LOS ANGELES − The state of California will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the decision to federalize the National Guard and send its members onto city streets amid increasingly hostile protests over Trump immigration policies, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.

Trump, in a social media post Monday, said his administration made a "great decision" to deploy the National Guard.

"If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated," Trump said. "The very incompetent 'Governor,' Gavin Newscum, and 'Mayor,' Karen Bass, should be saying, 'THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.'... We will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Police on Monday were urging businesses and residents to report any "vandalism, damage or looting" for documentation after some of the protests Sunday deteriorated into destructive clashes between officers and protesters. Some vehicles were set ablaze, protesters blocked the 101 Freeway, and a group of them converged on an overpass and threw objects down at police, video footage showed.

Authorities declared several of the demonstrations Sunday "unlawful assemblies," sweeping in with flash-bangs and tear gas grenades to disperse hundreds of protesters. Police in riot gear were joined by hundreds of the California National Guard troops.

In a social media post, Newsom blamed Trump for the increase in unrest after three days of protests.

"He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard," Newsom wrote in a post Monday. "The order he signed doesn’t just apply to CA. It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We’re suing him."

LA day laborers don't fear ICE raids

While national attention focused on Los Angeles, it was business as usual for virtually everyone in the city.Outside the Home Depot in the Paramount neighborhood, a small group of day laborers in paint-stained pants sat on buckets waiting for work. Several said ICE had detained people across Alondra Boulevard on June 7, sparking unrest.They said although they lack papers to remain legally in the United States, they weren’t worried about being deported if ICE agents returned. Mexican-born Jose Luis Valencia, 54, said if it’s his time to go back to his home country, he’ll go.“We’re not thieves,” he said. “We’re just looking for jobs.”

LA resident says city is still 'very peaceful' amid protests

Longtime LA resident Ira Long, 67, said the reporting of the unrest has been overblown. Long, a pastor at the Alondra Church of Christ in Compton, said he still remembers when the National Guard was called out in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots.“That was a really, really terrible time. Right now I don’t feel any of that tension or anxiety,” said Long, a retired special education teacher. “But people are uneasy, and there’s a real sense of loss because we have lost people who were a part of this community.”Speaking as church volunteers prepared to distribute food to community members about a half mile from where weekend protests erupted, Long said he wants the rest of the country to know Los Angeles is a good, safe city.“This is a very loving community,” he said. “It’s never been totally out of control. It has its challenges, its issues. But there are also amazing and fantastic families who make this a great place to live. It’s very peaceful. And right now it’s pretty cool.”

Immigration enforcement protesters rally outside Justice Department

Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington to criticize Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles, where Trump deployed the National Guard.

“Enough of these mass ICE raids who are seeping up innocent people,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said June 9. “Enough of the undermining of due process.”

The Service Employees International Union organized the protest after the union’s California president, David Huerta, was arrested in the Los Angeles protests. Bill Essayli, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told KNBC, Huerta allegedly obstructed law enforcement vehicles from getting into a facility where they were conducting a search warrant, citing video of the arrest.

“They tried to move him and then he got into a physical altercation with one of our agents and he resisted and he had to be pepper sprayed and subdued,” Essayli said.

Participants at the Justice Department protest held signs that said, “Free David. End ICE Raids” and “Justice for David Huerta Now.”

The rally was one of more than a dozen scheduled in cities across the U.S. to demand Huerta’s release and an end to workplace immigration raids, the Los Angeles Times reported.

− Bart Jansen

'I would': Trump says he'd arrest Newsom

Amid the mounting legal clash between the federal government and the state of California, Trump suggested that his border czar Tom Homan should arrest Newsom.

“I would do it … I think it’s great,” Trump said when asked if Homan should arrest the governor, who has challenged the administration’s mobilization of National Guard troops to crack down on violent protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.

Arresting Newsom, who responded to Homan’s threat by daring the feds to arrest him in a June 8 social media post, would represent a major escalation of the state’s widening rift with the Trump administration.

− Davis Winkie

Newsom warns that Trump could try federalizing Guard 'in any state'

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell called the outbreak of violence "disgusting" and said it had grown worse Saturday. He said he does not believe the same people who were genuinely protesting immigration policy were involved in the violence.

Newsom warned that violent protesters would be arrested and prosecuted. He also kept up his social media attack on Trump, saying California "didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved" and that unrest is "exactly" what Trump wanted.

"Let’s get this straight: 1) Local law enforcement didn’t need help. 2) Trump sent troops anyway — to manufacture chaos and violence. 3) Trump succeeded," Newsom wrote. "4) Now things are destabilized and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump’s mess."

Families of detainees plead for release of loved ones

Family members of several people detained last week in an ICE sweep pleaded for the release of their loved ones at a press conference Monday. Elaina Jung Hee Vermeulen, with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, said she attempted on Sunday to meet with some of the detained warehouse workers.

"Instead of allowing me to meet with community members, they jumped onto trucks in riot gear," she said. Vermeulen urged local leaders to protect the rights of working class immigrants and said ICE must be banned from entering workplaces.

