LOS ANGELES, United States, June 12, 2025 (AFP) - Protests against Donald Trump's harsh immigration policies spread Wednesday across the United States despite a military-backed crackdown in Los Angeles and threats by the hard-right Republican president to use "heavy force."

In Los Angeles, where the unrest began last Friday, an overnight curfew intended to keep people out of the downtown area was largely effective, with police arresting around 25 people who had refused to leave.

Officers patrolled near government buildings, and storekeepers boarded up windows to protect against vandalism.

But the area was quiet Wednesday.

"I would say for the most part everything is hunky dory right here at Ground Zero," protester Lynn Sturgis, 66, a retired school teacher, told AFP.

"Our city is not at all on fire, it's not burning down, as our terrible leader is trying to tell you."

Around 1,000 troops from the 4,700 that Trump ordered to the city were actively guarding facilities and working alongside ICE agents, said Scott Sherman, Deputy Commanding General Army North, who is leading operations.

The rest -- including 700 active duty Marines -- were mustering, or undergoing training in dealing with civil disturbances, he said.

The Pentagon has said the deployment will cost taxpayers $134 million.

The mostly peaceful protests ignited over a sudden escalation in efforts to apprehend migrants who were in the country illegally.

Pockets of violence -- including the burning of self-driving taxis and hurling stones at police -- triggered a massive response from authorities using tear gas and other crowd-control weapons.

Trump won the election last year partly on promises to combat what he claims is an "invasion" by undocumented migrants.

He is now seizing the opportunity to make political capital, ordering the California National Guard to deploy despite Governor Gavin Newsom's objections, the first time a US president has taken such action in decades.

"If our troops didn't go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now," Trump insisted on social media Wednesday.

The White House doubled down on that rhetoric.

"President Trump will never allow mob rule to prevail in America," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing.

Governor Newsom, a Democrat, has charged that Trump is seeking to escalate the confrontation for political gain.

"Democracy is under assault right before our eyes," he said in a televised address late Tuesday. "California may be first, but it clearly won't end here."

- Nationwide protests growing -

Despite Trump's threats to deploy the National Guard to other Democratic-run states over the objections of governors, protesters appear undeterred.

Thousands marched in New York and Chicago late Tuesday.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he was deploying the state's National Guard to counter a protest announced for San Antonio on Wednesday.

Demonstrations were also planned Wednesday in New York, Seattle and Las Vegas ahead of what organizers say will be a nationwide "No Kings" movement on Saturday, when Trump will attend a highly unusual military parade in the US capital.

In a speech at an Army base on Tuesday, Trump warned that any protests during the Washington parade would face "very heavy force."

The parade, featuring warplanes and tanks, has been organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army but also happens to be the day of Trump's 79th birthday.

The last large military parade in Washington was in 1991 after the first Gulf War.

- 'Inflamed' situation -

The Trump administration is painting the protests as a violent threat to the nation, requiring military force to support regular immigration agents and police.

On Tuesday he cited a "full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty" from a "foreign enemy."

Protesters and the beleaguered Democratic opposition party say Trump is manufacturing a crisis that has little to do with expelling criminals in the US illegally.

Newsom said Trump "inflamed" the situation and went "well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals. His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses."

Footage obtained by AFP on Wednesday shows what appears to be federal agents ramming a car in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.

Some kind of smoke device is deployed and masked men with assault weapons order a man from the car, leaving what witnesses said was his wife and two children badly shaken.