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A US federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in California in a setback to the president’s plans to put troops on the streets of cities across the country.
San Francisco district judge Charles Breyer on Tuesday wrote that the government had violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the US military from enforcing domestic law, when it placed the California National Guard under federal control in June to quash protests against the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The White House claimed the demonstrations qualified as a rebellion that blocked the enforcement of federal immigration law.
Breyer’s decision, which will take effect on September 12, prevents the government from using the National Guard or any military troops to “execute the laws”, including arrests, riot control and interrogation.
“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote in his decision. “Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
“Nevertheless . . . contrary to Congress’s explicit instruction, federal troops executed the laws,” he said. About 300 National Guard members remain stationed in California.
The Trump administration is seeking to deploy troops across US cities due to what it claims are public safety emergencies, while seeking to crack down on “sanctuary cities” — jurisdictions that limit or bar co-operation with federal immigration authorities.
Trump last month deployed the National Guard in Washington and took control of the city’s police force. He is now planning to station them in Chicago which, like the capital, is a Democratic party stronghold.
JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, last month pushed back against a military deployment in the state’s biggest city, accusing Trump of “attempting to manufacture a crisis”.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson last week signed an executive order demanding the Trump administration stand down from deploying any armed forces in the city, and said the city’s police force “will remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency”.
In his decision, Breyer referred to the president’s plans for a broader deployment, writing that government officials “have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country — including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California — thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief”.
The judge added that Tuesday’s order was a response to the “ongoing risk that [the administration] will act unlawfully”.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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