Nearly 400 arrested in Los Angeles immigration protests

Los Angeles: Nearly 400 people in immigration protests have been arrested or detained by the Los Angeles Police Department since Saturday, media reports said.

The arrested and detained include 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people arrested for assault and obstruction, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting the BBC News.

On the first night of curfew starting Tuesday night in the US second largest city, there were 203 arrests for failure to disperse and 17 arrests for curfew violation, said the Los Angeles Police Department in a press release.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Tuesday evening the curfew for parts of downtown Los Angeles that started from 8:00 p.m. Tuesday (local time) to 6:00 a.m. (local time) Wednesday local time.

She noted that local authorities imposed the limited curfew in response to looting and vandalism that occurred downtown Monday night, following largely peaceful daytime protests.

Masked looters targeted several businesses, including an Apple Store, where they smashed windows and made away with electronic products. They also defaced the building with graffiti.

Other businesses hit included Adidas outlets, pharmacies, marijuana dispensaries, and jewellery stores. Videos circulating online show widespread vandalism, with shelves emptied and storefronts damaged.

Law enforcement responded with arrests as the chaos intensified. The Los Angeles Police Department was stretched thin in the face of the unrest.

US President Donald Trump has dispatched over 4,000 National Guard troops and about 700 active-duty Marines to the Los Angeles area despite the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local officials.

The President cited an “assault on peace and public order” and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used federal law, to crack down on protesters.

Demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have intensified and spread far beyond Los Angeles, with thousands of people gathering in at least two dozen cities, US media reported.

In Los Angeles, protesters briefly blocked traffic on the 101 Freeway, while in Chicago, large crowds marched through several main arteries of the downtown Loop, briefly halting traffic. Police helicopters hovered overhead as demonstrators walked among stalled buses, and one Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus had been tagged with anti-police and anti-ICE (the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency) graffiti. The Chicago Tribune reported no immediate arrests.

Similar scenes unfolded in New York, where blocks of demonstrators marched from Lower Manhattan, near the federal immigration building, while in Atlanta, some 1,000 demonstrators lined Buford Highway, with several hundred later marching into Doraville, prompting an immediate standoff with local police.

Elsewhere, protests rippled across San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Washington, with varying degrees of police presence and tension.

IANS