A federal judge in California has ruled that former President Donald Trump broke the law when he sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer.
The case centers on Trump’s decision to deploy the Guard during protests against immigration raids in June. While the White House claimed the move was needed to keep order, California officials insisted local law enforcement had the situation under control—and that the president overstepped his authority.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a law dating back to 1878 that sharply limits the federal government’s ability to use the military in domestic law enforcement. Breyer noted that soldiers in Los Angeles were tasked with duties like setting up barricades, controlling crowds, and blocking traffic—activities the law specifically prohibits.
The judge warned that Trump’s approach risked creating what he called “a national police force with the President as its chief.” He temporarily blocked Guard members from performing law enforcement duties such as arrests, searches, interrogations, or riot control.
The ruling, however, is on hold until September 12, and the Trump administration is expected to appeal.
The White House pushed back hard against the decision. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly accused the judge of trying to “usurp the authority of the Commander-in-Chief” and said Trump remained determined to protect Americans from “violence and destruction.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had sued over the deployment, praised the court’s decision. “The court sided with democracy and the Constitution,” he said.
Trump has also sent Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and is considering similar deployments to other cities, including Chicago. While Judge Breyer’s order applies only to California, it raises broader legal questions about how far a president can go in using military forces at home.
This isn’t the first clash over control of California’s National Guard. Newsom previously accused Trump of illegally bypassing him to deploy the Guard. While a lower court initially sided with Newsom, an appeals court ruled in Trump’s favor in June.
For now, the legal fight continues, with the future of Trump’s broader National Guard strategy hanging in the balance. Photo by SC Guard, Wikimedia commons.
