If illegal immigration is such a problem, why not fine businesses 5x salary for using the labor, for as long as it was used? There are a lot of systems in place to verify working status at this point. It eliminates any incentive to hire this cheaper labor willing to work for lower wages.
The people coming will be coming for a variety of reasons but it won't be to take the jobs of the uneducated Americans
There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
Politics aside, LA just can't seem to catch a break. Floods last year, fires earlier this year and now this.
That said, what the current administration is doing is almost like they're following a manual other countries followed on their road to nationalistic decline and all the right people in places of power seem to know this. I wonder if they're ready for it? My observation is that the previous administration had four years to pass laws and measures based on trump's first four years and they didn't, which tells me there is really no stopping what is to come.
The planned decline of America won't be like other countries because of post-WW2 "super power" repositioning of country and it's critical role in global trade, communications and finance. All of humanity might suffer, at least that's my fear.
On the other hand, I like to think that if things turn sour and gruesome very fast, the American public might react to that well enough to make a u-turn.
Ahead of time, and from the inside, it looks and sounds like 'restoring proper order'.
Afterwards, and from the outside, it looks and sounds like ... well read some history about attempts to 'restore proper order'. The outcome and progression is entirely and sadly predictable.
It's been about 80 years since WWII. Are we doomed to repeat this on an 80 year cycle, when the last generation who went through this passes from the scene?
It's clear that many commenters here are operating from completely different factual bases, in terms of who did what, and in what order. Fog of war seems to be in effect.
"Preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States of America".. more or less what our soldiers take an oath to do. I don't see any of this as consistent with that oath. Our military commanders have a duty to refuse this order.
I wish Kevin Drum were still here. I often didn't agree with his politics, but his blog posts were always insightful, and I wonder what he would say about our current situation.
I worry that, rather than de-escalation, one of the White House’s explicit goals here is to stage manage a Kent State-like demonstration of state force against left-wing activists that spreads to other cities. I sincerely hope I’m cynically wrong here.
Whether or not someone supports the current topic of the mostly peaceful and somewhat rebellious and violent protests, this much is clear.
You either support somewhat violent protests, regardless of topic, expecting that law enforcement and civilians will handle it amongst themselves, or you are authoritarian and demand that the federal government intervene with the US Armed Forces the moment someone throws a rock at a cop car.
This is an abomination, and anyone who supports the deployment of troops in my opinion lacks the values I thought were universal in this country.
(To support this action by Trump is to say you don't support the second amendment, on the grounds that the people should never have the power to subvert the state).
I live in LA and have been here for almost 30 years now. This stunt is a provocation designed to get a reaction. He wants an excuse to crack heads in a city he hates and that hates him back. He probably also wants us to forget about Musk outing him on the Epstein files.
Watching this unfold here is reminding me strongly of the Ghorman plotline in Andor S2: "You need a resistance you can count on to do the wrong thing at the right time."
This is terrifying and unconscionable. Hard to believe this is the USA today. I don’t really see this de-escalating given the ongoing rhetoric but I hope I’m wrong.
Reminder that the authority under which the the US military is deployed against US citizens was intended to be used in exceptional (extreme) circumstances - ostensibly because no other options would suffice.
The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy
military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion
or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations.
The statute implements Congress’s authority under the Constitution
to "provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of
the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
It is the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act,
under which federal military forces are generally barred
from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.
This is the heaviest hammer in the toolbox. Deploying it against citizens he doesn't like because he resents their message is a historical display of bad character and is profoundly unethical in a way that the harshest adjectives struggle to reflect.
Using the National Guard is clearly justified. Using the national military (in the case, the Marines) is...highly questionable.
That said, California should have been on top of this situation. It looks like Newsom is willing to sacrifice the safety of his citizens in an attempt to score political points.
As a Hungarian, told my friends in November: "the election results, Project 2025, the newly elected president, etc... is the same old story we have already seen with Orban 10+y ago. But don't worry, the US has a much better established democracy, shit can't really go as wrong as in Eastern-Europe"
Well, I'm not so sure about that last part anymore.
Soldiers, especially Marines, are trained to follow orders and kill. They are not specialists in de-escalation or crowd control.
Here's hoping this is purely an optics play and they are only there to waste money and incite nationalism. Because if this escalates in any way and the US military turns on Americans, its hard to understate how bad things could get.
