Trump can’t deploy National Guard in California for law enforcemt

A federal judge on Tuesday barred President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard and other military troops in California to execute law-enforcement actions there, including making arrests, searching locations, and crowd control.

The ruling came in connection with a lawsuit filed in early June by the state of California challenging Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s deployment of the Guard and Marines to deal with protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

Judge Charles Breyer said that Trump’s deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and 700 Marines to L.A. “willfully” violated the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which bars U.S. Military forces from enforcing the law domestically.

Breyer’s injunction in U.S. District Court in San Francisco is limited to California, and the judge stayed the decision until Sept. 12 to give the Trump administration time to appeal it.

The judge said the Trump administration is not required to withdraw the remaining 300 National Guard troops currently stationed in L.A., “nor are they barred from using troops consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act.” That could include guarding federal buildings.

But the decision comes as Trump has considered deploying National Guard troops to other U.S. cities to deal with crime, including Oakland and San Francisco.

In mid-August, Trump placed Washington, D.C.’s police force under federal control and deployed National Guard troops in that city to address what he claims is a rampant crime problem.

On Tuesday, Trump, in a social media pos,t said that at least 54 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, and warned, “I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC.”

Breyer in his ruling warned that further deployments of Guard and military troops in other American cities would create “a national police force with the President as its chief.”

“President Trump’s recent executive orders and public statements regarding the National Guard raise serious concerns as to whether he intends to order troops to violate the Posse Comitatus Act elsewhere in California,” the judge wrote.

Gov. Gavin Newsom gloated about the ruling in a social media post.

“DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” Newsom wrote on X.

“The courts agree — his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL,” wrote Newsom, who has become a leading Democratic voice in opposition to the Republican president.

Breyer, in his ruling, wrote, “Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law.”

“Nearly 140 years later, Defendants — President Trump, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, and the Department of Defense — deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” the judge wrote.

“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote.

“Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”

Breyer said that evidence introduced during a trial for the lawsuit shows that the defendants had “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.”

CNBC has requested comment on the ruling from the Justice Department, which represented the Trump administration in the lawsuit.