Dozens of U.S. federal officers in tactical gear, vehicles sent to LA park

Dozens of federal officers in tactical gear roamed a mostly empty park in a Los Angeles neighbourhood with a large immigrant population on Monday for about an hour before clearing out.

It wasn’t immediately known if any arrests were made.

U.S. defence officials had said about 90 members of the California National Guard and over a dozen military vehicles would help protect immigration officers as they carried out a raid in MacArthur Park.

Mayor Karen Bass was among the small crowd who watched as officers moved through a section of the park in the late morning and then got back in the vehicles and cleared out.

Some activists who had earlier warned people to leave the area filmed the officers. Messages were sent to the mayor’s office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeking additional details.

The operation in the large park about two miles west of downtown LA included 17 Humvees, four tactical vehicles, two ambulances and the armed soldiers, defence officials said.

It came after U.S. President Donald Trump deployed thousands of Guard members and active duty Marines to the city last month following protests over previous immigration raids.

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Trump has stepped up efforts to realize his campaign pledge of deporting millions of immigrants in the United States illegally and shown a willingness to use the nation’s military might in ways other U.S. presidents have typically avoided.

The officials told reporters that it was not a military operation but acknowledged that the size and scope of the Guard’s participation could make it look like one to the public. That is why the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the raid that were not announced publicly.

“It’s just going to be more overt and larger than we usually participate in,” one of the officials said.

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The primary role of the service members would be to protect the immigration enforcement officers in case a hostile crowd gathered, that official said. They are not participating in any law enforcement activities such as arrests, but service members can temporarily detain citizens if necessary before handing them over to law enforcement, the official said.

The operation occurred at a park in a neighborhood with large Mexican, Central American and other immigrant populations and is lined by businesses with signs in Spanish and other languages that has been dubbed by local officials as the “Ellis Island of the West Coast.”

Sprawling MacArthur Park has a murky lake ringed by palm trees, an amphitheater that hosts summer concerts and sports fields where immigrant families line up to play soccer in the evenings and on weekends. Authorities routinely clear encampments and medical outreach teams tend to unhoused residents.

More than 4,000 California National Guard and hundreds of U.S. Marines have been deployed in Los Angeles since June — against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Last week, the military announced about 200 of those troops would be returned to their units to fight wildfires.