By Victoria Mejicanos and Ali Halloum
AFRO Interns

Another 2,000 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines are on their way to Los Angeles  to join the 2,000 soldiers already in the city following mass protests against raids carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The National Guard was initially federalized and deployed by the 47th president in Los Angeles, over the weekend. Troops first arrived on June 8, over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Although news coverage of ICE often focuses on the Latino community, Africans, Jamaicans and Haitians in the area have also been impacted. 

A Los Angeles Police Department officer shoots less-than-lethal munitions toward demonstrators during a protest in response to a series of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, in Los Angeles, on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown condemned the move, calling the president’s federalization of the National Guard “a deeply alarming abuse of executive power,” in a statement sent to members of the press. 

“It is a deliberate and calculated move to intimidate Americans from speaking out,” Brown said. “First it was the southern border – now it’s Los Angeles – and tomorrow it could be Baltimore, Prince George’s County or anywhere in Maryland.”

Nadine Seiler, a 60-year-old immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, has lived in the United States for 38 years. She is planning to leave as soon as she can. She said that she feels “bamboozled.” She spoke with the AFRO standing outside the White House with a sign that read, “Is the Constitution dead yet?” 

 “I bought into the American ideals– American exceptionalism, American checks and balances [and] guardrails,” Seiler said. “It’s all a farce.”

Seiler said she is ashamed of the American people and their lack of action which she believes will lead to fascism. 

Nadine Seiler, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, says the America she has called “home” for the past 38 years doesn’t feel like the same country she immigrated to nearly four decades ago. Standing outside of the White House in the nation’s capital on June 9, she spoke with the AFRO while protesting the recent attacks on immigrant communities nationwide. (Photo Credit: AFRO Photo / Victoria Mejicanos)

Online there is much discourse in the Black community about whether or not this is a fight that they should be involved in. 

A Twitter user with the handle nycteegurl wrote “Black folks, mind your business! Go home!! This doesn’t concern us!”  

Seiler said she understands the betrayal Black people feel, but said she must act.  

“I do not have the privilege,” she said, adding that she “does not have the luxury” to join Black people operating under the notion that this is not their fight.”

Seiler shared that she is frustrated, like many other Black people, but will continue to protest. 

“None of us are free until all of us are free, and this affects me personally,” she said.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the rights to due process, legal representation, protection from unwarranted searches, seizures and arrests and recording of law enforcement officers are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution— regardless of an individual’s immigration status.

The ACLU’s Director of the National Security Project Hina Shamsi called the deployment of the National Guard an “unnecessary [and] inflammatory” move in a statement.

Numerous elected officials in California have criticized the deployment of the National Guard on protesters in the city. Governor Newsom said the federalization of his state’s National Guard was “about authoritarian tendencies” and “power and ego” coming from Washington.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the sudden federalization of the National Guard a “dramatic escalation” of the ongoing situation. Bass urged protesters to remain peaceful, even as the military presence increased on June 10.