California asks court to halt Trump deploying military in LA

Malathi Nayak, Bob Van Voris, Bloomberg News on Jun 10, 2025

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California asked a federal court to halt the Trump administration’s “illegal” deployment of the state’s National Guard and the U.S. Marines in Los Angeles to quell unrest over the president’s immigration raids.

The move to block the administration from mobilizing thousands of troops follows tensions over anti-deportation protests. Demonstrators have clashed for days with law enforcement, sometimes violently, while Governor Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump trade blame over the responsibility for restoring order.

Attorneys for Newsom and California argued that Trump has “repeatedly invoked emergency powers to exceed the bounds of lawful executive authority” and accused the president of “another unprecedented power grab” with the military escalation in the nation’s second-largest metropolis.

“Deploying over 4,000 federalized military forces to quell a protest or prevent future protests despite the lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety during such protests” is unconstitutional, according to the 22-page complaint filed late Monday in San Francisco federal court. The governor, a Democrat, urged the court to void the president’s orders and transfer the National Guard from Defense Department control “back to the rightful command” of the state.

The strife escalated Sunday night, as some demonstrators committed vandalism and violence, including burning cars. L.A. Police Chief Jim McDonnell said that many of the earlier protesters around the city had been peaceful but that conditions had deteriorated as others replaced daytime demonstrators.

“This violence that I’ve seen is disgusting,” McDonnell said at a press conference Sunday. On Monday, largely peaceful protests continued in pockets of the city with little incident.

Demonstrations

The president has called the demonstrations “migrant riots” and said on his Truth Social platform that federal agencies were to take “all such action necessary” to continue the operations. He has suggested Newsom should be arrested. A sweeping deportation was a hallmark of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Newsom has said order must be restored but that the scale of the violence didn’t warrant federalizing the California National Guard. Before filing the suit, he said he had formally asked the White House to retract the “unlawful” deployment and return the troops to his command, warning it would only inflame tensions.

Trump has directed the U.S. Northern Command to assume control of the National Guard and dispatch at least 2,000 soldiers to the area “for 60 days or at the discretion of the secretary of defense,” the White House said. So far, about 300 soldiers have been deployed to three locations in greater L.A., according to the Northern Command.

The Pentagon on Monday mobilized 700 active-duty Marines to help reinforce the National Guard in response to protests in Los Angeles.

In calling up the troops, Trump issued a proclamation saying the protests “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” He invoked a law giving the president authority to use the National Guard when there is a “rebellion or danger of rebellion” against the country or when he’s “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

The president’s proclamation gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the authority to direct the troops to take “reasonably necessary” actions to protect immigration agents and other federal workers and federal property. It also permits him to use members of the regular armed forces “as necessary to augment and support the protection of federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.”

“At no point in the past three days has there been a rebellion or an insurrection,” Newsom said in the suit. “Nor have these protests risen to the level of protests or riots that Los Angeles and other major cities have seen at points in the past, including in recent years.”

The case is Newsom v. Trump, 25-cv-04870, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

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(With assistance from Alicia A. Caldwell and John Gittelsohn.)