Demonstrations have gripped Los Angeles for several days in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the sanctuary city, with some protesters clashing with police.

Tensions escalated after President Donald Trump called up the National Guard over the objections of state and city leaders to address what the White House referred to as the “lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.”

Solidarity protests against ICE have broken out in other cities in the wake of the federal response, which has also included deploying hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles.

Here’s a look at how the protests began and what demonstrators are calling for.

How did the LA protests start?

On Friday, federal agents executed search warrants authorized by a Los Angeles federal judge at four businesses suspected of unlawfully employing undocumented immigrants and falsifying employment records, according to a criminal complaint.

On social media, “word quickly spread about ‘ICE raids’ taking place throughout Los Angeles,” according to the complaint.

Video showed federal agents conducting the operations, including at a Home Depot in Westlake and the clothing manufacturer Ambiance Apparel in downtown Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she was “deeply angered” over the raids.

“These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city,” she said in a statement on Friday. “We will not stand for this.”

Local activists and family members of the workers showed up at the locations, confronting agents about the arrests. A prominent union leader — Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta — was arrested on Friday outside Ambiance Apparel and charged with conspiracy to impede an officer following an altercation with a law enforcement officer, according to the complaint. SEIU President April Verrett told ABC News that Huerta was “exercising his constitutional right to peacefully protest and be an observer on a sidewalk in the city of Los Angeles.”

Following the raids, protesters also gathered outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles that are home to an immigration court and a detention facility, holding signs that said “ICE out of LA!”

“Our community is under attack and is being terrorized,” Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said during a press conference in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. “These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. Immigration enforcement that is terrorizing our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now.”

Hours later, amid ongoing protests in downtown LA, the LAPD declared an unlawful assembly Friday evening following reports that a “small group of violent individuals are throwing large pieces of concrete,” and officers in riot gear moved in to disperse the crowd.

‘We’re going to keep showing up’

Protests against immigration raids continued into the weekend in downtown LA, as well as Los Angeles County cities including Compton and Paramount.

“We have a very beautiful community, a very strong community. And this is why we show up and we’re going to keep showing up,” Paramount demonstrator Nabil Shukir told ABC Los Angeles station KABC over the weekend. “It is an obligation and a duty for each and every one of us to be here and fight against the oppression and these kidnappings.”

On Saturday, the White House said Trump signed a memorandum deploying thousands of National Guardsmen to Los Angeles after “violent mobs” attacked ICE officers — over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The following day, some protesters were seen hurling scooters and bottles at patrol vehicles and several of the self-driving car company Waymo’s vehicles were set on fire.

Amid the protests, LAPD said officers have arrested dozens of people for failure to disperse, as well as looting. Other charges have included attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail and assault with a deadly weapon, police said.

Bass has condemned the violence while noting in a call with KABC on Monday that the majority of people protesting have been peaceful and that the more-violent protesting and vandalism were happening “late at night.” She added that she assumed violent protests weren’t being led by people supporting immigrants, but rather by “fringe groups.”

Bass has also blamed Trump for the escalation and has continued to call on the Trump administration to stop immigration raids in the city, saying the fear and uncertainty they have created have led to the unrest.

“It makes me feel like our city is actually a test case, a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government,” she told reporters during a news conference Monday. “I don’t think that our city should be used for an experiment.”

Newsom has called the deployment a “complete overreaction.” He and California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Monday that they have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the “illegal and unnecessary takeover” of the California National Guard that has “needlessly escalated chaos and violence in the Los Angeles region.”

“Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends,” Bonta said in a statement.

Protests over the federal response and continued ICE raids in the Los Angeles area have been ongoing. Demonstrations have also been held at Los Angeles International Airport against Trump’s new travel ban, which went into effect on Monday and bars nationals of 12 countries from entering the U.S.

SEIU held a large rally in downtown LA on Monday in support of Huerta, who was released from federal custody on a $50,000 bond that day.

Bass said Tuesday it is unclear how many people have been detained by ICE.

“On Thursday of last week, Los Angeles was peaceful. There was nothing going on here that warranted the federal intervention that took place the very next day,” she said during a press briefing. “If we want to look at the cause of what is happening here, I take it back to raids that took place on Friday, and the uncertainty and the fear and the fact that families across the city are terrified that they don’t know if they should go to work, they don’t know if they should go to school.”

Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to send in the National Guard and Marines, saying the situation in LA was “out of control.”

“All I want is safety. I just want a safe area,” he told reporters. “Los Angeles was under siege until we got there. The police were unable to handle it.”

Trump went on to suggest that he sent in the National Guard and the Marines to send a message to other cities not to interfere with ICE operations or they will be met with equal or greater force.

“If we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country,” he said. “But I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force than we met right here.”

Why are people protesting ICE?

Since Friday, other demonstrations have broken out across the country in solidarity, protesting ICE activity in their communities and the federal response in Los Angeles. On Monday, protests were held in cities including New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Dallas, and, in California, San Jose and Santa Ana.

Protesters turned out in San Francisco on Sunday outside of an Immigration Services building to rally in solidarity against ICE raids and deportations.

“We’ve been watching what’s going on in LA, and we’re like, no,” protester Nancy Kato told ABC San Francisco station KGO. “The whole thing about going after immigrants and people who are undocumented, the most vulnerable of our populations, that is so wrong.”

Nellie Wong told KGO she was there “to protest the outrageous attacks on undocumented immigrants.”

“This has been going on for some time, but the events that have been going on in Los Angeles, I just find horrifying,” another protester, Amy Gray-Schlink, told KGO. “We need a united front of everyone who wants to oppose the scapegoating of immigrants.”

In San Diego County, protesters gathered near the main gate of Camp Pendleton on Sunday to stand against any military activation.

“We want to show our support to the military members that work here. We want to kind of remind them of what their duty is to us,” one of the demonstrators, Air Force veteran Patrick Saunders, told ABC San Diego affiliate KGTV. “But additionally, we want to make it very publicly known that we condemn any sort of action by the administration of using active duty or National Guard troops on U.S. citizens.”