Guardsmen sent to LA are 130 miles east of the city doing drug busts

California National Guard soldiers operating under federal orders helped the Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal personnel carry out a raid on a large marijuana growth operation in the eastern Coachella Valley last week, 130 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

It’s unclear how many National Guard troops participated in the operation, but the force totalled roughly 500 people. According to the DEA, other agencies included Customs and Border Patrol, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Immigration and Custom Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The search warrant targeted the area around Thermal, a small town in the eastern Coachella Valley. CBS first reported on the raid.

In a statement, the DEA Los Angeles Field Division said that it was the lead agency looking into three large marijuana growth operations in the area. Executing a federal search warrant from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California, they searched 787 acres of land and arrested 70 to 75 people, the DEA said, most being described as undocumented immigrants and at least one being an American citizen. It also appears to be the farthest east that federalized National Guard troops have operated since being deployed.

The National Guardsmen involved in the operation were soldiers with the 143rd Military Police Battalion and the 670th Military Police Company, part of the California National Guard’s 49th Military Police Brigade. They’re serving under Task Force 51, the organization created by U.S. Northern Command for troops operating under Title 10 status. Images posted by the military to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (or DVIDS), show the soldiers carrying riot shields creating security perimeters next to their Humvees in Thermal and the nearby unincorporated community of Mecca, close to the Salton Sea.

The area raided by federal agents and National Guard soldiers is part of California’s Inland Empire. The region, comprising Riverside and San Bernardino counties, is generally considered to make up the greater Los Angeles area, along with the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Oxnard–Thousand Oaks–Ventura metropolitan area. That total land area stretches from the coast all the way to the California-Nevada border, even with the significant distance from the City of Los Angeles proper. The U.S. Census Bureau’s combined statistical area matches that, showing a nearly 34,000 square miles area. Task & Purpose asked Task Force 51 how it is defining the scope of greater Los Angeles, but has not received an answer.