President Trump’s decision this month to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom has sparked a legal battle that could reshape how much latitude a president has to deploy the military on U.S. soil.
On June 10, days after Mr. Trump federalized the California National Guard in response to protests over immigration raids, the state filed a lawsuit calling the move illegal.
Even as the Trump administration added active-duty Marines to the mix, a judge ordered it to return the National Guard to the control of Mr. Newsom. But an appeals court blocked that move, and Mr. Trump maintains authority over those troops today.
Mr. Trump’s decision to deploy troops came after Immigration and Customs Enforcement started carrying out raids at workplaces in the city, sweeping up hundreds of migrants for potential deportation and drawing protesters. While the majority protested peacefully, a subset committed violent acts like throwing objects and burning vehicles.
Here’s where things stand in the case.
What made Trump’s decision to deploy troops significant?
Normally, governors control their state’s National Guard and dispatch such troops themselves when there is a need to quell civil disorder or fight a natural disaster. On rare occasions, the president may take control of a guard or otherwise deploy troops under federal control on domestic soil, but in recent decades that has happened only at a governor’s request.
Mr. Trump’s move was the first time in more than six decades that a president had taken control of a state guard over a governor’s objections, raising profound questions about presidential power, state sovereignty and civil liberties.
The federal government had last used troops on domestic soil over a governor’s objections during the civil rights movement, when Southern senators were resisting court-ordered desegregation orders. The most recent case was in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to carry out the court-ordered desegregation of the University of Alabama, which that state’s governor, George Wallace, was resisting.
(President Lyndon B. Johnson also federalized Alabama’s National Guard in 1965 to protect civil rights demonstrators without a formal request from Governor Wallace. But the governor did not object in that instance.)
To take control of what is now about 4,000 California National Guard troops, Mr. Trump invoked a statute that allows a president to federalize a state militia under certain conditions, like when there is a rebellion against governmental authority that impedes the enforcement of federal law.
The Trump administration said protecting immigration agents and facilities from protesters justified that step, which Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, supplemented with a deployment into Los Angeles of 700 active-duty Marines who were already under federal control.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to use the military to crack down on large-scale protests and advance his immigration agenda. On Wednesday, he said he felt empowered to send troops anywhere violent protests erupt. Referring to demonstrators, he said, “They’ll go someplace else. But we’ll be there, too. We’ll be wherever they go.”
What is each side arguing?
California has argued that the deployment of the troops represents an abuse of presidential authority. The state says local law enforcement can handle the protesters and that Mr. Newsom can deploy the Guard himself if necessary — and sending federal troops into the city streets risks further inflaming tensions, rather than reducing them. Mr. Newsom has likened Mr. Trump’s tactics to that of an authoritarian ruler.
The state is specifically challenging whether the conditions were met for Mr. Trump to take control of the National Guard. It is separately challenging any use of both the Guard and the Marines to perform law enforcement functions, citing a 19th century law that generally forbids using federal military forces as police on domestic soil.
The Trump administration has argued that there were sufficient acts of violence among the protests to hinder enforcement of immigration law and justify sending in troops. It has also argued that courts do not have the authority to second-guess Mr. Trump’s decision to activate the Guard.
And it has maintained that the soldiers are not carrying out law enforcement duties themselves but are merely protecting civilian ICE agents who are arresting undocumented migrants.
Part of the dispute is how to characterize the degree of disorder caused by the protests. Activists and bystanders have converged on federal buildings and workplaces where ICE is carrying out raids to show their opposition to the enforcement efforts and document the actions of immigration agents.
While most protesters in the Los Angeles region have expressed their views peacefully, the administration has focused on instances where a subset engaged in vandalism, started fires or threw objects at law enforcement officials — characterizing the protesters as lawless mobs that threaten the safety of federal agents and impede the enforcement of immigration laws.
California state officials have said they take acts of violence seriously but characterized the demonstrations as having stayed within the scale that local law enforcement is effective at handling, with isolated instances of violence that are well within the capacity of the state to respond to and suppress.
How have the courts ruled so far?
On June 12, Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal District Court in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order that directed Mr. Trump to return the control of National Guard troops to Mr. Newsom.
Judge Breyer characterized Mr. Trump’s seizure of the Guard as an illegal overreach, saying conditions in Los Angeles fell short of a rebellion. He also cited the Trump administration’s bypassing of Mr. Newsom in taking control of the Guard directly via a general who oversees it, even though the law Mr. Trump cited said such orders should go “through” a governor.
But Judge Breyer’s order did not address the Marines, who at that point had been activated but not yet sent to Los Angeles.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the temporary restraining order before it could take effect, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed it while it took up the matter. The panel consisted of two appointees of Mr. Trump and one of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
On Thursday, the panel unanimously extended its block of Judge Breyer’s order, finding that Mr. Trump was likely operating within the bounds of his authority in federalizing the National Guard given the circumstances in Los Angeles. The panel also dismissed California’s claim that the deployment was illegal because it bypassed Mr. Newsom.
But the panel rejected the most sweeping part of the Trump administration’s argument, ruling that it was within the judiciary’s power to review the president’s determination that the conditions were met for him to take control of the Guard. In this case, however, the panel agreed that the conditions were sufficient to defer to Mr. Trump’s judgment.
What could happen next?
California could choose to appeal the three-judge panel’s ruling about calling up the Guard by asking for a rehearing by a larger Ninth Circuit panel of 11 judges. It could also ask the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court ruling.
Or it could let the ruling stand and focus on its separate argument that troops under federal control — whether the Guard or the Marines — should be limited to guarding federal buildings rather than going out into the streets of Los Angeles with ICE agents.
In the hearing on Friday, Judge Breyer said that before he can address that, it was necessary to figure out whether he still had jurisdiction over the case or whether the entire matter is now pending before the appeals court due to a technical issue in how the panel rendered its decision. He asked for briefs by Monday on that question.
It is not clear when the courts will next make a substantive decision.
What are the Guard troops in California doing?
The roughly 4,000 Guard troops being deployed to Los Angeles — alongside the estimated 700 Marines — have been broadly tasked with protecting federal property and personnel, including ICE officials.
In practice, that has entailed troops taking up posts at federal buildings in Los Angeles, including some that have been vandalized during the protests, and accompanying federal immigration enforcement officials on raids.
While protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles have continued, the large-scale clashes between protesters and police have calmed down considerably. On Tuesday, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles lifted a nighttime curfew she had imposed on the city’s downtown at the height of the unrest.
Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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