Migration: A Political Crisis?
Published in El Heraldo de México
(Mexico) on 9 June 2025
by José Carreño Figueras (link to
original)
But if Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is to be believed, the number of protesters was only a few hundred, and the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops was unjustified
The incidents involving migrants and immigration agents in Los Angeles have underscored the Trump administration's anti-immigrant campaign, and the mobilization of National Guard troops to control them has dramatized the situation of undocumented immigrants, legal residents and U.S. citizens of color.
But if Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is to be believed, the number of protesters was only a few hundred, and the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops was unjustified.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, for his part, said that “the federal government is taking control of the California National Guard and has deployed 2,000 troops to Los Angeles, not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a show.”* He then asked that “they not be given one.”*
Nonetheless, conditions are ripe for a “show.”
Judging by appearances, some in President Donald Trump's administration are eager for images of U.S. soldiers confronting the “invading enemy,” although, according to its critics, most of those invaders are taking care of gardens, cooking, waiting tables, cleaning houses and offices, or harvesting crops.
However, the dozens, or hundreds, of people who demonstrated Saturday night around the Los Angeles Federal Detention Center allowed Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House and a well-known anti-immigrant figure, to send a tweet alleging “insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.”
The situation gives new substance to concerns about authoritarianism and xenophobia.
Above all, it raises the possibility of violence. The National Guard is not a police force but a military force.
For starters, this is the first time since 1965 that National Guard troops have been mobilized without a request from the state government. At that time, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson used them to enforce racial integration in Alabama.
In this context, expressions of discontent over the deployment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement border police, which seems to have “free rein” to fill a quota of deportations by any means necessary, have highlighted what some see as a growing sign of authoritarianism and others as a decision to “take back” the country.
Reports, not only of raids in which U.S. citizens of Latin American origin are detained and even injured, but also of abuses of authority against foreign tourists including Europeans, do not help the international image, but they do help Trump and his allies' domestic audience.
The use of the militia reflects the Trump administration's decision to use emergency laws to confront what the radical right — including racist groups — has defined for years as the “invasion” of the United States.
Will the National Guard have “free rein”?
*Editor's note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be independently verified.
The incidents involving migrants and immigration agents in Los Angeles have underscored the Trump administration's anti-immigrant campaign, and the mobilization of National Guard troops to control them has dramatized the situation of undocumented immigrants, legal residents and U.S. citizens of color.
But if Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is to be believed, the number of protesters was only a few hundred, and the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops was unjustified.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, for his part, said that “the federal government is taking control of the California National Guard and has deployed 2,000 troops to Los Angeles, not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a show.”* He then asked that “they not be given one.”*
Nonetheless, conditions are ripe for a “show.”
Judging by appearances, some in President Donald Trump's administration are eager for images of U.S. soldiers confronting the “invading enemy,” although, according to its critics, most of those invaders are taking care of gardens, cooking, waiting tables, cleaning houses and offices, or harvesting crops.
However, the dozens, or hundreds, of people who demonstrated Saturday night around the Los Angeles Federal Detention Center allowed Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House and a well-known anti-immigrant figure, to send a tweet alleging “insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.”
The situation gives new substance to concerns about authoritarianism and xenophobia.
Above all, it raises the possibility of violence. The National Guard is not a police force but a military force.
For starters, this is the first time since 1965 that National Guard troops have been mobilized without a request from the state government. At that time, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson used them to enforce racial integration in Alabama.
In this context, expressions of discontent over the deployment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement border police, which seems to have “free rein” to fill a quota of deportations by any means necessary, have highlighted what some see as a growing sign of authoritarianism and others as a decision to “take back” the country.
Reports, not only of raids in which U.S. citizens of Latin American origin are detained and even injured, but also of abuses of authority against foreign tourists including Europeans, do not help the international image, but they do help Trump and his allies' domestic audience.
The use of the militia reflects the Trump administration's decision to use emergency laws to confront what the radical right — including racist groups — has defined for years as the “invasion” of the United States.
Will the National Guard have “free rein”?
*Editor's note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be independently verified.
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