US President Donald Trump's administration has said it will send 2,000 National Guard troops as federal agents in Los Angeles were confronted by hundreds of demonstrators during a second day of protests over immigration raids.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Pentagon was prepared to send in active-duty troops "if violence continues" in the city, saying the Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were "on high alert".
Federal security agents on Saturday confronted protesters in the Paramount area of south-east Los Angeles, where some demonstrators displayed Mexican flags. A second protest in the city's downtown on Saturday night attracted about 60 people, who chanted slogans including "ICE out of LA."
The protests kicked off on Friday night after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted enforcement operations in Los Angeles and arrested at least 44 people on alleged immigration offences.
Mr Trump signed a presidential order to send National Guard troops to "address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester", the White House said in a statement. His border adviser, Tom Homan, told US media that the National Guard would be sent to Los Angeles on Saturday.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called the decision "purposefully inflammatory". He wrote on X that Mr Trump was using the National Guard "not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle", adding: "Don't give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully."
Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that if Mr Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cannot do their jobs, "then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, riots and looters, the way it should be solved".
The protests pit Democratic-run Los Angeles, where census data suggests a significant portion of the population is Hispanic and foreign-born, against Mr Trump's Republican White House, which has made a campaign against immigration a hallmark of his second term.
"Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers, while one half of America's political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil," Vice President JD Vance posted on X late on Saturday.
Senior White House aide Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, described the protests as a "violent insurrection".
Video of the Paramount rally showed dozens of green-uniformed security personnel with gas masks, lined up on a road strewn with overturned shopping trolleys as small canisters exploded into gas clouds.
"Now, they know that they cannot go to anywhere in this country where our people are, and try to kidnap our workers, our people – they cannot do that without an organised and fierce resistance," protester Ron Gochez, 44, told the Reuters news agency.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that there were about "1,000 rioters" at the protests on Friday.
Mr Trump has threatened to deport record numbers of people who are in the US illegally and lock down the Mexico border, with the White House setting a goal for ICE to arrest at least 3,000 migrants a day.
But the sweeping crackdown has also caught up people who are legally resident in the country, including some with permanent residence, and has led to legal challenges.
TV news video on Friday showed unmarked vehicles resembling military transport and vans loaded with uniformed federal agents streaming through Los Angeles streets as part of the immigration enforcement operation.
Ms Bass condemned the immigration raids.
"I am deeply angered by what has taken place," she said in a statement. "These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. We will not stand for this."
