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US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the deployment of US Marines in Los Angeles to “enforce immigration law”, as Democratic lawmakers insisted there was “no need” for the deployment.
In often heated exchanges, representatives suggested President Donald Trump lacked the authority to send in the soldiers, insisting Los Angeles law enforcement agencies were perfectly capable of dealing with the protests that have shaken the city without the help of federal troops.
Hegseth was testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense over the Pentagon’s budget request for 2026. But Democratic lawmakers seized on the opportunity to question a deployment that many critics — and some military veterans — have condemned as a misuse of executive power.
“We have deployed National Guard and the Marines to protect them [federal immigration officials] in the execution of their duties,” Hegseth said, “because we ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country”.
The Trump administration announced on Monday that it would send 700 Marines to Los Angeles, over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom. The Marines would be sent to protect “federal personnel and federal property”, the US Northern Command said.
Hegseth said the Marines would support agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose actions in detaining alleged undocumented immigrants over the past few weeks have triggered widespread protests in Los Angeles.
“In Los Angeles we believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21mn illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration,” he said, using a term for undocumented immigrants.
Experts have questioned the figure of 21mn, often used by the Trump administration, and estimate the true number to be closer to 7mn-9mn.
The move to deploy marines to Los Angeles came just hours after Newsom sued Trump for an earlier decision to deploy National Guard troops to stamp out the anti-ICE protests without the governor’s support.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court, called the president’s decision an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority”.
The last time a president sent National Guard troops to deal with civil unrest without the consent and co-operation of a governor was in 1965.
Military forces frequently help in the US during natural disasters, but it is rare for them to be dispatched to assist in enforcing domestic law, particularly without the support of the state’s governor.
The decision to send in the Marines was sharply criticised by Betty McCollum, a Democratic committee member, who told Hegseth she saw “no need for the Marines to be deployed”.
“History had proven that law enforcement and the National Guard are more than capable of handling situations more volatile than what happened this weekend” in Los Angeles, she said.
McCollum said the unrest “looks nothing like the George Floyd protests [in 2020] or the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992”.
“This is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in,” she said. “Their service should be honoured. It should not be exploited.”
Pete Aguilar, a Democratic Representative from California, asked Hegseth what the justification was for using the military for civilian law enforcement purposes.
He noted that Trump had invoked a statute, 10 U.S.C. 12406, which only allows the president to call National Guard members and units into federal service under certain circumstances — such as during an invasion by a foreign nation, a rebellion against the authority of the government, or when the president is unable to execute US laws with regular force.
Hegseth said US authorities were currently facing “all three” scenarios in Los Angeles. “If you’ve got millions of illegals and you don’t know where they’re coming from, they’re waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers, it’s a problem.”
Asked by Aguilar how long the marine deployment would last, the defence secretary said 60 days — “because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side, assaulting our police officers, know that we’re not going anywhere”.
