SAN FRANCISCO— The Trump administration and California have started a three-day hearing in U.S. District Court to see if President Donald Trump’s June 2025 order to send hundreds of National Guard and Marine troops to Los Angeles was legitimate. California Governor Gavin Newsom did not want the deployment to happen, but it did to deal with protests over immigration arrests.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is in charge of the trial. It will decide if the deployment broke the Posse Comitatus Act, which is a federal law that limits the employment of the military for civilian law enforcement. The Trump administration says that if California wins, it might make it very hard for the president to deal with emergencies in the United States.
Important Points and Proof
The Case in California: Lawyers for the state of California showed evidence, like social media posts and videos, that they say show federal troops patrolling with local police when there was no evident threat from demonstrators. They said that the troops were not needed and only made things worse. Both Governor Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who are both Democrats, have said that the military weren’t needed and that they were taken away from more important tasks, including putting out wildfires.
Defense of the Trump Administration: The Trump administration says that the president has the power to federalize the National Guard whenever he sees a “rebellion” or “invasion” or when “regular forces” can’t police the law. Major General Scott Sherman, who is in charge of Task Force 51, said in court that the federalized troops were told that their main job was to protect federal workers and buildings and that they could fight themselves if they felt endangered.
Wider Effects and Background
This trial is very important because of what has happened recently. Just hours before the trial started, Trump said he would send the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and take over the police force there because of a “crime emergency.” Critics have spoken out against this plan because city figures show that violent crime rates in D.C. have been going down.
Erwin Chemerinsky, head of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of many legal experts who think the trial is “very important” because a verdict in favor of Trump might mean that future presidents can use the military to police civilians without permission from Congress. A lawyer for the state said it was “terrifying” that a president might send military into U.S. cities without a court review.
A federal appeals court had already placed a hold on a lower court order for Trump to restore the National Guard to Newsom’s control, saying that Trump had likely acted within the law. This trial, however, is a comprehensive review of the facts. The U.S. Supreme Court may have the final say in the issue, but most of the troops have already been sent home from Los Angeles, and only a small group is still at government facilities.