LONDON – The clashes between rioters and federal and California National Guards troops now unfolding in Los Angeles have played out in typical American fashion, with exaggerated claims and disputes about the interpretation of supposedly grand constitutional principles.
US President Donald Trump claims that, had he not deployed a total of around 5,000 troops, Los Angeles “would be burning”.
But Ms Karen Bass, Los Angeles’ mayor, argues that law and order was never truly threatened in her city, and that the solution to the violence is simple: the “administration needs to stop the raids”.
Meanwhile, Mr Gavin Newsom, California’s Governor, is suing the Trump administration, alleging that the President’s actions violate the US Constitution, and particularly the 10th Amendment that says that any power not expressly granted to the US federal government in the Constitution goes to the states.
But in reality, both the confrontation and the surrounding spectacle are proxy battles in preparation not only for next year’s mid-term Congressional elections, but also for the much more significant political landmark of 2027, when the two parties will pick their following presidential candidates.
The illegal immigrants and soldiers are merely actors in this political tussle.
What both sides got wrong on immigration
Mr Trump’s obsession with immigration has dominated his 2024 presidential campaign and US politics for the past decade.
As they went to the ballots in November 2024, almost two-thirds of US voters saw immigration as a priority for them in the election.
Democratic party bosses now readily acknowledge that their inability to provide convincing answers to the immigration dilemma and the perception that the borders between the US and Mexico were wide open to illegal migrants cost them dearly.
Worries about illegal immigration were not confined to white Americans, as some Democratic politicians like to claim. A large number of Black US citizens also voted for Mr Trump because they felt threatened by influxes of illegal immigrants.
The idea that Latino voters in the US are in solidarity with Spanish-speakers arriving from various parts of Central and South America is also an urban political myth: there is little in common between the sons and daughters of refugees from Cuba who are key players in states such as Florida, and the Hispanic migrants who are predominant in states such as New Mexico or California.
From the moment Mr Trump was sworn into the White House, it was clear that clamping down on immigration would remain one of the President’s key policy objectives.
Still, most of Mr Trump’s statistics on question of immigration have been plucked out of thin air.
The President claims, for instance, that “over 22 million” illegal migrants entered the US under Mr Joe Biden, his White House predecessor.
However, the Department of Homeland Security suggests that only 11 million “unauthorised immigrants” lived in the country in 2022, the last year for which complete figures were released.
Mr Trump is also wrong to pretend that his Democratic predecessors “did nothing” to deport illegal migrants.
The administration of President Joe Biden carried out 1.5 million deportations in its four years in power, not much fewer than the total deported from the US during Mr Trump’s first term.
And during Mr Barack Obama’s presidency, up to a total of 2.9 million illegal immigrants were removed, a record that Mr Trump still struggles to break.
The new battlelines
Where the Trump administration is correct, however, is that immigration questions are federal, rather than state matters, and that the White House retains a very wide latitude on who gets admitted to the US, or who gets deported from it.
The total number of illegal migrants residing in California is disputed. Yet there is broad agreement that up to a quarter of all illegal migrants in the US are in this state.
California legislators have granted illegal immigrants privileges they cannot get in most other states, including driver’s licences, healthcare, college tuition and some financial aid.
It was, therefore, only a question of time before officers of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) started arresting alleged illegal migrants in California.
Most Republican voters also see California as a bastion of America’s most left-wing political establishment. There is no question that, in ordering the ICE raids, the Trump administration knew it was igniting a major political clash.
Californian politicians claim that Mr Trump’s decision to take control of the state’s National Guard – which is usually under the command of the state’s governor – and deploy additional US federal military in Los Angeles are an abuse of powers.
Such powers should only be used in an extreme emergency of a complete breakdown of law and order, which was clearly not the case in Los Angeles.
In his filings before the courts, California Attorney-General Rob Bonta called the deployment an “inflammatory escalation unsupported by conditions on the ground” and one which “exceeds the federal government’s authority”.
However, this glosses over the fact that the last time US presidents used such powers was during the 1960s, to quell riots against the abolition of racial segregation in schools.
These were more violent affairs than what happened in Los Angeles over the past week. Still, they hardly amounted to the complete breakdown of law and order.
Yet those 1960s deployments are now accepted by most Americans as entirely justified, even though they did not come in response to extreme violence, despite flaming passions at that time.
Furthermore, California passed laws banning the state’s police forces and other law enforcement agencies from helping with detention and deportation cases unless these involve illegal migrants suspected of committing a serious crime.
So, the Trump administration can justifiably claim that although the demonstrations against the ICE arrests in Los Angeles were initially small, local police could not be relied upon to quell them, and federal intervention was, therefore, required.
Who wins?
The courts will debate the question for many months to come. And it will probably end up in the US Supreme Court, where judges are more likely to side with the administration, not because a majority of the Court’s judges were appointed by Republicans, but more because the Supreme Court is traditionally reluctant to restrict the US president’s discretion in deciding on what are national emergencies.
Mr Trump has already invoked obscure laws dating back to America’s independence more than two centuries ago to seal the border with Mexico, without encountering serious objections.
What is clear, however, is that the protests against harsh immigration policies in Los Angeles are propelling California Governor Gavin Newsom into his favourite political role: that of chief Democratic opponent to President Trump.
The confrontation with Mr Trump could now determine whether California’s governor has what it takes to play his long-coveted role: that of US president.
