Washington, DC — As the Trump administration continues to provoke and escalate the volatile situation in Los Angeles, leading voices are denouncing the dangerous motivations and implications behind Trump and Stephen Miller’s efforts. Meanwhile, fresh polling from YouGov finds the Trump administration’s handling of deportations and deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to L.A. are each more unpopular than popular.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Weaponizing the National Guard, bringing in the Marines to American neighborhoods and communities and indiscriminately targeting citizens and noncitizens alike behind masks and guns are actions designed to inflame a situation, ignore rights and instill fear. The American people see Trump and Miller’s actions for what they really are: a dangerous overreach and escalation that undermine our values and threaten our communities, while not doing anything to advance real immigration solutions.”
Below find key voices and recent coverage underscoring the above points:
- YouGov polling (June 9, 2025) finds that Americans disapprove of Trump’s deployment of the Marines and the National Guard to protests in Los Angeles and that a majority disapproves of Trump’s “handling of deportations.” Specifically when asked:
- 45% disapprove and 38% approve of deploying National Guard soldiers (Independents disapprove 47-30% and Democrats 74-13%)
- 47% disapprove and 34% approve of deploying Marines (Independents disapprove 50-27% and Democrats 75-12%)
- 50% disapprove and 39% approve of the “Trump administration’s handling of deportations” (including 54-40% disapproval among Independents and 82-10% disapproval among Democrats)
- The New York Times Editorial Board: “Trump Calling Troops Into Los Angeles Is the Real Emergency,” “…Mr. Trump’s order establishes neither law nor order. Rather it sends the message that the administration is interested in only overreaction and overreach. The scenes of tear gas in Los Angeles streets on Sunday underscored that point: that Mr. Trump’s idea of law and order is strong-handed, disproportionate intervention that adds chaos, anxiety and risk to already tense situations.”
- The Washington Post Editorial Board: “The best way to end the escalation in Los Angeles,” The “deployment was unnecessary, and an active-duty Marine battalion being sent to the area as backup is even more provocative. State and local law enforcement were getting the situation on L.A.’s streets under control; they are the ones containing the unrest. Sending in federal forces inflamed tensions and could be prolonging the violence.”
- The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: “The Deportation Wars Begin,” “Mr. Miller and the restrictionists want to deport everyone to send a message never to come again. But the lost contributions to the U.S. labor force will be great … There is also the risk of unrest, as we’ve seen in California. It’s fanciful to think that raiding restaurants to snatch busboys, or Home Depot to grab stock clerks, won’t inspire a backlash.”
- Michelle Goldberg’s opinion column in The New York Times “This Is What Autocracy Looks Like,” “[T]here’s no sidestepping a president deploying the military in an American city based on ludicrous falsehoods about a foreign invasion. Indeed, it’s hard to think of a clearer signpost on the road to dictatorship.”
- The Washington Post’s Philip Bump in “Donald Trump vs. California (and everywhere else),” “The reason the National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles (for what appeared to be a pretty uneventful mission) is not that soldiers were needed to restore order. It was because Trump wanted to tell a story about the heavy hand he would bring down on anyone who attempted to stand in his way, even if the hand’s heaviness was equivalent to deploying a platoon against a ghost … this is what Trump and his allies did to Harvard and promise to do to anyone else who stands in their way.”
- The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols noted in “Trump Is Using the National Guard as Bait,” “By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms … they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans.”
Also read the multiple bylined story in the Wall Street Journal, “The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown,” that highlights the role of Stephen Miller and his directive for indiscriminate mass deportations and related quotas to sparking the Los Angeles protests they’ve then inflamed, noting of Miller’s recent directive to ICE officials:
“Agents didn’t need to develop target lists of immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, a longstanding practice, Miller said. Instead, he directed them to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores
… ICE agents appeared to follow Miller’s tip and conducted an immigration sweep Friday at the Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles, helping set off a weekend of protests around Los Angeles County
…The administration’s immigration enforcement is a sharp break with past government practices, according to attorneys, immigration advocates and officials from previous administrations. Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials … Elsewhere, Americans detained by ICE have said they were held for hours or longer before being allowed to prove their citizenship.”
