NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Caribbean-American Congresswoman, Yvette Clarke, has described as “an authoritarian escalation” the decision by President Donald Trump to deploy Marines on the streets of Los Angeles to help quell protests against raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on Caribbean and other immigrants.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that Trump’s action is unprecedented.

“Donald Trump’s deployment of United States (US) Marines to the streets of Los Angeles is an authoritarian escalation unlike any before in American history,” said Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“Let’s understand the facts: This all started with peaceful protests against the inhumane kidnapping of our immigrant neighbours,” Clarke said, adding that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had largely contained this situation before it was “exacerbated by National Guardsmen whom the president illegally seized control over”.

“And now, under the pretence of crushing the very chaos he created, the president has ordered 700 active-duty Marines to engage in so-called law enforcement, which they have no legal or ethical right to conduct. We must recognise, and recognise quickly, that Los Angeles is only the beginning.

“In a matter of months, weeks, or even days, some contrived crisis may reach our cities. And then, we’ll find the armed forces on our soil, with their guns trained on our people. That’s always been his goal – to ensure every American knows the fear our immigrant neighbours now feel.”

Clarke said that Trump has threatened to arrest a sitting governor (of California) and is prepared “to brutalise protestors to feel like the strongman he never will be, we all must understand that Trump established a dangerous new precedent today”.

Clarke said time is running out to prepare for exactly what that means, adding that Congressional Democrats will stand in solidarity with the California delegation and will support any efforts to oppose Trump’s “overreach”.

“I urge all protestors to remain peaceful and to rise above Donald Trump’s desperation for chaos and confusion. He’s relying on the violence of protestors to justify his own. Do not give him what he wants.”

On Monday, labour unions in New York City, as well as legislators and community groups, held an emergency rally outside City Hall in lower Manhattan in solidarity with protestors in Los Angeles.