Anti-ICE raid demonstrators protest into fourth night
Anti-immigration raid protests are continuing into the fourth night as the Pentagon deployed active-duty U.S. Marines.
- Arizona’s Democratic senators and representatives criticized former President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests.
- They argued that using the military for civilian law enforcement is a misuse of resources and an overreach of power.
- Arizona Republican representatives defended Trump’s actions and criticized Democratic leaders for their handling of the protests.
Arizona’s Capitol Hill Democrats condemned President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy about 2,000 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines in response to violent immigration protests in Los Angeles.
The state’s two Democratic U.S. senators and two U.S. House members reacted on social media on June 9 and June 8.
“Sending US Marines into an American city should be an absolute last resort,” Sen. Mark Kelly said June 9 in a post on the social-media platform X. “They aren’t props. Trump is leading our country down a dangerous path. This is a mistake and he should cancel the order.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego said June 8 on X that as a Marine Corps veteran, he knows the military is meant to defend the United States from foreign adversaries and not to “batter” protesters.
“Civilian law enforcement — not the military — is responsible for enforcing the law and dealing with any violence in our streets,” Gallego wrote. “Using our troops like this is a waste of time, taxpayer money, and an insult to the men and women who serve.”
Rep. Greg Stanton called Trump’s move a power grab.
“Deploying the National Guard — over the objections of state leaders and local law enforcement — is a dangerous escalation,” Stanton wrote in a June 8 X post. “This isn’t about enforcing law and order, it’s about seizing power and control. Americans won’t tolerate this slide into authoritarianism.”
Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a freshman member of Congress, said Trump is taking aim at a variety of American rights.
“Sending the National Guard to LA in response to ICE protests chills free speech, threatens due process, and undermines our democracy,” Ansari wrote June 8 on X. “Protest must be peaceful, but this isn’t law and order — it’s political intimidation.”
Biggs: ‘The only individuals creating chaos are feckless Democrat leaders’
Meanwhile, two Arizona House Republicans loyal to Trump defended the president by taking on some prominent Democrats who attacked him.
Rep. Andy Biggs went after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who accused Trump of creating “a crisis” and vowed that LA will hold accountable “those stoking the fire of lawlessness and chaos alongside him.”
Biggs shot back in a June 9 post on X: “You’ve permitted anti-American radical Leftists to literally stoke the fire of lawlessness — for four days and counting. The only individuals creating chaos are feckless Democrat leaders like you.”
Likewise, Rep. Eli Crane responded to a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s vanquished Democratic opponent in the 2024 election.
Harris blasted the Trump administration’s “cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division” and accused Trump of “stoking fear.”
She called protest “a powerful tool” that is “essential in the fight for justice.”
“Thankfully, your statements mean nothing because you were fired for being one of the worst VPs of all time,” Crane wrote in a June 8 post on X. “Complicit in covering up a mentally unfit POTUS and unleashing an invasion at our southern border, all while ruining the U.S. economy. Go ahead and sit this one out.”
Dan Nowicki is The Arizona Republic’s national politics editor. Follow him on X at @dannowicki.
This post was originally published on here
