The Pentagon will remove 1,350 national guard troops from Los Angeles originally sent to the state by the Trump administration to deal with protests over its immigration policies.
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, ordered the national guard members to leave this week. A remaining 250 troops will stay put to protect federal personnel and property, according to the statement attributed to Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson.
Two months ago, the Trump administration sent a mix of 5,000 members of the national guard andmarines to Los Angeles to suppress a wave of protests against Ice raids. The troops received a cold welcome from Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, and the state governor, Gavin Newsom, protesters and community members around the city.
California politicians argued that handling the protests should be left to local law enforcement. Newsom promptly filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the deployment and said that national guard members were also being pulled from other duties, such as drug enforcement and wildfire fighting.
The deployment cost taxpayers an estimated $134m.
Wednesday’s continued withdrawal was met with applause from California politicians.
“Another win for Los Angeles tonight: 1,000 more troops are retreating,” Bass wrote in a post on X. “We will continue this pressure until ALL troops are out of L.A.”
Newsom called for the demobilization of the remaining 300 national guard members.
“The President should allow the remaining soldiers to go back to their families, communities, and civilian professions as doctors, law enforcement and teachers,” Newsom wrote in a statement.
The Los Angeles Times reported many of the troops that came to Los Angeles found themselves fighting boredom due to a lack of clear directives. The Guardian found low morale and motivation among troops deployed in Los Angeles. A highly publicized raid on a mostly empty MacArthur Park yielded minimal results. The military detained and then released a 27-year-old man who was on his way to an appointment at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Guardian also documented false claims by federal officials against protesters, including the dismissal of seven out of nine felony “assault” and “impeding” cases and an indictment naming the wrong defendant.
The presidential administration, however, insists that troops were vital for keeping the peace.
“We greatly appreciate the support of the more than 5,000 Guardsmen and Marines who mobilized to Los Angeles to defend Federal functions against the rampant lawlessness occurring in the city,” Parnell wrote in a statement.
