The 700 Marines mobilized to the Los Angeles area on Monday have not yet completed pre-mission training as of Wednesday morning, with no clear picture yet as to whether they will be deployed on the ground, a U.S. Northern Command official confirmed to The Hill.
The Marines “are still conducting pre-mission training and they have not been employed by Task Force 51, the DoD command element in Los Angeles,” a Northcom spokesperson said in a statement. “I do not have an estimate of when they will be employed.”
The training includes standing rules for the use of force and the use of nonlethal weapons.
The spokesperson added that no other active-duty Marines have been deployed to other locations and cities at this time.
Like the 4,000 California National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles to quell largely peaceful protests against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, “these Marines will protect federal functions, personnel, and property, which includes accompanying federal personnel on missions,” they added.
The new statement stands in contrast to a Northcom statement from yesterday, which said the Marines had already been trained in de-escalation, crowd control and standing rules for the use of force.
The same day, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said the Marines had received “in excess of two hours” of the training, and that they would have shields and batons as their equipment.
U.S. Army Major General Scott Sherman also told reporters that the Marines are still undergoing “civil disturbance training and the standing rules of force training.”
He also revealed that Guard troops will be able to temporarily detain individuals until law enforcement agents step in to arrest them.
“They are strictly there to detain, to wait for law enforcement to come and handle those demonstrators,” Sherman said.
Criticism is growing among Democrats as to the legality of President Trump’s decision to deploy U.S. service members to Los Angeles, calling the decision a wildly out-of-proportion response to the situation.
“You are deploying the American military to police the American people; you are sending the National Guard into California without the governor’s request, sending the Marines not after foreign threats, but after American protesters,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday.
“Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American,” she continued.
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his decision to deploy troops, insisting it is constitutionally legal while calling out California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for not ensuring federal agents were protected.
“The INCOMPETENT Governor of California was unable to provide protection in a timely manner when our Ice Officers, GREAT Patriots they are, were attacked by an out of control mob of agitators, troublemakers, and/or insurrectionists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Wednesday.
Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth has repeatedly defended the decision to deploy Marines to Los Angeles, including in testimony to Congress.
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