The Pentagon has ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles, cutting in half the 4,000-strong force that President Donald Trump federalized in early June to quell protests sparked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the mission had achieved its objective of safeguarding federal property and personnel. About 2,000 Guardsmen and roughly 700 Marines will remain in the city to continue what officials described as a scaled-down federal protection mission. The original deployment followed nights of demonstrations and clashes that led to roughly 3,000 arrests across the Los Angeles area. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who opposed the federalization order, called the operation “absurd” and a waste of “hundreds of millions of dollars,” arguing that only about 5 percent of the troops were ever assigned active tasks. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the soldiers were largely posted to guard just two federal buildings and pressed for their complete departure. Trump’s use of the Guard has survived court challenges after a federal appeals panel upheld the president’s broad authority to deploy the military inside U.S. cities. The partial drawdown, however, has intensified debate in California and Washington over the role of the armed forces in domestic law-enforcement operations.