Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for a portion of the city's downtown on Tuesday.

She said in a news conference that she had declared a local emergency and that the curfew will run from 8 p.m. local time Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday. The curfew, which she said was meant to stop vandalism and looting, will be in place for a one square mile section of downtown that includes the area where protests have occurred since Friday.

Bass said the city had"reached a tipping point" after 23 businesses were looted.

U.S. National Guard troops began protecting immigration agents as they made arrests in Los Angeles on Tuesday, an expansion of their duties that had been limited to protecting federal property.

ICE said in a statement that the troops were providing security at federal facilities and protecting federal officers"who are out on daily enforcement operations." The change moves troops closer to engaging in law enforcement actions like deportations as U.S. President Donald Trump has promised as part of the administration's immigration crackdown.

The agency said Guard members are also providing support with transportation.

The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers but any arrests ultimately would be made by law enforcement.

Governor asks court to block use of Guard

California Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier Tuesday asked a federal court Tuesday to block the Trump administration from using the National Guard and marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles, claiming a change in orders is coming.

He filed the emergency request after Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 marines to Los Angeles, at a cost of at least $134 million US, following four days of protests over his stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.

LISTEN l Caught between state, local and federal authorities:

ICE raids must stop, Los Angeles mayor says

6 hours ago

Duration 3:48

At a news conference Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Bass called for an end to federal immigration raids in the city and slammed the Trump administration's deployment of National Guard and marines following several days of protests over the stepped-up enforcement. 'The real solution of all of this is for the administration to stop the raids,' Bass said of the unrest roiling the city.

The federal government said Newsom was seeking an unprecedented and dangerous order that would interfere with its ability to carry out enforcement operations. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.

The Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to L.A. on Monday, adding to a military presence that local officials and Newsom do not want and that the police chief says makes it harder to handle the protests safely.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday that the marines had not yet been called to respond to the protests and were there only to protect federal officials and property. The marines were trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority, Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill.

Marines had not yet been seen on the streets, while National guard troops so far have had limited engagement with protesters.

California to sue Trump over National Guard deployment to L.A. protests

23 hours ago
Duration

Trump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the U.S. to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. It's one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a U.S. president.

"If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see," he said from the Oval Office.

Later the president called protesters"animals" and "a foreign enemy" in a speech at Fort Bragg ostensibly to recognize the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.

Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that the city's mayor and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth.

The protests began Friday after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. Protesters blocked a major freeway and set cars on fire over the weekend, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

The demonstrations have been mostly concentrated downtown in the city of four million and have been far less raucous since the weekend. Thousands of people have peacefully rallied outside city hall and hundreds more protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention centre where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids.

Several businesses were broken into Monday, though authorities didn't say if the looting was tied to the protests. Nejdeh Avedian, general manager at St. Vincent Jewelry Center in Los Angeles said the protesters had already left, and"these guys were just opportunists," though he noted his store had armed guards and was not looted.