"Every single person who is here, who is figintg for a better life for their family, deserves to have their rights protected," she said.

Noem explains reversal on federalizing National Guard

As South Dakota governor in February 2024, Kristi Noem threatened then-President Joe Biden when Democrats said he should federalize the National Guard in Texas to disrupt that state governor's anti-immigration efforts. If he did, Noem warned, Biden would be mounting a “direct attack on states’ rights,” and sparking a “war” between Washington and Republican-led state governments, she said in a Feb. 6, 2024 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

On June 8, Noem − now Trump's Homeland Security secretary − cheered Trump for doing the same thing to the Democratic governor of the state of California.

On CBS News' Face the Nation Sunday, Noem explained her reversal by saying, "Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions." Read more here.

− Josh Meyer

‘Trump didn’t start’ riots: California sheriff rips Harris’ comments

A California sheriff running for governor isn’t pleased with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ reaction to the explosive protests. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a June 8 post on X that Trump is "not out there lighting cars on fire, hurling projectiles at law enforcement or blocking freeways,”

The sheriff, whose county is just north of San Diego and the fourth-most populous county in the state, was responding to Harris’ earlier statement where she said the deployment of the National Guard was "meant to provoke chaos.” Harris, who is mulling a bid for California governor next year, put much of the blame on the Trump administration’s ICE raids and a "cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division."

Bianco, who is also running for governor in 2026, is a long-standing Trump supporter who gained a bit of attention in 2021 for vowing not to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates in his office. He said Sunday the former VP’s comments were “an embarrassment."

“The Democrats and their ‘leaders’ own this,” Bianco added.

− Phillip M. Bailey

Latinas for Trump co-founder blasts Trump immigration policy

Florida state Sen. Ileana Garcia, who co-founded the group Latinas for Trump, criticized his administration's recent immigration enforcement actions as “unacceptable and inhumane” in a post on X. Her remarks come as federal agents have arrested immigrants in courthouses across the U.S., including Florida, stripping them of due process protections, as NBC News reported.

“I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens, but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings − in many cases, with credible fear of persecution claims − all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal,” she wrote in her post, referring to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

She said she stands with Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who wrote in a statement June 6 that “anyone with a pending asylum case, status-adjustment petition, or similar claim deserves to go through the legal process.”

− Sudiksha Kochi

Border czar denies threatening to arrest Newsom

Trump border czar Tom Homan on Monday denied ever calling for the arrest of Newsom. Homan told Fox News that he was asked if Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could be arrested and Homan responded that, if they commit a crime, they could be arrested.

“There was no discussion about arresting Newsom,” Homan said.

Newsom had addressed the issue on social media, saying that "Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy. I don't give a damn. It won’t stop me from standing up for California."

Protesters flee tear gas grenades

At 8 p.m. local time on Sunday, authorities declared the protest to be an unlawful assembly and moved in aggressively with flash-bangs and tear gas grenades. That sent hundreds of people running, their eyes streaming with tears. Helicopters clattered overhead as protesters fled the area to the honking of car horns and periodic cheers.

According to preliminary information, police said at least 10 people have been arrested and three officers were injured during protests on Sunday. California Highway Patrol arrested 17 people on the 101 Freeway, police said. On Saturday, police arrested 29 people.

Recent ICE sweeps sparked protests in Los Angeles

The protests began Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps in the area resulted in more than 40 arrests. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, defended the raids and said those arrested by ICE included a Vietnamese man convicted of second-degree murder, an Ecuadoran man convicted of possession of five kilograms of cocaine, and a Filipino man convicted of sexual offenses.

"These rioters in Los Angeles are fighting to keep rapists, murderers and other violent criminals loose on Los Angeles streets," McLaughlin said in a statement. "Instead of rioting, they should be thanking ICE officers every single day who wake up and make our communities safer."

60 arrested after San Francisco protest

Protests against immigration enforcement policies were not limited to the Los Angeles area. In San Francisco, a demonstration that drew hundreds ended with violence and about 60 arrests, police said.

"Individuals in the group became violent and began to commit crimes ranging from assault to felony vandalism and causing property damage," San Francisco police said in a statement. An unlawful assembly was declared and many left the scene while others vandalized buildings and police cars. Two officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

"Individuals are always free to exercise their First Amendment rights in San Francisco but violence especially against SFPD officers - will never be tolerated," the statement said.

Los Angeles protesters set fire to Waymo self-driving cars

Photos and videos show several Waymo self-driving cars being torched during the protests. The LAPD said one street had been closed indefinitely after "multiple autonomous vehicles" had been set on fire. Footage shared on social media captured several of Waymo driverless taxis engulfed in flames in the June 8 protests. Others were vandalized with messages against Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, videos show.

Waymo suspended service in downtown Los Angeles and "will not be serving any rides in the protest area until it is deemed safe," a company spokesperson told NBC News.

− Melina Khan

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'We're suing him': Gov. Newsom challenges Trump on National Guard deployment. Live updates

Reporting by John Bacon, Trevor Hughes and N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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