By Associated Press’s Tara Copp
Washington (AP) According to two U.S. officials who spoke to The Associated Press on Monday, the top military commander in charge of the troops sent to Los Angeles to response to protests over immigration sweeps has requested Defense Secretary Pete Hegse if 200 of those men may be sent back to fight wildfires.
In early June, in response to a series of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of approximately 800 active duty Marines and 4,000 California National Guard troops, despite the objections of Governor Gavin Newso.
The domestic deployment of federal troops brought up a number of legal issues, such as whether the administration would try to use the Insurrection Act’s emergency powers to enable those forces to enforce the law on American soil, something they are not allowed to do except in extreme cases. However, the Marines’ primary responsibility is to guard federal structures.
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There has been no use of the Insurrection Act. However, Marines have briefly detained citizens in Los Angeles in at least one instance.
Newsom has cautioned that the deployment of the Los Angeles demonstration has left the Guard understaffed as California enters its peak wildfire season.
According to the authorities, Hegseth recently received a request from Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command and the top military commander of those troops, to return 200 National Guard members to Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, the California National Guard’s wildfire outfit.
In order to offer information not yet made public, the officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump has said that the number of people entering the nation illegally has increased. When certain members of Congress asked the secretary during their yearly budget hearings if he anticipated expanding the deployment across the country at the height of the deployments, Hegseth did not directly answer.
“I don’t see any foreign, state-sponsored folks invading,” Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman at the time, told the congressmen, “but I’ll be mindful of the fact that there have been some border issues.”
