Los Angeles police have swiftly enforced a downtown curfew, making arrests moments after it took effect, deploying officers on horseback and using crowd control projectiles to break up a group of hundreds demonstrating against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The president defends his decision on using the military in the city before an audience at Fort Bragg. California officials blame the administration for inflaming tensions.

The ongoing protests in Los Angeles began with small demonstrations against immigration raids in the nation's second largest city.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Protests that sprang up in Los Angeles over immigration enforcement raids and prompted President Donald Trump to mobilize National Guard troops and Marines have begun to spread across the country, with more planned into the weekend.

4:56 p.m. EDT U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer turned down Newsom’s request for an emergency ruling that would have blocked federal troop deployment in Los Angeles, giving Trump until Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT to file a response to Newsom’s lawsuit (Newsom can file his response to Trump by Thursday at 12 p.m. EDT).

By Brad Brooks, Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Dietrich Knauth LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Hundreds of U.S. Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday under orders from President Donald Trump, as the city's mayor declared a curfew for parts of the downtown area and police arrested 197 people in a fifth day of street protests.

Experts who study protest movements say the scenes unfolding in California broadly follow a script that has played out many times in other countries — sometimes with deadly consequences.

Calling President Trump a threat to the American way of life, Governor Gavin Newsom depicted the federal military intervention in Los Angeles as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy.