California’s two U.S. Senators pushed top military officials Tuesday for more information about how hundreds of U.S. Marines were deployed to Los Angeles over the objections of local leaders and what the active-duty military will do on the ground.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla asked the Pentagon to explain the legal basis for deploying 700 active-duty Marines amid ongoing protests and unrest over immigration raids across Southern California.
“A decision to deploy active-duty military personnel within the United States should only be undertaken during the most extreme circumstances, and these are not them,” Schiff and Padilla wrote in the letter. “That this deployment was made over the objections of state authorities is all the more unjustifiable.”
California is challenging the legality of the militarization, arguing in a lawsuit filed Monday that the deployment of both the National Guard and the Marines violated the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which spells out the limits of federal power.
Schiff and Padilla asked Hegseth to clarify the mission the Marines will be following during their deployment, as well as what training the troops have received for crowd control, use of force and de-escalation.
The senators also asked whether the Defense Department received any requests from the White House or the Department of Homeland Security about “the scope of the Marines’ mission and duties.”
Hegseth mobilized the Marines Monday from a base in Twentynine Palms. Convoys were seen heading east on the 10 Freeway toward Los Angeles on Monday evening.
Schiff and Padilla said that Congress received a notification from the U.S. Northern Command on Monday about the mobilization that said the Marines had been deployed to “restore order” and support the roughly 4,000 members of the state National Guard who had been called into service Saturday and Monday.
The notification, the senators said, “did not provide critical information to understand the legal authority, mission, or rules of engagement for Marines involved in this domestic deployment.”
The California National Guard was first mobilized Saturday night over Newsom’s objection.
The last time a president sent the National Guard into a state without a request from the governor was six decades ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson mobilized troops in Alabama to defend civil rights demonstrators and enforce a federal court order in 1965.
Trump and the White House have said the military mobilization is legal under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Forces. The statute gives the president the authority to federalize the National Guard if there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” but also states that the Guard must be called up through an order from the state’s governor.
Trump has said that without the mobilization of the military, “Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
Days of protests have included some violent clashes with police and some vandalism and burglaries.
“It was heading in the wrong direction,” Trump said Monday. “It’s now heading in the right direction. And we hope to have the support of Gavin, because Gavin is the big beneficiary as we straighten out his problems. I mean, his state is a mess.”
On Tuesday morning, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said city officials had not been told what the military would do, given that the National Guard is already in place outside of federal buildings.
“This is just absolutely unnecessary,” Bass said. “People have asked me, ‘What are the Marines going to do when they get here?’ That’s a good question. I have no idea.”
On Tuesday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sought a restraining order to block the deployment.
