LOS ANGELES: National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from President Donald Trump in response to clashes in recent days between federal immigration authorities and protesters seeking to block them from carrying out deportations.
Members of California’s National Guard were seen staging early Sunday at the federal complex in downtown Los Angeles that includes the Metropolitan Detention Center, one of several sites that have seen confrontations involving hundreds of people in last two days.
The troops included members of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, according to a social media post from the Department of Defense that showed dozens of National Guard members with long guns and an armored vehicle.
Trump has said he is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell the protests, which he called “a form of rebellion.”
Early Sunday, the deployment was limited to a small area in downtown Los Angeles. The protests have been relatively small and limited to a downtown section. The rest of the city of 4 million people is largely unaffected.
Their arrival follows clashes near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles. As protesters sought to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement, federal agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.
Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed past 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.
On Sunday morning, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the National Guard would “keep peace and allow people to be able to protest but also to keep law and order.”
In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty Marines “if violence continues” in the region.
The move came over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, marking the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Newsom, a Democrat, said Trump’s decision to call in the National Guard was “purposefully inflammatory.” He described Hegseth’s threat to deploy Marines on American soil as “deranged behavior.”
Trump’s order came after clashes in Paramount and neighboring Compton, where a car was set on fire. Protests continued into the evening in Paramount, with several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities holding up barbed wire to keep the crowd back.
Crowds also gathered again outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles, including a detention center, where local police declared an unlawful assembly and began to arrest people.

LONDON: The leader of the UK’s Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch has said she asks women to remove face coverings, including burqas, before speaking with them at constituency surgeries, and believes employers should be allowed to ban staff from wearing the garment.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Badenoch said she supported the right of individuals to wear what they liked, but drew a line at face coverings in certain settings.

“If you come into my constituency surgery, you have to remove your face covering, whether it’s a burqa or a balaclava,” she said. “I’m not talking to people who are not going to show me their face.”

Her comments follow renewed debate over the issue after Reform UK’s new member of Parliament, Sarah Pochin, urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to consider a burqa ban similar to those in countries such as France.

Party leader Nigel Farage also backed the call, prompting a backlash from Muslim groups and some within his own party.

Reform’s chairman, Zia Yusuf, briefly resigned after the row, citing exhaustion and racist abuse, but has since returned.

He told The Sunday Times he might support a ban in principle, but said other issues were more urgent.

Yusuf is expected to take on a number of roles within the party, including overseeing local council spending.

Badenoch linked the issue of face coverings to broader concerns over integration, pointing to Shariah courts and cousin marriages as “more insidious” challenges.

“People should be allowed to wear whatever they want, not what their husband or community tells them to wear,” she said.

She also backed the right of organizations to set their own dress codes, saying: “It shouldn’t be something that people should be able to override.”

While employers can impose dress policies, they must meet legal tests of proportionality and legitimacy under equality and human rights law.

Restrictions may be justified on grounds such as health and safety, or the need for clear communication.

The debate echoes comments made in 2006 by then-Labour home secretary Jack Straw, who said he asked women visiting his surgery to remove the burqa to enable more meaningful conversation.