. One person who was detained lived in the United States for 25 years. While it won't affect people who came legally and overstayed their visas, the initiative would apply to anyone who crossed the border illegally, Chen said. 'The Trump administration has acted with lightning speed to ramp up massive detention policy to detain as many people as possible now without any individualized review done by a judge. This is going to turn the United States into a nation that imprisons people as a matter of course,' Chen said. Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said the administration is adopting a draconian interpretation of the statute to jail people who may have lived in the US for decades, have no criminal history, and have US citizen spouses, children, and grandchildren. His organization sued the administration in March over what it said was a growing practice among immigration judges in Tacoma, Washington, to jail people for prolonged mandatory periods. Lyons wrote in his memo that detention was entirely within ICE's discretion, but he acknowledged a legal challenge was likely. For that reason, he told ICE attorneys to continue gathering evidence to argue for detention before an immigration judge, including potential danger to the community and flight risk. ICE held about 56,000 people at the end of June, near an all-time high, and above its budgeted capacity of about 41,000. Homeland Security said new funding will allow for an average daily population of 100,000 people. In January, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, named for a slain Georgia nursing student, which required detention for people in the country illegally who are arrested or charged with relatively minor crimes, including burglary, theft, and shoplifting, in addition to violent crimes.
