There are lessons in the LA protests for all of us

It’s time for the Trump administration to de-escalate the drama in California, a manufactured crisis to trick Americans into thinking illegal immigration has made them so unsafe that only the nation’s military could restore order.

The demonstrations in Los Angeles began Friday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, trying to fill a Trump administration national quota of detaining 3,000 migrants each day, began raiding businesses, including a day labor roundup at a Home Depot. They were met with protesters from immigrant rights groups and labor unions. By Sunday night, social media calls for support for the demonstrators, and the presence of ever-ready anti-government types eager to agitate and breach the barricades, led to civil unrest in part of the downtown area. Graffiti was sprayed on buildings and projectiles thrown at city and highway police who were trying to disperse crowds, some of whose members set cars on fire and threw concrete bollards and fireworks from an overpass onto a major roadway.

It made for dramatic live television. It also was shamefully wrong for those protesters to attack police and destroy property. Clearly, city officials took way too long to break up crowds that were threatening public safety. Despite lingering tensions, however, there was no indication as of late afternoon on Tuesday that ICE agents were in danger of harm or that Los Angeles and California law enforcement forces could not handle the unfolding situation.

But Trump kept ramping up his rhetoric and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, auditioning for a role on the Democratic ticket in 2028, met him in kind. None of this advanced any effort to devise a better way to reach a solution for the nation’s failures on immigration policies.

Trump began his second term delivering on his signature issue, starting with a crackdown on gangs and violent criminals. But his administration soon realized that even repeatedly defying due process couldn’t deliver the numbers promised the president. Now, the second phase is workplace raids, a demand White House policy czar Stephen Miller recently gave to ICE regional directors. That’s what’s happening in California and elsewhere, including in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Residents of many communities are responding angrily and fearfully to seeing their neighbors and co-workers shoved into unmarked vehicles by federal agents wearing face coverings.

Pentagon officials Tuesday estimated the price tag of Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard members and 700 active duty Marines to Los Angeles for 60 days to be $134 million. That’s what we are paying for a small detail of soldiers to stand in front of some federal buildings in Los Angeles and to have Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton at the ready despite no indication of need.

This disruption of the boundaries between civil governance and military power is likely to cost the nation much more.