California has 25% of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the US. Last year, while Biden attempted to promote an immigration bill that did not pass, California made Medicaid available to unauthorized immigrants. 22% of California residents are on Medicaid, requiring $85 billion per year in matching federal assistance. Now the state has a $12 billion deficit projection for 2026. Los Angeles city recently issued bonds to fund a $1 billion budget gap for the current year. It didn't take long to speed run all that success into the ground with a few criminals that hijack protests and destroyed over $1 million in taxpayer funds in destroyed city vehicles. Half the people cheering this on will probably be unemployed in a few months.
I lived through the BLM protests in a liberal city. They let them destroy everything, then they called in the National Guard to stop looting that already happened.
Everyone’s okay with peaceful protests, but they should call in the national guard and prosecute people for violence. You might hate Trump, but in my previous experience, it’s the residents of the most liberal districts that suffer all the consequences of this nonsense.
More and more I don't understand what's happening with all of these political articles making it to the front page of HN and stuffed full of charged comments and lots of grey.
We may be smart techies but the arguments here about politics seem awfully reductive. We're out of our lane on most of this. What's with all the hate here?
The commentary here feels like its sliding it's way towards Reddit. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it's accidental, or maybe it's on purpose?
Hoping not to lose my faith in the quality of discourse on this website.
This is probably an unpopular opinion but I would like politicians on the left to speak up about the rioting and burning of stuff at the current protests and also the Tesla and George Floyd protests. It doesn’t help the cause if we allow some assholes to destroy stuff. Basically they are giving people like Trump an excuse to deploy force and a lot of people will agree. I can’t see what is achieved by burning cars and stores.
The irony is that one of the main rails upon which the MAGA train rides is States rights. But then, Trump was always going to be a rule breaker, not least to his own supporters, in the end all that will be left will be absolute fealty to the chief
Because the CNN article seems to have accidentally omitted it, allow me to paste the full text of 18 U.S. Code § 1385, the Posse Comitatus Act:
> Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
I always find it difficult to understand how the press sometimes misunderstands cause and effect. While this military intervention is being implemented now, it's not like there weren't protests before, or in other cities (including Trump's native New York).
What happened immediately before Trump started sending in armed groups to the streets of Los Angeles was Trump getting credibly accused by Elon Musk of associating with Jeffrey Epstein.
So the correct title here is "Marines deployed to LA in response to Trump's association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein being widely discussed on Twitter".
This allows people to correctly infer cause and effect, and most importantly, intent.
It's funny how so many Americans claim having loose gunrights is necessary to guarantee a free state, and protection against a federal army. Now same people have elected a government that really tries its best to turn that free state into an authoritarian dictatorship, using American military as its tool.
We'll see how far Project 2025 will go within Trump's term. I'm not optimistic.
I wonder how many civilians will be disappeared before a Dem governor finds their balls and musters the state militia. There’s millions of patriots out there just waiting for the call to action. This nonviolent shit will get you killed. MLK was a gun owner.
If that kind of talk worries you, consider how much uglier it will be when the good people of LA form unregulated militias instead. Do you really want to see Ruby Ridge 2: Rooftop Korean boogaloo?
Lots of very vocal yankees thought it was great when "pro-democracy" protesters in Hong Kong waved American flags and firebombed police and public buildings. That went on for about 6 months, if I recall. Karma's a bitch, America.
P.s. China never deployed the military in the Hong Kong insurrection.
Exactly why is this HN appropriate? Nothing that is not already in the papers and nothing particularly interesting to the HN crowd per guidelines. I came here for HN and I got reddit.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. "
Everything is a constitutional crisis now, because nobody really knows what a constitutional crisis is. We're just numbing people down and normalizing the words until they mean nothing, because we aren't using them when they really matter. The details of this do not seem like they warrant calling it a constitutional crisis. When we actually face one, there won't be words we can use to describe it anymore, because we've wasted them.
2k NG, 9k Police, and LA is still burning. The protests are still violent. I'm not sure how this ends without a continued escalation and some very violent night that gets dubbed the "California massacre" in the history books. Deploying military members who are trained to put two in the chest and one in the head all but ensures this.
But then again, how are people protesting ICE doing their literal job? The other side of the coin is that anyone can come into the united states and live here. Which is an unsustainable policy.
I don't have the answers here, but i pray the violence stops.
Your entire lifestyle is depending on, respectively subsidized by, the exploitation of imported labor from 3rd world countries. That is why a sizeable portion of you guys is so upset about these ICE immigration law enforcement actions.
