140 active duty Marines will replace National Guard in Los Angeles, according to state official
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A federal judge ruled in San Francisco District Court on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles is illegal.
But hours later, an appeals court paused the judge’s order until next week, when it considers the case. The stay postponed a Friday deadline given by U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer for Trump to return control of the California National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The federal government had appealed Breyer’s decision, and the order’s implementation will be put off until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing next Tuesday.
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It’s unclear whether the White House will follow the appeal court’s ruling when it comes. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously refused to commit to obeying any judicial order.
Newsom filed a lawsuit Monday, following Trump’s deployment of up to 4,000 National Guard troops on June 7, ostensibly to quell protests against immigration raids. The governor requested a temporary restraining order that would limit troops to guarding federal buildings and preventing them from accompanying workplace raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Within the next 24 hours, a California deputy attorney general said on Thursday, 140 Marines will replace and relieve National Guard troops in Los Angeles.
“The federal government cannot be permitted to exceed its bounds and in doing so create the very emergency conditions that it then relies on to justify federal intervention,” Breyer wrote in his ruling.
These are “issues of extreme significance,” Breyer earlier told a courtroom filled with journalists, retired immigration attorneys, and two U.S. marshals. The “matter has an urgency about it.”
Trump justified his move under U.S. code 12406. The statute allows the president to call in troops whenever the United States is in danger of foreign invasion or a rebellion against the government, or the president is unable with “regular forces” to execute the laws of the United States.
Breyer questioned whether the president complied with these requirements.
Addressing the first condition, federal attorney Brett Shumate said whether or not there is a foreign invasion “is an inherently political question that the president gets to decide,” not the court.
Whether the Los Angeles protests constituted a rebellion, Shumate continued, was also up to the president’s discretion. As was the determination that ICE could not enforce federal immigration laws because of “mobs” rioting on June 6 and 7.
Thus, he argued, the court should not rule on whether the conditions existed; that is up to the president to decide.
“There can be no debate that most protesters demonstrated peacefully,” Breyer wrote in his decision. “The idea that protesters can so quickly cross the line between protected conduct and ‘rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States’ is untenable and dangerous.”
A few “stray bad actors” going too far does not “wipe out” everyone else’s right to protest the government, the judge added.
“You’re telling me that the president acted on evidence,” Breyer said in court. “Did he have to?”
“He didn’t have to,” Shumate said.
If the three conditions are met, the statute continues, then the president’s orders “shall be issued through the governors of the States.”
California’s attorneys have argued the statute requires Newsom to first approve Trump’s orders, but federal lawyers said that’s not the case. “The states are subservient,” said Shumate, so it was sufficient that Newsom received a copy of Trump’s order.
The federal government’s “version of executive power,” California Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Green said, is “breathtaking in scope.”
The president, Green argued, only becomes commander in chief when Congress gives him the authority to call forth the militia. Trump, however, is trying to deploy the National Guard “whenever he perceives that there is disobedience to an order,” Green said.
The “difference between a constitutional government and King George,” the judge said, is a “leader following the law as set forth in both the Constitution and the states.”
At one point, Breyer waved a pocket-sized constitution in the air. “If you want me to look at it,” he told the Trump administration attorney, “I’ve got it.”
“We live in response to a monarchy. This country was founded in response to a monarchy,” Breyer added. “I’m just trying to figure out where the lines are drawn.”
ABIGAIL VÂN NEELY
Abigail covers criminal justice, accountability, and behavioral health. She’s originally from New York City, where she was a youth advocate and watched hundreds of arraignments. Now, she enjoys foggy San Francisco mornings with her cat, Sally Carrera. (Yes, the shelter did in fact name the cat after the Porsche from the animated movie Cars.)More by Abigail Vân Neely
