(AFP) – A nightly curfew in Los Angeles will continue for “a couple more days,” Mayor Karen Bass said Sunday, the ninth day of protests that have seen US President Donald Trump launch a military-backed crackdown. Demonstrators began protesting on June 6 against immigration raids launched by the Trump administration to round up undocumented migrants in the heavily Latino city in Democrat-led California.
The rallies have been mostly peaceful and confined to a small area of Downtown Los Angeles, but marred by sporadic and eye-catching violence which Republican Trump has used as a pretext to send in 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines. The extraordinary deployment came over the protests of local officials who have insisted that the situation was under control.
Bass issued an overnight curfew on June 10 on the downtown area at the heart of the protests to stop incidents of vandalism and looting. On Sunday she said she is hoping that the number of people behind the violent incidents “will taper off.” “So I know the curfew will be on for at least a couple more days,” she said in a televised interview with local news channel KTLA, adding that she cannot predict how many more days exactly.
“We don’t know how many raids are going to happen, we don’t know what the character of the raids will be, and every time that happens it really generates a lot of anger in the city,” she said. Trump, seemingly unfazed by the protests, on Sunday directed federal authorities to ramp up their deportation efforts, including in Los Angeles.
Bass noted the anger and fear that the raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency have generated in Los Angeles. “People are afraid to leave their homes,” she said, adding that raids have at times felt “indiscriminate.” “This is the United States. You are not supposed to have to show your papers if you go out in public,” she said. “It’s hard for me to believe it’s targeted.”
Trump said on social media that ICE agents had been subjected to “violence, harassment and even threats” and ordered them to “do all in their power” to effect mass deportations. Los Angeles was mostly calm on Sunday after a massive rally and march a day earlier — part of the “No Kings” series of anti-Trump protests across the country — saw thousands of people turn out to condemn the raids and the military crackdown.
A small group of demonstrators marched around City Hall during the sunny afternoon under the watchful eye of law enforcement, including several women clad in bikinis carrying signs with slogans including “Hot Girl Summer Melt ICE.”
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