Who Sets LA on Fire

The acrid scent of tear gas hangs heavy over downtown Los Angeles. Flames leap from overturned Waymo taxis, their autonomous frames now eerie pyres against a night sky lit by police flares. Protesters, faces shielded by bandanas, hurl rocks toward a line of riot shields as the crack of rubber bullets echoes off federal buildings. This is June 2025: a city engulfed not just in physical fire, but in the incendiary clash of presidential power, state defiance, and the raw anguish of its immigrant communities. The question hangs in the smoke-choked air: Who truly set Los Angeles ablaze? 

The Federal Spark: Raids and the Military Response 

The tinder was laid on June 6th, 2025, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents launched coordinated raids across Los Angeles. Targeting garment factories, a Home Depot parking lot frequented by day laborers, and other community spaces, they arrested over 40 individuals suspected of being undocumented immigrants. By week’s end, arrests in the greater L.A. area climbed to 77, part of a national crackdown where ICE arrests under Trump’s second term had already surpassed 100,000. 

The response was immediate and visceral. Protesters flooded the streets, blocking exits to the federal building where detainees were processed. Within 48 hours, peaceful demonstrations escalated. Rocks flew, vehicles burned, and clashes erupted between protesters and law enforcement in Compton and Paramount. 

Then came the unprecedented federal escalation. Invoking Title 10 of the U.S. Code, President Trump bypassed California Governor Gavin Newsom and ordered the deployment of 2,000 California National Guard troops to L.A. on June 7th—marking the first time since 1965 a president had deployed the Guard without a governor’s request. By June 9th, he doubled the Guard force and activated 700 U.S. Marines, a domestic military mobilization unseen in decades. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth framed this as essential to protect ICE agents from "attacks by foreign-influenced insurrectionists," while Trump warned he would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807—a 19th-century law permitting military law enforcement on U.S. soil—if the unrest intensified. 

Los Angeles: The Immigrant Metropolis Pushed to the Edge 

To understand the fury, one must grasp L.A.’s soul. The city is home to 1.35 million immigrants—one in three residents—including nearly one million undocumented people, the largest such population in the U.S. It is a proud "sanctuary city," limiting cooperation with ICE to protect vulnerable communities. For decades, this identity has been forged in struggle: the Chicano movement of the 1960s, the massive 2006 protests against immigrant criminalization, and the backlash against California’s xenophobic Proposition 187 in the 1990s. 

Trump’s raids struck at this core. As reports spread of fathers detained at car washes and workers seized in front of their children, fear paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods. Streets emptied; businesses shuttered. "This isn’t just about gang members," Governor Newsom countered, "It’s dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers—people who’ve lived here for decades". The administration’s new quota—3,000 daily ICE arrests nationwide—transformed policy into perceived persecution. 

The Constitutional Inferno: State vs. Federal Power 

The flames leapt from streets to courtrooms as California sued the Trump administration. Governor Newsom condemned the troop deployment as a "blatant abuse of power" and "unconstitutional," arguing it violated the Tenth Amendment, which reserves non-federal powers to states. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass accused Washington of an "intentional effort to sow chaos," insisting local police could manage protests. 

Legal experts grappled with the ambiguity of Title 10. While it permits presidential deployment during "rebellion or invasion," critics saw a dangerous overreach. Historians noted parallels to 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights marchers against a segregationist governor. Yet Trump’s move was uniquely confrontational: not to enforce civil rights, but to enforce immigration raids opposed by local leaders. 

The Nation Watches: Embers Spread 

By June 10th, the fire had spread. Protests erupted in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and beyond. In Los Angeles, Mayor Bass imposed an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew downtown after looting and vandalism surged. Journalists became targets: an Australian reporter and a Chinese state media photographer were hit by police rubber bullets, part of at least 31 attacks on press personnel. 

The political rhetoric intensified. Trump branded protesters "violent insurrectionists," while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called L.A. a "city of criminals". Meanwhile, 22 Democratic governors signed a joint statement condemning the troop deployment as "authoritarian overreach". 

The True Arsonists: Power, Fear, and the American Identity 

So who ignited Los Angeles? The immediate spark was ICE’s aggressive raids, perceived not as targeted law enforcement but as indiscriminate terror in immigrant communities. The accelerant was Trump’s militarized response, a deployment of force that shattered norms of federal-state cooperation and escalated tensions. The tinder was decades deep: L.A.’s legacy of racial and immigrant struggle, now colliding with a presidency determined to fulfill hardline campaign promises at any cost. 

"They’re treating us as enemy combatants," said Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matter LA, teargassed at a protest. "I’ve never seen it like this". 

The fires burning in Los Angeles are more than physical. They are the flames of a nation wrestling with who belongs, who commands, and what happens when the delicate balance of American democracy is tested by the collision of ideology, identity, and raw power. As Marines patrol streets where Chicano activists once marched and Guard troops shield ICE agents from citizens they are sworn to protect, the answer to "Who sets LA on fire?" becomes unsettlingly clear: a nation setting fire to itself.