The Nationwide Guard, police and protesters stand off outdoors of a downtown jail in Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police throughout a collection of immigration raids on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Spencer Platt | Getty Photographs
A federal choose on Tuesday barred President Donald Trump from deploying Nationwide Guard and different army troops in California to execute regulation enforcement actions there, together with making arrests, looking out areas and crowd management.
The ruling got here in reference to a lawsuit filed in early June by the state of California difficult Trump’s and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployment of the guard and Marines to cope with protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement insurance policies.
Decide Charles Breyer mentioned Trump’s deployment of hundreds of Nationwide Guard troops and 700 Marines to LA. “willfully” violated the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which bars U.S. army forces from implementing the regulation domestically.
Breyer’s injunction in U.S. District Court docket in San Francisco is proscribed to California, and the choose stayed the choice till Sept. 12 to offer the Trump administration time to attraction it.
The choose mentioned the Trump administration just isn’t required to withdraw the remaining 300 Nationwide Guard troops presently stationed in LA, “nor are they barred from utilizing troops per the Posse Comitatus Act.” That might embrace guarding federal buildings.
However the determination comes as Trump has thought of deploying Nationwide Guard troops to different U.S. cities to cope with crime, together with Oakland, California, and San Francisco.
Senior District Decide Charles R. Breyer
Supply: USDC | Northern District of California
In mid-August, Trump positioned Washington, D.C.’s police power below federal management and deployed Nationwide Guard troops in that metropolis to handle what he claims is a rampant crime drawback.
On Tuesday, Trump, in a social media put up, mentioned that not less than 54 folks had been shot in Chicago over the weekend, and warned, “I’ll clear up the crime drawback quick, identical to I did in DC.”
Breyer in his ruling warned that additional deployments of Guard and army troops in different American cities would create “a nationwide police power with the President as its chief.”
“President Trump’s current govt orders and public statements relating to the Nationwide Guard increase severe considerations as as to if he intends to order troops to violate the Posse Comitatus Act elsewhere in California,” the choose wrote.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom gloated concerning the ruling in a social media put up.
“DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” Newsom wrote on X.
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks after U.S. District Decide Charles Breyer granted an emergency short-term restraining order to cease President Trump’s deployment of the California Nationwide Guard, Thursday, June 12, 2025, on the California State Supreme Court docket constructing in San Francisco.
San Francisco Chronicle/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Photographs
Breyer, in his ruling, wrote, “Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it handed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the usage of the U.S. army to execute home regulation.”
“Practically 140 years later, Defendants — President Trump, Secretary of Protection Hegseth, and the Division of Protection — deployed the Nationwide Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a insurrection and be certain that federal immigration regulation was enforced,” the choose wrote.
“There have been certainly protests in Los Angeles, and a few people engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote.
“But there was no insurrection, nor was civilian regulation enforcement unable to reply to the protests and implement the regulation.”
Police and nationwide guards take measures as hundreds of anti-ICE protesters are gathered outdoors of the Federal Constructing in Los Angeles, California on June 9, 2025 amid protests over immigration raids.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu | Getty Photographs
Breyer mentioned that proof launched throughout a trial for the lawsuit reveals that the defendants had “systematically used armed troopers (whose identification was typically obscured by protecting armor) and army automobiles to arrange protecting perimeters and site visitors blockades, have interaction in crowd management, and in any other case exhibit a army presence in and round Los Angeles.”
White Home spokesperson Anna Kelly, in an announcement, mentioned, “As soon as once more, a rogue choose is attempting to usurp the authority of the Commander-in-Chief to guard American cities from violence and destruction.”
“President Trump saved Los Angeles, which was overrun by deranged leftist lunatics sowing mass chaos till he stepped in,” Kelly mentioned.
“Whereas far-left courts attempt to cease President Trump from finishing up his mandate to Make America Secure Once more, the President is dedicated to defending law-abiding residents, and this won’t be the ultimate say on the difficulty.”
The Justice Division, which represented the Trump administration within the case, declined to remark.
Newsom, in an announcement, mentioned, “As we speak, the court docket sided with democracy and the Structure. No president is a king — not even Trump — and no president can trample a state’s energy to guard its folks.”
“Because the court docket right now dominated, Trump is breaking the regulation by ‘making a nationwide police power with the President as its chief,'” the governor mentioned. “That is precisely what we have been warning about for months. There isn’t a rampant lawlessness in California, and in reality, crime charges are larger in Republican-led states. Trump’s try to make use of federal troops as his private police power is unlawful, authoritarian, and should be stopped in each courtroom throughout this nation.”
