logo
California to Sue Trump for ‘Illegal' National Guard Mobilization

California to Sue Trump for ‘Illegal' National Guard Mobilization

Yahoo9 hours ago

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at Gemperle Orchard in Ceres on April 16, 2025. Credit - Justin Sullivan—Getty Images
Governor Gavin Newsom of California announced that his state plans to file a lawsuit early Monday against Donald Trump for mobilizing the National Guard over the weekend to quell immigration-related protests in Los Angeles.
As news broadcasts and social media have proliferated with scenes of violence and mayhem on the streets of southern California, Newsom alleged in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday evening that it is the U.S. President who 'created the conditions you see on your TV tonight.'
Newsom condemned the violence, calling it 'unacceptable' and 'wrong.' He added that there were 'a lot of great people out there, doing the right thing,' but that 'insurgent groups' and 'anarchists' were infiltrating the demonstrations 'to create real problems.'
'They're just playing right into Donald Trump's hand. And they need to be called out and they need to be arrested,' Newsom said of the bad actors. 'They're doing more than damage to buildings and to property. They're potentially damaging the very foundation of our republic. Democracy is in the balance.'
When asked if he supports the peaceful protesters, Newsom responded emphatically: 'Of course I support them. Protest is the foundation of this democracy. It's what makes this country great. And that needs to persist. And right now people need to come out. But we need to be mindful of the toxicity of this moment, and then we have to deal with these elements that are coming in that are intentionally trying to take advantage of this in a way that only aids and abets Donald Trump.' Newsom added that his priority is to keep peaceful protesters as well as 'those that are enforcing the laws in a respectful and responsible way' safe.
Newsom, whose second and final term as Governor ends in 2027 and who is speculated to be a 2028 Democratic presidential contender, repeatedly focused his blame for the escalation of the situation in California on Trump: 'He's exacerbated the conditions. He's lit the proverbial match. He's putting fuel on this fire,' Newsom said, calling the mobilization of the National Guard 'an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.'
'Donald Trump needs to pull back. He needs to stand down. Donald Trump is inflaming these conditions. This is Donald Trump's problem right now, and if he can't solve it, we will.'
Here's what to know.
Mass protests and demonstrations have taken place across Los Angeles county since Friday in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeting undocumented residents and laborers. While local officials, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the city council, sided with peaceful protesters in opposition to the immigration enforcement actions, demonstrations grew increasingly violent, as clashes intensified between some demonstrators and law enforcement officials.
Rocks and molotov cocktails have been thrown; police vehicles and self-driving Waymo cars have been vandalized; and authorities have used tear gas, 'flash bang' grenades, and rubber bullets to attempt crowd control, according to reports.
'Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable,' Bass said in a post on X on Saturday.
In a White House memorandum on Saturday, Trump said the anti-ICE protests 'constitute a form of rebellion' against the U.S. and ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy 2,000 National Guard personnel in response. In a post on X, Hegseth said the National Guard would be mobilized 'IMMEDIATELY.' Hegseth added that 'if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized—they are on high alert.'
To mobilize the National Guard, Trump invoked Title 10, Section 12406 of the U.S. Code, which allows for the federalization of the National Guard in cases of an invasion or a rebellion, or if the President is unable to execute the country's laws with 'regular forces.'
Section 12406, however, also states that 'Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States.' Newsom confirmed that he did not request the deployment of the National Guard, making it the first time since 1965 that the National Guard has been activated to a state without a governor's request.
In an open letter to Hegseth, Newsom's office called the mobilization 'a serious breach of state sovereignty' and requested that the Pentagon chief 'immediately rescind' the order and 'return the National Guard to its rightful control by the State of California, to be deployed as appropriate when necessary.' The Democratic Governors Association backed Newsom in a statement, saying: 'It's important we respect the executive authority of our country's governors to manage their National Guards.'
Moreover, an 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act, limits federal military personnel from being used for civilian law enforcement within the U.S., which means in Los Angeles the National Guard forces mobilized by Trump can protect federal agents, such as ICE officials, and federal properties, such as detention centers, but they cannot arrest protesters.
The Posse Comitatus Act 'prohibits troops from being used domestically unless the Insurrection Act is invoked,' constitutional scholar and dean of UC Berkeley Law School Erwin Chemerinsky tells TIME, 'and the President has not done that.'
According to Reuters, Trump still could invoke the Insurrection Act, but doing so would enter 'riskier legal territory.'
The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was when President George H.W. Bush mobilized the National Guard to quell riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King. But a key difference between 1992 and now is that then-Governor of California Pete Wilson had requested federal assistance.
Calling in troops to suppress protests has also raised First Amendment concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on Saturday that it also plans to file a lawsuit against the Trump Administration, calling the mobilization of the National Guard an 'abuse of power.'
Earlier on Sunday, Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan, who has previously threatened arrest for anyone who obstructs immigration enforcement, told MSNBC that he would not rule that out even for officials like Newsom and Bass.
'I'll say it about anybody,' Homan said. 'It's a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.'
'Governor Newsom is an embarrassment to the state,' Homan added. 'Criminal aliens are walking the streets of this state every day because of him and his policies.'
In his interview hours later with MSNBC, Newsom responded, saying: 'That kind of bloviating is exhausting.'
Newsom challenged Homan to arrest him but to 'lay your hands off' law-abiding, tax-paying undocumented residents. 'He's a tough guy. Why doesn't he do that? He knows where to find me,' he said. 'Come after me. Arrest me. Let's just get it over with, tough guy. I don't give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community.'
Newsom criticized the Trump Administration for targeting non-criminal undocumented residents for immigration enforcement and pushed back on the accusation that California does not cooperate with the federal government. 'I have no problem with going after criminals. We coordinate and collaborate with ICE,' Newsom said, pointing to the state handing over more than 10,000 inmates to ICE since he took office in 2019. 'When these guys say we don't go after criminals, again, they're lying, and they're knowingly lying.'
When asked if Trump could be putting the spotlight on Los Angeles to take attention away from his recent fallout with Elon Musk, Newsom said 'of course,' also citing Trump's struggles to pass the massive tax and spending package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in Congress as well as ongoing challenges related to Trump's global trade war.
'He's the master of distraction. He's the commander of chaos. That's what Donald Trump does,' said Newsom.
Newsom claimed that Trump used 'the guise of immigration' to create a 'manufactured crisis' in order to challenge the Posse Comitatus Act.
'This is about authoritarian tendencies. This is about command and control. This is about power. This is about ego,' said Newsom. 'This is a consistent pattern of practice of recklessness. This guy has abandoned the great principles of this great democracy. He's threatening to go after judges he disagrees with, cut off funding to institutions of higher learning, he's on a cultural binge, he's rewriting history, censoring historical facts. This is something completely different, and this is part of that ongoing play that is unfolding in front of our eyes.'
Contact us at letters@time.com.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

