'These are Americans': Huntington Park mayor and veteran delivers plea to Marines deployed to protests
As anti-immigration raid protests continue for the sixth day in Los Angeles, a group of 30 regional mayors from Southern California came together to stand in support and solidarity with those peacefully protesting.
During a press conference led by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday, Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores, who is a Marine veteran, spoke directly to servicemembers deployed to the protests by President Donald Trump's administration.
His comments come as over 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines are set to be stationed in Los Angeles, despite fervent objections from some local leaders.
Trump said deployment is necessary to "address the lawlessness" and has said that Los Angeles would be "burning to the ground" if he hadn't sent the servicemembers in.
"I have a message for those Marines," Flores began, speaking of the oath that he and all servicemembers take to "defend the Constitution and to defend this country."
"That oath was to the American people. It was not to a dictator, it was not to a tyrant, it was not to a president -- it was to the American people," Flores said.
"The people that are here in these communities, in the city of LA and the cities that you'll hear from, are Americans, whether they have a document or they don't," Flores added.
The protests -- which began Friday in Paramount, California, and have spread to nearby downtown Los Angeles -- were in part sparked by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid carried out in front of a local Home Depot in Huntington Park and in other locations in the area.
Since Friday, there have been over 300 people detained by ICE in Los Angeles, according to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, a local immigrant rights organization.
On Tuesday, the official ICE account on X shared a photo of National Guardsmen on the scene of a detention being carried out by an ICE agent with the caption: "Photos from today's ICE Los Angeles immigration enforcement operation."
Speaking of the "militarization of immigration enforcement," Flores said it "has no place in our neighborhoods, and the deployment of Marines on U.S. soil is an alarming escalation that undermines the values of democracy."
"We stand against these fear-based tactics that target immigrant communities and erode public trust," he said, calling the Trump administration's actions to deploy over 4,000 servicemembers "political theater that is rooted in fear."
