(Hill) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) office said Tuesday that the state’s Emergency Management Agency offered to send the National Guard to California to support recent unrest over the Los Angeles immigration protests.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office confirmed that the offer was made from Florida, but said “we didn’t need security guards in the first place,” which exacerbated DeSantis’s “attempts to burn an already chaotic situation have been exacerbated by his party leaders.”
The development comes as the Trump administration deployed the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles amid demonstrations over the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) attack.
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Newsom and Desantis have long been political rivals, with both governors frequently opposing their respective states against each other. But the two governors and their states are offering mutual aid in other instances.
Desantis has been vocally critical of the demonstrations and California’s response since anxiety began on Sunday.
“I’m not going to fly in Florida,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “This is not Los Angeles. This is Florida’s free state, so we respect the law and respect those who are doing it.”
“If you don’t like the law, then people vote to change the law. You simply don’t have the right to simply opt out of federal immigration law,” he said.
Newsom accused them of illegally deploying military forces in California, calling it “blatant abuse of power.”
“The US Marines serve a valuable purpose for this country. They defend democracy. They are not political pawns,” Newsom said Monday in a post on Social Platform X.
