Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard troops to Los Angeles

President Donald Trump‘s administration is ordering an additional 2,000 members of the California Army National Guard to the Los Angeles area under federal command, the Pentagon announced late Tuesday.

The deployment of additional soldiers was ordered despite the fact that demonstrations against federal immigration enforcement raids across the city have largely dissipated.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department told CNBC on Wednesday that there had not been any arrests related to protests in the city since Saturday night.

Mayor Karen Bass lifted the city’s nighttime curfew Tuesday.

“The curfew, coupled with ongoing crime prevention efforts, have been largely successful in protecting stores, restaurants, businesses and residential communities from bad actors who do not care about the immigrant community,” Bass said in a news release Tuesday.

The latest addition brings the total number of troops currently deployed to the LA area to 4,800. Of these, 700 are U.S. Marines and 4,100 are California Army National Guard.

The troops will “support the protection of federal functions, personnel, and property in the greater Los Angeles area,” U.S. Northern Command said in statement.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the actions of federal troops deployed to LA at a Senate hearing Wednesday in Washington.

Hegseth said the Marines and National Guard troops deployed to LA have “conducted themselves with the utmost of professionalism, defending our federal agents,” during a hearing before the Armed Services Committee.

Asked whether he would follow a court order that said the deployment of troops to U.S. cities was illegal, Hegseth replied: “I don’t believe district courts should be determining national security policy.”

“If the Supreme Court rules on a topic, we will abide by that,” he said later in the hearing.

He also defended the administration’s activation of troops to LA, saying that Trump “had all the authorities, and the Defense Department happily supported defending our ICE agents in the conduct of their job.”

He did not answer when asked numerous times by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whether he would support the decision to deploy troops to additional U.S. cities.

“It’s a complete hypothetical lacking any context at all,” he said to Warren.

Trump’s first order deploying National Guard troops to LA, on June 7, drew sharp backlash from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democratic leaders, who did not request the troops, which is a step that normally precedes the federal deployment of forces.

The deployments have also triggered a battle in the courts between California and the Trump White House. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday about the legality of the federal government’s move and appeared inclined to side with Trump in the ongoing feud, POLITICO reported.