President Donald Trump has authorized the deployment of an additional 2,000 National Guard members to help respond to protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.

White House officials say that Trump has a mandate to carry out his hard-line immigration agenda and that politically, battling it out with a blue state is a winning issue for them.

For a man who understands the power of images, the sometimes violent protests in Los Angeles over immigration enforcement have presented President Trump with the ingredients to once again burnish his tough-on-crime message.

California sued Trump over the deployment, with the state attorney general arguing that the president had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty. California leaders accused Trump of fanning protesters’ anger, leading crowds to block off a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire.

The additional National Guard troops will join the Marines who are deployed to quell clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement after a series of immigration raids in the city.

Tensions are escalating in Los Angeles after protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement gripped the city on Sunday, with demonstrators clashing with law enforcement and setting vehicles on fire downtown.

A relative state of calm in Los Angeles began to crumble early Sunday afternoon as demonstrators confronted federal authorities guarding a downtown detention facility where chaos erupted as National Guard soldiers deployed tear gas on an increasingly agitated crowd.

The Pentagon is scrambling to establish rules to guide U.S. Marines who could be faced with the rare and difficult prospect of using force against citizens on American soil, now that the Trump administration is deploying active duty troops to the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.

Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn said, "Trump thinks anything done in his name is OK. Jan. 6 was done in his name, so our officers don't matter."