SACRAMENTO — California is challenging President Trump’s grip on the state’s National Guard, telling a federal court the White House used claims of unrest in Los Angeles as a pretext for a deployment that has since expanded nationwide — including now sending troops to Illinois.
The Trump administration deployed 14 soldiers from California’s National Guard to Illinois to train troops from other states, according to a motion California filed Tuesday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to end the federal government’s control of its National Guard.
Trump’s decision to move California troops who had been sent to Portland on Sunday and redeploy them to Illinois escalates tensions in the growing fight over who controls state military forces — and how far presidential power can reach in domestic operations.
Federal officials have told California they intend to issue a new order extending Trump’s federalization of 300 members of the state’s Guard through Jan. 31, according to the filing.
“Trump is going on a cross-country crusade to sow chaos and division,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. “His actions — and those of his Cabinet — are against our deeply held American values. He needs to stop this illegal charade now.”
Officials from California and Oregon sought a restraining order after Trump sent California Guard troops to Oregon on Sunday. Trump deployed the California Guard soldiers just a day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the president’s efforts to federalize Oregon’s National Guard.
That prompted Judge Karin Immergut to issue a more sweeping temporary order Sunday evening blocking the deployment of National Guard troops from any other state to Oregon.
California’s own lawsuit against Trump challenging the deployment in Los Angeles since June resulted in Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer blocking the administration from “deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using” the state’s troops to engage in civilian law enforcement.
The new motion filed Tuesday in that case by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta asks the 9th Circuit to vacate its earlier stay that allowed federalization to continue under strict limits on what they can do. California argues that the Guard’s federalized troops are now being used for missions outside the limited purposes the court allowed — drug raids in Riverside County, a show-of-force operation in MacArthur Park and deployments into other states.
“The ever-expanding mission of California’s federalized Guard bears no resemblance to what this Court provisionally upheld in June,” the state wrote in the filing. “And it is causing irreparable harm to California, our Nation’s democratic traditions, and the rule of law.”
Illinois leaders have also gone to court to attempt to block Trump from sending troops to Chicago. Trump has responded by saying that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker should be jailed.
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