LA riots against ICE operations met with 2,000 National Guard troops

Los Angeles is rioting again. Mobs, amped up by professional agitators and implicit support from Democratic elected officials, have attacked federal law enforcement officers with deadly intent. This violence, which includes hurling rocks, torching cars, launching fireworks, and assaulting federal law enforcement officers, aims to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) from carrying out lawful deportation efforts. 

Missing the irony, the rioters enthusiastically waved the flags of nations to which they are fighting against being returned.

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In response, federal and some local law enforcement deployed tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd in the LA suburb of Paramount. But with law enforcement lives clearly threatened and the local law enforcement response less than robust, President Donald Trump ordered up 2,000 members of the National Guard to restore order. Additional active duty troops are said to be on standby. 

Predictably, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass clutch their pearls, whining about “cruel” immigration enforcement while the city spirals into anarchy. Newsom labeled Trump’s federalization of the National Guard “purposefully inflammatory.” He said it would escalate tensions—one supposes the future presidential candidate sees the ruckus as “mostly peaceful.” The pro-immigration without limits group, the League of United Latin American Citizens, predictably condemned Trump’s order, claiming it “marks a deeply troubling escalation in the administration’s approach to immigration and civilian reaction to the use of military-style tactics.”

Trump isn’t moved by the criticism. He doesn’t want to see federal law enforcement officers killed or injured by anarchists and would-be revolutionaries for simply doing their jobs. 

I saw this movie before. In 1992, as a California Army National Guard captain, I patrolled LA’s scorched Crenshaw District during the Rodney King riots. Looters ran wild, businesses burned, and chaos reigned until Gov. Pete Wilson called up the National Guard and President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act, sending 3,500 federal troops—active duty Army and Marines—to back 10,000 federalized Guardsmen. Order swiftly returned. It worked.

There’s a big difference—so far—between today’s unrest and that of 1992. The Rodney King riot was initially sparked by resentment over what was seen as excessive police force. Due to LA’s chronically under-staffed police department and a tactical error—pulling back law enforcement from an intersection that had been taken over by a violent mob—the riot quickly spiraled out of control. By the end, some 63 people were dead, 2,383 injured, 12,111 arrested, and more than $2.3 billion in inflation-adjusted property damage was inflicted. In comparison, the 1992 LA riot equaled all the death, injuries, arrests, and damage of the 2020 George Floyd-Antifa-BLM riots of 2020 combined. In 1992, once law and order broke down, opportunistic looting and arson quickly followed.

Today’s riots are fueled by open-borders radicals and their enablers, not anger over police using excessive force. ICE is enforcing federal law, rounding up illegal immigrant criminals and those with final deportation orders. And the danger, so far, is more focused on federal law enforcement officers, not private property per se. 

Thus, there’s a subtle difference in the call-up of troops, both in the size of the deployment—13,500 in 1992 vs. 2,000 today—and in their purpose.

Normally, National Guard personnel, when operating on a state mission for a governor, can enforce civilian law. The post-Civil War Posse Comitatus Act which generally prohibits the use of the military to enforce civilian laws doesn’t apply. But when the Guard is federalized—that is, called up to federal service—the Posse Comitatus Act’s restrictions apply to the Guard, just as they do to active-duty service members. But there’s a big exception: The Insurrection Act. Through 1992, presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act 31 times. Essentially, when local law and order break down, the president is authorized to use the military to enforce civilian law.

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But Trump has not yet invoked the Insurrection Act. What he did instead was to call up the California National Guard and potentially some Marines to protect federal law enforcement officers. Thus, these military personnel will not be allowed to arrest agitators and rioters or conduct immigration enforcement operations, but they will be allowed to perform force protection missions and provide logistical support.

Of course, if that’s not enough. Trump can always invoke the Insurrection Act, federalize more National Guard soldiers—even from other states—and send in additional active-duty forces, just as Eisenhower and Kennedy did to smash segregationist resistance in the 1950s and 60s.

Newsom and Bass are at fault here. Their failure is glaring. Californians have been voting with their feet for years, fleeing Newsom’s wrong-headed policies. Now, his mismanagement of LA’s violence will torch what is left of his presidential ambitions. 

These rioters aren’t protesters—they’re insurgents. Like Antifa in 2020, they’re attacking federal authority, targeting ICE agents enforcing laws Congress passed. Newsom and Bass coddle them. Since they won’t act, Trump must.

The left will scream “tyranny,” and some retired generals will fret about “politicizing” the military. But anarchy is a brutal tyranny of its own kind.

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