Trump’s Use of National Guard in Limbo After Court Rulings

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the federal government’s mobilization of the California National Guard to protect immigration agents from protesters in Los Angeles. He ruled that the Trump administration had illegally taken control of the state’s troops and ordered them to return to taking orders from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In an extraordinary 36-page ruling, Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal District Court in San Francisco severed Mr. Trump’s control of up to 4,000 National Guard troops, hundreds of whom are already deployed in the streets of Los Angeles on his orders. The judge said the administration’s seizure of them violated required procedures in a federal statute.

President Trump’s “actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Judge Breyer wrote. “He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the governor of the state of California forthwith.”

The directive would have taken effect at noon Pacific time on Friday. But the Trump administration immediately filed a notice that it was appealing Judge Breyer’s decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed to stay the ruling while it reviews the case, temporarily blocking it from taking effect.

The ruling, which accused Mr. Trump of setting a “dangerous precedent for future domestic military activity,” was the latest in a series of judicial rebukes to Mr. Trump’s expansive claims of wartime or emergency powers over matters ranging from deporting people without due process to unilaterally imposing widespread tariffs. Court rulings blocking his actions as likely illegal have enraged the White House.

Judge Breyer’s ruling on the National Guard went beyond what California had asked for. While the state’s lawsuit had contended that Mr. Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard was illegal, its specific motion was for a temporary restraining order limiting military forces under federal control to guarding federal buildings in the city and no other law enforcement tasks.

Judge Breyer blocked Mr. Trump from using California’s National Guard at all. But he also rejected a request by the state and Governor Newsom to restrain a separate group of active-duty Marines, which the administration has also mobilized to counter the protesters.

Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, mobilized 700 Marines from a base in California to participate in suppressing protests, and the state had wanted the judge to restrict them from accompanying immigration agents on the workplace raids that sparked the protests. But the active-duty troops so far have merely been staged in a neighboring county and have not gone into the city.

Judge Breyer said it would be inappropriate to issue any order restricting the Marines’ actions when they have not done anything that would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally makes it illegal to use federal troops for law enforcement on domestic soil. He said that the state would need to return within a week to try to turn his temporary order into a longer-lasting injunction, allowing time for events to develop.

“As of now, the court only has counsel’s speculation of what might happen,” the judge wrote.

Standing in front of the California flag at a news conference in the lobby of a state courthouse after the ruling, Mr. Newsom hailed the decision.

“Today was really about a test of democracy,” he said. “We passed the test.”

Mr. Newsom said that he would direct National Guard members to resume the duties that they were carrying out before they were redirected by Mr. Trump, which included border control and forest management to reduce wildfire risk.

“They will be back under my command,” he said, “and Donald Trump will be relieved of his command, at noon tomorrow.”

The press offices of the White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Complicating matters, the judge issued his directive to the Trump administration to relinquish control of the National Guard in the form of a temporary restraining order, a short-term tool that is normally not appealable, unlike a more durable preliminary injunction.

Sometimes, however, courts treat consequential temporary restraining orders as injunctions and permit appeals of them anyway. If the Ninth Circuit rejects the appeal, the executive branch could then file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court — where Republican appointees hold a six-to-three supermajority — seeking to block the judge’s move.

Judge Breyer, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1997, had telegraphed his focus on the legality of Mr. Trump’s calling up the National Guard at a hearing earlier on Thursday.

The statute President Trump cited as the authority for his move says that such orders must go “through” governors. But Mr. Hegseth instead sent the directive to the general who oversees the National Guard, bypassing Governor Newsom.

At the hearing, the Justice Department lawyer, Brett Shumate, argued that Mr. Hegseth had complied with the National Guard call-up statute. But even if he hadn’t, Mr. Shumate said, Mr. Trump had the legal authority to order the National Guard into federal service anyway.

Sporting a light-blue bow-tie, Judge Breyer interrupted the Justice Department’s lawyer repeatedly and at one point waved a small copy of the Constitution in the air. Some of his pointed replies drew laughs from the packed courtroom of more than 100 people.

When it came, his ruling was scathing.

The state of California “and the citizens of Los Angeles face a greater harm from the continued unlawful militarization of their city, which not only inflames tensions with protesters, threatening increased hostilities and loss of life, but deprives the state for two months of its own use of thousands of National Guard members to fight fires, combat the fentanyl trade, and perform other critical functions,” he wrote.

No president has deployed troops under federal control over the objections of a state governor since the Civil Rights era, when Southern governors were resisting court-ordered desegregation.

Since being federalized and deployed, some National Guard troops have accompanied ICE agents on raids while others have primarily stood outside federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles during protests.

The legal face-off comes amid escalating political tensions between the Trump administration and the California governor. After Mr. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, threatened to arrest Mr. Newsom, Mr. Trump endorsed the idea on Monday, saying, “I’d do it.” Mr. Newsom on Tuesday said in a televised speech that “democracy is under assault right before our eyes.”

Mr. Newsom, after the ruling, forcefully rebuked the tactics that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have employed to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants, describing conversations with children who had been separated from their parents and family members whose relatives had suddenly disappeared without a trace.

“That’s Donald Trump’s America,” he said, calling it “indiscriminate cruelty.”