US cities preparing for more protests, with parts of Los Angeles under curfew

Several US cities braced themselves for protests on June 11 against President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration raids, as parts of the country's second-largest city Los Angeles spent the night under curfew in an effort to quell five days of unrest.

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Officials were also preparing for nationwide anti-Trump demonstrations on June 14, when tanks and armored vehicles will rumble down the streets of Washington in a military parade marking the US Army's 250th anniversary and coinciding with the President's 79th birthday.

The Governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, said he will deploy the National Guard this week, ahead of planned protests. Protesters and police in Austin clashed on June 9.

Already this week, demonstrations have broken out in Austin, New York, Atlanta and Chicago, among other cities.

Mr. Trump's extraordinary measures of sending the National Guard and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles has sparked a national debate on the use of the military on US soil and pitted the Republican President against California's Democratic Governor, Mr. Gavin Newsom.

Mr. Trump has claimed that the deployment prevented the violence from raging out of control, an assertion Mr. Newsom and other local officials said was the opposite of the truth.

"This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That is when the downward spiral began," Mr. Newsom said in a video address on June 10.

"He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety... Democracy is under assault."