Donald Trump has warned that protesters trying to thwart his immigration crackdown in other states will be met with equal or greater force than demonstrators in Los Angeles.
As critics accused the president of authoritarianism, Trump also reiterated that he would be prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act if he deemed it necessary.
That would be a dramatic escalation by the president, who has already ordered active-duty Marines and 2000 more National Guard troops into L.A.
The move to draft troops into Los Angeles prompted a lawsuit by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who on Tuesday also asked a judge to issue a restraining order to block Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from using the National Guard in his state.
“Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California. They must be stopped, immediately,” the motion states.
Trump, however, doubled down on Tuesday and vowed to crush protestors who followed in LA’s footsteps.
“I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force than we met right here,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Anti-ICE protests of all sizes have already popped up all over the country, including in New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
More protests are expected to follow this Saturday, when a coalition of activist groups embarks on a national series of “No Kings” protests to coincide with Trump’s birthday and military parade in DC.
“If there’s any protester who wants to come out there they will be met with very big force,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The ratcheting of the president’s rhetoric comes days after sweeping ICE raids led to more than 100 arrests in the Los Angeles area, sparked in part by a directive by top White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of the president’s immigration policies.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Miller was frustrated with ICE’s failure to meet the deportation quota the administration had set and held a meeting at the agency’s headquarters last month.
During the meeting, he reportedly challenged agents to go places like Home Depot or 7-Eleven, where migrants were likely to work, and start arresting people.
This led to agents descending on the Westlake neighborhood last week to deliver on Miller’s mission, sparking resistance from community members.
The issue has placed Democrats in a delicate balancing act, given the surge in illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. under the Biden administration.
While White House officials argued that local officials did not do enough to curtail protestors as tensions flared, Democrats accused the president of escalating the situation for a media opportunity.
Speaking at the Hill on Tuesday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents a California district, reminded reporters that Trump refused to deploy the National Guard when a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“We begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard. He would not do it,” she said.
