Los Angeles protests: Mayor declares local emergency, issues curfew

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday (Jun 10) declared an overnight curfew in the downtown area of the second-largest city of the United States as the unrest and vandalism continue amid protests against immigration raids.

“I have declared a local emergency and issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting,” Bass told reporters.

This comes after a federal judge denied California Governor Gavin Newsom's request for an immediate restraining order to block the Trump administration's decision to deploy thousands of National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles.

Speaking at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the rioters in Los Angeles bearing foreign flags were part of a “foreign invasion”. He vowed to “liberate” the city following protests, which were sparked by immigration raids.

“This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow federal agents to be attacked, and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy,” Trump said.

“What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country,” he added.

Meanwhile, California authorities have criticised Trump's moves, saying that that the deployment of troops is unnecessary and will inflame the situation. California Governor Gavin Newsom has called the president’s actions “dictatorial” and “un-American”.

Trump’s deployment of the military and the National Guard poses “imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” State Attorney General Rob Bonta told Judge Charles Breyer in US District Court in San Francisco.

“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom said in a statement later. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”