By DAMIAN DOVARGANES and TARA COPP
Los Angeles (AP) According to defense sources, immigration police conducting a raid in a park in Los Angeles on Monday are being protected by about 90 members of the California National Guard and more than a dozen military vehicles, including Humvees.
About two miles west of downtown Los Angeles, in an area with a high immigrant population, MacArthur Park is the site of an operation involving 17 Humvees, four tactical vehicles, two ambulances, and armed soldiers. Following demonstrations over earlier immigration raids, President Donald Trump sent thousands of Guard men and active duty Marines to the city last month.
Trump has increased his efforts to carry out his campaign promise to expel millions of illegal immigrants from the United States and has demonstrated a readiness to utilize the country’s military power in ways that previous American presidents have generally avoided.
Although the officials told reporters it was not a military operation, they admitted that the public would see it as such due to the size and extent of the Guard’s involvement. For this reason, the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity shared information about the raid that was not made public.
According to one of the officials, it will just be bigger and more obvious than what we typically do.
According to that official, the service members’ main responsibility would be to defend the immigration enforcement officials in the event that an antagonistic mob assembled. According to the official, service members have the authority to temporarily hold citizens before turning them over to law enforcement, even though they are not taking part in any arrests or other law enforcement operations.
The operation is taking place at a park in an area known by local officials as the Ellis Island of the West Coast, which is lined with businesses with signage in Spanish and other languages and has a sizable immigrant population from Mexico, Central America, and other countries.
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An amphitheater that holds summer concerts, a murky lake surrounded by palm trees, and sports fields where immigrant families congregate to play soccer on the weekends and in the evenings are all features of sprawling MacArthur Park. Encampments are regularly cleared by authorities, and those who are homeless are attended to by medical outreach teams.
According to the officials, in order to stand out from the military, the immigration law enforcement personnel will be donning dark blue tops. The camouflage pants would remain on the officers.
Despite California Governor Gavin Newsom’s preferences, hundreds of U.S. Marines and more than 4,000 members of the California National Guard have been stationed in Los Angeles since June. The military said last week that roughly 200 of those soldiers would be sent back to their regiments to combat wildfires.
Copp reported from Washington.
