SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to Southern California during immigration enforcement operations and accompanying protests, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco did not require the several hundred remaining troops to be withdrawn and set his order to go into effect Sept. 12.
The order comes after California sued, saying the troops sent to Los Angeles over the summer were violating a law that prohibits military enforcement of domestic laws.
Lawyers for Trump’s administration have argued the Posse Comitatus Act doesn’t apply because the troops were protecting federal officers, not enforcing laws. They say the troops were mobilized under an authority that allows the president to deploy them.
The judge’s decision comes as Trump has discussed National Guard deployments in Democratic-led cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York. He has already deployed the guard as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover in Washington, where he has direct legal control.
Trump federalized members of the California National Guard and sent them to the second-largest U.S. city over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and city leaders.
Trump did so under a law that allows the president to call the guard into federal service when the country “is invaded,” when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is otherwise unable “to execute the laws of the United States.”
Trump has pushed the bounds of typical military activity on domestic soil, including through the creation of militarized zones along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Breyer’s ruling accused the Trump administration of “willfully” violating the law, saying it used troops for functions that were barred by their own training materials.