L.A. immigration protests latest: California sues Trump admin. over National Guard deployment, president says he would support arresting Newsom
L.A. immigration protests latest: California sues Trump admin. over National Guard deployment, president says he would support arresting Newsom

Yahoo

time25 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

L.A. immigration protests latest: California sues Trump admin. over National Guard deployment, president says he would support arresting Newsom

California is suing the Trump administration over its National Guard deployment in Los Angeles without the consent of the state's governor amid immigration protests that escalated over the weekend, leading to dozens of arrests. The Los Angeles Police Department has since declared all of downtown L.A. an unlawful assembly area. The lawsuit was filed Monday by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and accuses President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of "unlawfully" federalizing the state's National Guard, and infringing on California Gov. Gavin Newsom's authority as commander-in-chief of the state's military reserve force. "Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach," Bonta said. "It is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism. We will not let this stand.' Bonta also alleged in a televised statement Monday that protests escalated after National Guard troops arrived on Sunday. 'We'll never know what might have been had the president left our state and local authorities to continue the important work they were already doing and were more than capable of doing,' Bonta said. Before the lawsuit was announced, Trump on Monday said he would support his border czar arresting Newsom over possible obstructions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in the state amid protests. At least 44 people were arrested by federal ICE agents during a raid at several locations around Los Angeles on Friday, including Ambiance Apparel in the garment district and a Home Depot in the Westlake District. These areas are known to have significant migrant populations and labor-focused industries. Protests then erupted in Los Angeles in response to Trump's immigration crackdown that has seen federal agents arrest a student on his way to volleyball practice and erroneously deport a man to El Salvador. Sunday marked the third straight day of protests over the wave of immigration raids. Crowds gathered in downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights. Protesters marched from Boyle Heights to the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal building in downtown L.A. This led to the LAPD declaring the area an unlawful assembly. Protesters moved from outside the federal building and walked onto the 101 Freeway around 3:30 p.m. local time. Police fired tear gas and other projectiles into the crowd and cleared the area by 5 p.m. Meanwhile, another protest started on Sunday outside of Los Angeles City Hall Protesters outside the city's prison in the Alameda neighborhood of L.A. were arrested, according to the LAPD. Around 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles County on Sunday after Trump deployed them to protect federal property and personnel, without the consent of Newsom, a Democrat with whom he often spars. As governor, Newsom would normally retain control and command over the California National Guard. The White House said the deployment was necessary to 'address the lawlessness' in the state, and initially stated that 2,000 troops were being deployed. About 500 Marines are also prepared to deploy to the area, the Northern Command said. It's the first time in nearly 60 years that a president has called in the National Guard without a state's request or consent. The last time was when President Lyndon Johnson sent the Guard to protect a 1965 civil rights march in Alabama. Newsom said California is suing the Trump administration over the federal mobilization of the National Guard. Newsom told MSNBC that Trump's federal mobilization of the National Guard was 'an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.' The governor also alleged that Trump is the one to blame for the escalation in California, saying, 'He's exacerbated the conditions. He's lit the proverbial match. He's putting fuel on this fire.' Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, told NBC News that anyone who obstructs immigration enforcement would be arrested. When asked if that would include Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, he replied, 'I'll say it about anybody. … You cross that line, it's a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It's a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.' Newsom responded to Homan's NBC interview on Sunday by saying: 'He knows where to find me.' Homan later clarified those remarks in an interview with Fox News. 