You are probably posting from your Californian gated communities, afraid to lose your Mexican gardener, Venezuelan housemaid, Philippina babysitter, or your Cuban pool boy.
Marines being mobilized in response to LA protests
(cnn.com)688 points by sapphicsnail 9 June 2025 | 1665 comments
Comments
The people coming will be coming for a variety of reasons but it won't be to take the jobs of the uneducated Americans
That said, what the current administration is doing is almost like they're following a manual other countries followed on their road to nationalistic decline and all the right people in places of power seem to know this. I wonder if they're ready for it? My observation is that the previous administration had four years to pass laws and measures based on trump's first four years and they didn't, which tells me there is really no stopping what is to come.
The planned decline of America won't be like other countries because of post-WW2 "super power" repositioning of country and it's critical role in global trade, communications and finance. All of humanity might suffer, at least that's my fear.
On the other hand, I like to think that if things turn sour and gruesome very fast, the American public might react to that well enough to make a u-turn.
Afterwards, and from the outside, it looks and sounds like ... well read some history about attempts to 'restore proper order'. The outcome and progression is entirely and sadly predictable.
It's been about 80 years since WWII. Are we doomed to repeat this on an 80 year cycle, when the last generation who went through this passes from the scene?
You either support somewhat violent protests, regardless of topic, expecting that law enforcement and civilians will handle it amongst themselves, or you are authoritarian and demand that the federal government intervene with the US Armed Forces the moment someone throws a rock at a cop car.
This is an abomination, and anyone who supports the deployment of troops in my opinion lacks the values I thought were universal in this country.
(To support this action by Trump is to say you don't support the second amendment, on the grounds that the people should never have the power to subvert the state).
Watching this unfold here is reminding me strongly of the Ghorman plotline in Andor S2: "You need a resistance you can count on to do the wrong thing at the right time."
The galaxy is watching.
In this case the US is treating them with batons and rubber bullets.
This is the heaviest hammer in the toolbox. Deploying it against citizens he doesn't like because he resents their message is a historical display of bad character and is profoundly unethical in a way that the harshest adjectives struggle to reflect.
That said, California should have been on top of this situation. It looks like Newsom is willing to sacrifice the safety of his citizens in an attempt to score political points.
Well, I'm not so sure about that last part anymore.
Here's hoping this is purely an optics play and they are only there to waste money and incite nationalism. Because if this escalates in any way and the US military turns on Americans, its hard to understate how bad things could get.
Everyone’s okay with peaceful protests, but they should call in the national guard and prosecute people for violence. You might hate Trump, but in my previous experience, it’s the residents of the most liberal districts that suffer all the consequences of this nonsense.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/6/61/Victoria_Nula...
Hyped antagonism between both sides on purpose. Check.
Remember Ghorman
Seems to be some kind of tradition to send Marines every 33 years to LA.
Trump deploys National Guard as Los Angeles protests against immigration agents (105 points, 2 days ago, 50 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44214230
The National Guard Deployment in LA Is a Threat to Democracy (15 points, 7 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44230137
(Although you'd think 2000 National Guard troops would be enough without the 700 Marines)
We may be smart techies but the arguments here about politics seem awfully reductive. We're out of our lane on most of this. What's with all the hate here?
The commentary here feels like its sliding it's way towards Reddit. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it's accidental, or maybe it's on purpose?
Hoping not to lose my faith in the quality of discourse on this website.
> Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Finally, the American people fights for democracy, after centuries of oppresion. /s
What happened immediately before Trump started sending in armed groups to the streets of Los Angeles was Trump getting credibly accused by Elon Musk of associating with Jeffrey Epstein.
So the correct title here is "Marines deployed to LA in response to Trump's association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein being widely discussed on Twitter".
This allows people to correctly infer cause and effect, and most importantly, intent.
We'll see how far Project 2025 will go within Trump's term. I'm not optimistic.
If that kind of talk worries you, consider how much uglier it will be when the good people of LA form unregulated militias instead. Do you really want to see Ruby Ridge 2: Rooftop Korean boogaloo?
P.s. China never deployed the military in the Hong Kong insurrection.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1669/General-Mood-Country.aspx
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. "
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
But then again, how are people protesting ICE doing their literal job? The other side of the coin is that anyone can come into the united states and live here. Which is an unsustainable policy.
I don't have the answers here, but i pray the violence stops.
You are probably posting from your Californian gated communities, afraid to lose your Mexican gardener, Venezuelan housemaid, Philippina babysitter, or your Cuban pool boy.