Active-duty Marines deployed to the Los Angeles area to protect federal buildings and personnel amid protests there are authorized to temporarily detain people “if threatened” or “otherwise harassed” before turning them over to civilian law enforcement, according to two defense officials.
The Marines — 700 of whom deployed from a base in Twentynine Palms, California, on Monday in response to the protests — were still training in crowd control and rules for the use of force at a Navy base in Orange County as of Wednesday and were expected to finish within the next two days before being employed, one of the defense officials and spokesperson for U.S. Northern Command said. They did not specify their destination.
Another defense official said the Marines could be sent into the city “tomorrow at the earliest.”
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Defense officials and leaders in charge of the operation said Marines are not authorized to act as law enforcement officers. But a legal expert said that even granting temporary detention authority to troops can be construed as a law enforcement act, blurring the line between civilian police and service members on active orders deployed to American streets.
“The president has not initiated the Insurrection Act, so active-duty military would not be allowed to conduct any kind of law enforcement activity,” retired Marine Lt. Col. Gary Barthel, a former judge advocate general with more than three decades in legal experience, told Military.com on Wednesday. “But detaining somebody could be considered an act of law enforcement.”
The deployment of troops against the wishes of California’s Democratic governor and the use of active-duty troops to augment civilian law efforts have raised a multitude of questions about the operation, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said would go on for at least 60 days.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed an emergency motion in court Tuesday to halt the use of troops while President Donald Trump has continued to say he’s considering invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the military to conduct law enforcement activities within the U.S. in an emergency.
So far, Trump has not tapped the powers under the act.
“The law is clear that he has to impose the Insurrection Act in order for Marines to be involved in law enforcement duties, and if they’re going to detain people, then – to me – that would be deemed an arrest, even if they’re just holding them for the civilian authorities to take away,” Barthel said.
Protests, along with sporadic violence, began in L.A. last week over the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive nationwide raids by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cases of ICE agents in tactical gear — often masked — making arrests in communities have proliferated, and the protests against those operations have also spread to other major cities.
Hegseth indicated Wednesday in testimony to Congress that the military could be deployed to other cities amid the public pushback against Trump’s immigration policies, which seek the mass deportation of millions in the U.S.
When asked what would constitute a threat or harassment, a separate Northern Command spokesperson said they wouldn’t get into “hypotheticals” and that “each person will end up having to make their own individual determination on whether or not the threat that they’re facing meets” the criteria for the standing rules for the use of force, or SRUF, which establishes guidance for military personnel on civil missions.
Officials spoke to Military.com on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the deployment.
The SRUF for the L.A. deployment prohibits warning shots, but authorizes self-defense, a defense official said, though the specific parameters for self-defense and other conditions within the guidance remain unclear. A defense official described the rules as the same ones that have been in place for troops operating in the U.S. for some time.
The infantry unit, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines was not trained in the use of non-lethal force and crowd control prior to being put on deployment notice Saturday, according to one of the defense officials, but some of the Marines in the formation may have had prior experience in those tasks. They said the unit sourced the crowd control equipment from “across the Marines in Southern California.”
Now, they are in the midst of a 20-hour training package at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach that includes the use of batons, riot shields, reaction to civil unrest and refreshers on physical takedowns, according to the defense official and aerial video from an ABC News-affiliate showing Marines training. They added they are staying in “hard structures” and have food and water at the naval base, but it was unclear what those conditions would look like if deployed into downtown L.A., for example.
In the wake of their deployment, the military removed the public website for the infantry battalion, one of the defense officials confirmed.
“We received initial reporting from the unit that there were prank calls to all the numbers listed on the website for the command duty officer, and other numbers listed on the website,” they said in a follow-up email. “There were additional concerns about harassment of leadership and their family based on information listed on the website, so we temporarily removed the information from public view. Once the mission is complete and the Marines safely return home, we will immediately restore the website.”
Major Gen. Scott Sherman, the commander of Task Force 51 which oversees the Guard and Marine operations in the area, told reporters on Wednesday that the Marines will not have ammunition “in their rifle.” It was not clear from Sherman’s comments whether that meant they wouldn’t have a round chambered or if their rifles wouldn’t have a magazine inserted. They will also be equipped with gas masks, a defense official said.
One defense official stressed the Marines would be doing the same mission as the already deployed National Guard.
“The Marines are doing the same thing the Guard are doing, just in a different outfit,” they said.
That same official said that while troops would have the power to detain civilians, the intention is for those detentions to be brief. One scenario that is being envisioned is one that has already been encountered and photographed — troops guarding a federal agent making an arrest.
The official said this could be a scenario in which the group would be approached by someone who proceeds to harass them. In that situation, the official said troops would briefly detain the person until civilian law enforcement is freed up to deal with the situation.
“There’s no need for it,” Barthel said. “The only justification for doing it is if you’re trying to suppress people’s right to protest the government’s policies. And that’s something that’s done in China, Russia and North Korea, but it shouldn’t be done in the United States, where we’re putting our military on the public streets and using our military to squelch free speech by the public, and in doing that, it puts the military in a position where they’re being politicized and the public’s trust and confidence in the military is going to be depleted.”
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