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Tag: Charles Breyer

  • Judge rules Trump’s National Guard use in Los Angeles protests is illegal

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    A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s use of National Guard troops to aid immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles earlier this year is illegal.

    Judge Charles Breyer said the Trump administration violated a 19th-century law when it sent about 4,000 troops and 700 Marines to California in June to quell violent protests and aid federal agents in immigration enforcement efforts.

    After Trump mobilized the troops, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, sued the administration and argued they were in violation of the law that prohibits the military from enforcing domestic laws. However, the administration has argued the troops were in Los Angeles to protect federal officers and property and not to enforce laws.

    The Posse Comitatus Act is a statute from 1878 that prohibits a president from using the military as a domestic law enforcement agency without congressional approval. Breyer found the administration in violation of the statute by using troops for crowd control during protests.

    The issue began when Los Angeles residents began protesting the detention and deportation action being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Protests turned violent, prompting Trump to weigh in and federalize members of the California National Guard, despite Newsom and city leaders objecting.

    Trump’s order to call up the National Guard to Los Angeles and bypass the request of a governor is a move used infrequently by presidents.

    Judge Breyer, a Clinton appointee, had earlier issued an emergency order in June where he said Trump had to give control of the troops back to Newsom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Breyer’s emergency order.

    The appeals court includes two Trump appointees and one appointee from former President Joe Biden. The panel said Trump had constitutional authority to deploy the guard against protesters since the demonstrations turned violent.

    The Trump administration will likely appeal Breyer’s latest ruling.

    In a statement posted online, Newsom’s office celebrated the ruling by saying the people of California “won much needed accountability against Trump’s ILLEGAL militarization of an American city!”

    The ruling comes as Trump has deployed National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., under the District of Columbia’s Home Rule Act, which allows the president to federalize the city’s law enforcement. Trump said crime in Washington was out of control, but is getting better with the federal oversight.

    He’s also threatened to send National Guard troops to other Democratic-led cities like Baltimore and Chicago. It sparked a battle with local leaders, who say they do not need troops in their cities to control crime, and said they would sue if Trump tried to send troops.

    Trump deployed the troops to Los Angeles by declaring there was an emergency need to protect the federal buildings in the area. But in Chicago or any other city, it would be a different story. Without a clear emergency as the reason to send troops, Trump would be openly defying the governor and beginning a legal battle. Even if he overrode the governor, the troops would be limited to only protecting federal assets and employees, nothing more.

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  • Judge rules Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles violated federal law

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    Washington — A federal court in California ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed members of the National Guard and active-duty U.S. Marines to Los Angeles earlier this summer in response to protests against immigration enforcement operations.

    In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that the president and his administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a 1878 law that prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. Breyer blocked the Trump administration from deploying or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops in the state, for civilian law enforcement.

    His decision restricts the use of service members to engage in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures and traffic and crowd control.

    Breyer’s ruling came after he held a three-day trial in the case brought by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in June. Newsom, a Democrat, sued in response to Mr. Trump’s decision to deploy members of California’s National Guard to Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration enforcement operations taking place in the area.

    The judge granted temporary relief to California officials in June that required the Trump administration not to deploy the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control to Newsom. But a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit found it likely that Mr. Trump lawfully federalized the California National Guard under a different law, Title 10.

    Those earlier proceedings did not involve the Posse Comitatus Act. Breyer held the trial on the merits of Newsom’s arguments that the president violated that 147-year-old law last month.

    The judge’s ruling

    The judge wrote in his ruling that the evidence put forth at the trial established that the Trump administration “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote.

    While the Pentagon withdrew roughly the 700 U.S. Marines who had been sent to Los Angeles, Breyer noted that there are still 300 National Guard members stationed there nearly three months after they were first mobilized.

    “Moreover, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth 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,” Breyer wrote.

    The judge said that the Trump administration intentionally initiated the deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to establish a military presence there and enforce federal law. He called that conduct a “serious violation” of federal law prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.

    “In fact, these violations were part of a top-down, systemic effort by Defendants to use military troops to execute various sectors of federal law (the drug laws and the immigration laws at least) across hundreds of miles and over the course of several months — and counting,” Breyer wrote.

    Breyer rejected the administration’s argument that the president’s constitutional powers allow him to override the restrictions in the Posse Comitatus Act.

    “Under this ‘constitutional exception,’ as Defendants call it, the President has inherent constitutional authority to protect federal property, federal personnel, and federal functions, so any actions that can be construed as such ‘protection’ are lawful in spite of the Posse Comitatus Act,” he wrote. “This assertion is not grounded in the history of the Act, Supreme Court jurisprudence on executive authority, or common sense.”

    Attorneys for California had sought an injunction that blocked National Guard forces from participating in and protecting federal agents during immigration enforcement operations, and Breyer agreed to grant their request.

    The judge wrote that while there is “no question that federal personnel should be able to perform their jobs without fearing for their safety,” the Trump administration cannot “use this as a hook to send military troops alongside federal agents wherever they go.”

    Since the 9th Circuit allowed the Trump administration to keep the National Guard in California, the president has moved to deploy troops to Washington, D.C. Mr. Trump has also teased sending the National Guard to other major cities throughout the country in what he casts as a looming crackdown against illegal immigration, violent crime and civil unrest.

    As of Monday, there are over 2,200 National Guard members in Washington, D.C., with over half of those troops sent by Republican governors throughout the country.

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