The pop of flash bangs and the drawing of rubber bullet launchers by police sent protesters scattering down streets in downtown LA during a fourth day of demonstrations against Donald Trump’s immigration policy.

Dozens of National Guard – America’s reserve force – carrying shields and long guns, created a perimeter around a federal building as protesters angrily shouted at them.

“National Guard out of LA,” they chanted, followed by a chorus of “shame, shame, shame”.

The arrival of National Guard troops on the streets, with a total of 4,000 now deployed by President Trump against the wishes of California governor Gavin Newsom, seems to have escalated tensions.

Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass described her city as a “test case” for Trump usurping the authority of local governments.

The news that 700 marines were also being mobilised, ready to deploy, was viewed by Democratic politicians as not just a gross overreaction to the situation but a cynical political ploy by the White House to stoke trouble.

Trump says they are needed to restore law and order.

As it happened: 700 marines to be deployed in LA

Crowd control explosions were being deployed from the rooftops of the federal buildings towards protesters in a plaza below in a bid to disperse the crowd.

Many of those gathering are first and second-generation immigrants, mostly from Central and South America.

They are furious about the raids that took place last week. Dozens of immigrants were rounded up in LA’s garment district, an area packed with clothing wholesalers.

Read more:
What we know about the LA immigration raids and protests
Downtown LA is a scene of pandemonium and lawlessness

Bryanna Ordonez, 17, was protesting with friends. Her dad was among the 44 people arrested in the raids. He’d lived here – illegally – for more than 10 years.

“My father got deported on 6 June,” she said, holding back tears. “I’m here protesting for him and two of my uncles that were deported.

“Our parents worked so hard to get us here today just to be taken from us because they wanted us to have a better life. It’s so unfair.”

Giovanni Garcia is from South Central LA. His mother emigrated from Mexico 26 years ago, but she only received her Green Card last year.

“Everyone says LA is an immigrant city, and it is,” says Giovanni. “You go to Chinese restaurants, they have Hispanic workers in the back.

“You know, you go to the clothing companies, they have Hispanics working. Like, this is our city, and we have to stand here and defend it.”

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As dusk fell, the crowds thinned on the streets. A remaining hardcore of demonstrators were backed into a corner of downtown LA known as Little Tokyo.

As night fell, an hours-long standoff between police and protesters took place next to a pagoda and with the backdrop of a giant mural of LA Dodgers baseball star Shohei Ohtani, before, eventually, a number of them were arrested.

LA is a city known for sporting prowess, multiculturalism and a long history of resistance movements – the immigration protests of 2025 now among them.

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Protests have entered their fourth day in Los Angeles. As people continue to clash with police, Trump has deployed the National Guard against the wishes of the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

Martha Kelner has been reporting from the streets of LA, seeing burning cars, tear gas, and people being hit with rubber bullets. Martha, Mark Stone, and James Matthews discuss the scenes in LA, and Trump’s reaction.

If you’ve got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

A shirtless man waving a Mexican flag stands atop a burning car in the heart of Los Angeles, as another man throws a traffic cone into the flames and some play drums and shout chants in opposition to immigration officials.

In the background, city hall can be glimpsed through a haze of thick black smoke.

The downtown district of one of America’s biggest cities was a scene of pandemonium and lawlessness as protests, which had previously been mainly peaceful, turned ugly.

Critics of Donald Trump said the president’s extraordinary decision to deploy National Guard troops, defying the wishes of the state’s governor, had inflamed tensions and stoked emotions.

The 101 Freeway, the main highway cutting through the downtown area, was also closed down for much of the day as police and protesters faced off, with flash bang devices sending some people scattering.

Bottles and other projectiles were hurled towards police, who responded by using tear gas and rubber bullets.

It was this chaos, his critics say, that Donald Trump wanted to provoke.

Trump’s decision to call in 2,000 National Guard troops, several hundred of whom were on the streets of LA on Sunday, was taken without consultation with the California governor and LA mayor, and marked an extraordinary escalation by the president.

The military arrived on Sunday morning and was ordered to guard federal buildings, after two days of protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

As part of Trump’s closed border policy, ICE has been ordered to find, detain and deport as many illegal immigrants as possible, and it was these raids that stoked the first signs of protest on Friday into the weekend.

By midday Sunday, the military was surrounded by protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown LA. It was here that many immigrants had been held before being shipped off to detention facilities.

The walls and floors are covered in expletive-ridden graffiti, reading f*** ICE.

The Los Angeles police soon split the crowd and drove a wedge between the National Guard and the crowd.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has called Donald Trump’s acts those of a “dictator, not a president”.

He’s formally requested that the Trump administration withdraw the National Guard. The White House say the military will remain there until order is restored. Five hundred marines are still on standby.

Los Angeles Police Department police chief Jim McDonnell, asked whether the National Guard was needed, said: “This thing has gotten out of control.”

He said that although the LAPD would not initially have requested assistance from the National Guard, the disorder had caused him to reevaluate his assessment.

Several people were arrested.

Sky News witnessed a young woman, who called herself Gabriella, riding her motorbike at speed towards a line of police officers.

Read more from Sky News:
Analysis: Trump deploys federal force in LA
Trump claims CA officials ‘can’t do their jobs’

One of the police officers used his arm to push her off the bike. She said she was protesting because her “people were being rounded up.”

Politicians on both sides of the aisle condemned the violence, but some vehemently disagreed about what actions led to the escalation.