'The reporter asked me, well, could Governor Newsom or Mayor Bass be arrested? I said, 'Well no one's above the law — if they cross the line and commit a crime, absolutely they can.'' He added: 'There was no discussion about arresting Newsom.' Meanwhile, Trump said he would support the arrest of Newsom. "I would do it if I were Tom. I think it's great. Gavin likes the publicity but I think it would be a great thing," Trump said Monday. In response, Newsom said: "This is a day I hoped I would never see in America." "I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism," he wrote on X. The peaceful protests escalated into vandalism, autonomous cars set ablaze, fireworks and other objects thrown at law enforcement, police firing rubber bullets (including at an Australian journalist), and dozens of arrests by the LAPD. 'In recent days, many protests across the city have been peaceful and we thank the community for expressing their views and their frustration in a responsible manner,' LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said in a Sunday news conference. 'However, when peaceful demonstrations devolve into acts of vandalism or violence, especially violence directed at innocent people, law enforcement officers and others, we must respond firmly.' McDonnell said that a total of 39 people had been arrested — 29 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. He also said the LAPD was not given advance notice that federal operations would occur in the area. On Sunday, several Waymo driverless vehicles were vandalized and set on fire in downtown Los Angeles. A Waymo spokesperson told USA Today Monday morning that its autonomous vehicles have been removed from the area and the company has temporarily suspended its ride-hailing service 'out of an abundance of caution.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNN on Monday that the situation has since calmed in the city. 'If you dial back time and go to Friday, if immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have had the disorder that went on last night,' Bass said. 'We do not know where and when the next raids will be. That is the concern because people in this city have a rapid response network.' 'If they see ICE, they go out and they protest, and so it's just a recipe for pandemonium that is completely unnecessary,' she added.

Kristi Noem defends the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles protests
Kristi Noem defends the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles protests

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Kristi Noem defends the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles protests

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an interview over the weekend that National Guard troops deployed amid protests in the Los Angeles area are for "the safety of the communities that are being impacted by these riots." "They're there at the direction of the president in order to keep peace and allow people to be able to protest, but also to keep law and order," Noem told Margaret Brennan, moderator of "Face the Nation" on CBS News. President Donald Trump ordered about 2,000 National Guard troops to be deployed as police in riot gear clashed with protesters opposed to the actions his administration has taken against undocumented immigrants. However, California Gov. Gavin Newsom formally requested that Trump withdraw the troops, writing that their deployment "seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation." "We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved," Newsom said in a June 8 X post. "This is a serious breach of state sovereignty – inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they're actually needed." In response to a question about Newsom's criticism of Trump, Noem said that "if (Newsom) was doing his job, then people wouldn't have gotten hurt the last couple of days." "The president knows that (Newsom) makes bad decisions, and that's why the president chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity," she said. "That's one of the reasons why these National Guard soldiers are being federalized, so they can use their special skill set to keep peace." Noem, though, previously threatened then-President Joe Biden when Democrats said he should federalize the National Guard in Texas in response to the state's anti-immigration efforts, USA TODAY reported. "If Joe Biden federalizes the National Guard, that would be a direct attack on states' rights," Noem said in an X post on Feb. 6, 2024, when she was still governor of South Dakota. In the CBS News interview, Noem also criticized Minnesota's response to the George Floyd protests in 2020. "We're not going to let a repeat of 2020 happen," she said. Noem, 53, began her political career in 2006 when she was elected to the South Dakota House of Representatives. She served two terms. In 2010, she successfully ran for South Dakota's lone seat in the U.S House of Representatives. Noem served four terms in the House before taking on another role: South Dakota's governor. She was elected as the state's first female governor in 2019. Noem was confirmed as Homeland Security secretary on Jan. 25. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: What did Kristi Noem say about the Los Angeles protests?

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store