Los Angeles Declares Curfew Amid Immigration Protest Unrest

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass imposed an overnight curfew Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles as immigration-related protests intensified, leading to repeated clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.

Bass announced the curfew on social media, citing escalating tensions following U.S. President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration raids. “I issued a curfew starting tonight at 8 p.m. for Downtown Los Angeles to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the President’s chaotic escalation,” she posted on X. “Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted.”

The emergency measure, in effect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., will remain in place for several days and covers about one square mile of downtown, including key government buildings like the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and City Hall.

Trump earlier ramped up his rhetoric while addressing Army troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, calling the protests “a full-blown assault on peace, on public order, and on national sovereignty,” and alleging that demonstrators were carrying foreign flags in an attempt to “continue a foreign invasion of our country.”

He accused California Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass of aiding what he termed an “occupation” by undocumented immigrants. “They paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists,” Trump claimed. When pressed by reporters later, he appeared to walk back the accusation. “I didn’t say the governor or the mayor. I said somebody’s paying them, I think,” he said.

In defiance of objections from state and city leaders, Trump has deployed approximately 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. Newsom’s legal effort to halt the deployment was temporarily denied by Senior District Judge Charles Breyer, who scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

The protests erupted on Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided businesses across the city and detained hundreds of people suspected of residing in the U.S. without legal documentation.

Critics of the raids argue the administration is targeting peaceful, undocumented immigrants who contribute to the local economy, rather than the criminals Trump promised to remove during his re-election campaign. Despite growing opposition, federal immigration operations have continued throughout Los Angeles.