Riders organized by Connecting Compton ride by National Guard members station in an office park, in a 'cabalgata' for human rights, following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Los Angeles County city of Paramount, California, U.S., June 22, 2025. REUTERS/Jill Connelly
Troops in the California National Guard are speaking out to The New York Times about their loss of confidence in the mission President Donald Trump called them up for.
Trump deployed the Guard to Los Angeles to crack down on protests against ICE deportation sweeps in the city, and later deployed the Marines as well. A federal judge initially blocked the move after the California government sued, but an appeals court allowed it to move forward.
"Six members of the Guard — including infantrymen, officers and two officials in leadership roles — spoke of low morale and deep concern that the deployment may hurt recruitment for the state-based military force for years to come," reported Shawn Hubler, shielding their identities to protect them against military rules prohibiting discussing active deployment. "All but one of the six expressed reservations about the deployment."
Many of the members "said they had raised objections themselves or knew someone who objected, either because they did not want to be involved in immigration crackdowns or felt the Trump administration had put them on the streets for what they described as a 'fake mission,'" the report continued.
“The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring. This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all,” one member of the Guard told The Times.
A number of Latino soldiers were uncomfortable with what they were being asked to do, the report continued.
"In one incident that several soldiers said occurred early in the deployment, 60 troops were awaiting transport to planned immigration raids in Ventura County when a Latino soldier approached officers in charge of the mission. He told them that he strongly objected, and he offered to be arrested rather than take part in the operation. Eventually, they said, he was reassigned to administrative tasks. Officials at the military’s Northern Command declined to comment about the incident."
Additionally, the report noted, many of the soldiers called up to the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos in Long Beach didn't end up doing much.
"Mostly, they said, they lounged in warehouse-sized tents, listening to music and playing games on their cell phones. Only about 400 of the 3,882 deployed Guard members had actually been sent on assignments away from the base, Guard figures showed."