NEW YORK, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Roughly 500 Marines based out of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in California have been mobilized to respond to the protests in Los Angeles and will join the thousands of National Guard troops that were activated by U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend without the consent of California's governor or LA's mayor, reported CNN on Monday.
"The deployment of the full Marine battalion marks a significant escalation in Trump's use of the military as a show of force against protesters, but it is still unclear what their task will be once in LA," noted the report. Like the National Guard troops, they are prohibited from conducting law enforcement activity like making arrests unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.
Meanwhile, the Guard presence will be augmented on the ground in Los Angeles. Over 2,000 members of the California National Guard have been activated by the president, but only about 300 have been deployed to the streets of Los Angeles so far. Those initial 300 people were on a routine National Guard drill weekend when they were mobilized, which is why they were able to arrive so quickly.
"While their tasks have not been specified publicly, they could include assignments like crowd control or establishing perimeter security," said the report. Lawyers within the Defense Department are also still finalizing language around the use of force guidelines for the troops being mobilized.
More than 1,000 protesters clashed and faced off with National Guard troops in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday during the latest demonstrations against immigration raids that swept across California over the weekend.
More protests are expected in the city on Monday, while other protests of the kind are planned in cities like Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Harrisburg, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., according to the Service Employees International Union. ■