Los Angeles police began arresting people in the city’s downtown late Tuesday, as groups gathered in violation of an overnight curfew after a fifth day of protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Looting and vandalism in the second-biggest US city have marred the largely peaceful protests over ramped-up arrests by immigration authorities.

The demonstrations, which began Friday, and isolated acts of violence prompted Trump to take the extraordinary step of sending in troops, over the objection of the state governor.

The protests again turned ugly after dark Tuesday, but an hour into the overnight curfew only a handful of protesters were left downtown, with police making several arrests as they warned stragglers to leave.

“Multiple groups continue to congregate on 1st St between Spring and Alameda” within the designated downtown curfew area, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) wrote on X late Tuesday.

“Those groups are being addressed and mass arrests are being initiated.”

Police arrested 25 people on suspicion of violating the curfew as of Tuesday evening, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing an LAPD spokesperson.

The number of arrests was likely to rise as law enforcement worked to remove the remaining protesters from the area, the newspaper said.

Earlier, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she had issued the curfew “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting.”

One square mile (2.5 square kilometers) of the city’s more-than-500 square mile area will be off-limits from 8:00 pm and 6:00 am (0300 to 1300 GMT) for everyone apart from residents, journalists and emergency services, she added.

One protester told AFP the arrest of migrants in a city with large immigrant and Latino populations was the root of the unrest.

“I think that obviously they’re doing it for safety,” she said of the curfew.

“But I don’t think that part of the problem is the peaceful protests. It’s whatever else is happening on the other side that is inciting violence.”

At their largest, the protests have included a few thousand people taking to the streets, but smaller mobs have used the cover of darkness to set fires, daub graffiti and smash windows.

Overnight, Monday 23 businesses were looted, police said, adding that more than 500 people had been arrested over recent days.

Protests against immigration arrests by federal law enforcement have also sprung up in cities around the country, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Austin.

‘Provide protection’

Trump has ordered 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, along with 700 active-duty Marines, in what he has claimed is a necessary escalation to take back control — despite the insistence of local law enforcement that they could handle matters.

A military spokeswoman said the Marines were expected to be on the streets by Wednesday.

Their mission will be to guard federal facilities and to accompany “federal officers in immigration enforcement operations in order to provide protection.”

Demonstrators told AFP the soldiers “should be respected” because they had not chosen to be in Los Angeles, but Lisa Orman blasted it as “ridiculous.”

“I was here for the Dodger parade,” she said, referring to the LA team’s World Series victory.

“It was 100 times bigger,” she said, branding the idea that Marines were necessary as “a big show” that Trump wanted.

The Pentagon said the deployment would cost US taxpayers $134 million.

Photographs issued by the Marine Corps showed men in combat fatigues using riot shields to practice crowd control techniques at the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach.

Late Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said his state would deploy its National Guard “to locations across the state to ensure peace & order” after solidarity protests.

“Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest,” Abbott wrote on X.

The Texas National Guard “will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order.”

Behaving like ‘a tyrant’

In sprawling Los Angeles on Tuesday, it was largely a typical day: tourists thronged Hollywood Boulevard, celebrities attended red carpet premieres, tens of thousands of children went to school and commuter traffic choked the streets.

But at a military base in North Carolina, Trump was painting a much darker picture.

“What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty,” the Republican told troops at Fort Bragg.

“This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has clashed with the president before, said Trump’s shock militarization of the city was the behavior of “a tyrant, not a president.”

In a filing to the US District Court in Northern California, Newsom asked for an injunction preventing the use of troops for policing.

US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force — absent the declaration of an insurrection, which Trump has mused.

The president “is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilizing Marines,” said law professor Frank Bowman.

AFP