Update, 9 pm June 10, 2025

A California judge denied Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration’s deployment of federalized state National Guard troops and Marines to Southern California.

U.S District Judge Charles R. Breyer, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, set a hearing for Thursday.

Newsom Tuesday asked the court to stop the Trump administration’s mobilization of troops amid the large demonstrations that have broken out over the past few days in protest of federal immigration enforcement operations in the area.

The Trump administration on Sunday federalized California’s National Guard, mobilizing more than 4,000 troops to Los Angeles and ordered some 700 infantry Marines from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms to deploy to Los Angeles. The administration made those moves without asking for the consent of Newsom and local law enforcement officials, prompting Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta Monday to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Bonta argued in the lawsuit that local law enforcement had been capable of handling the situation and could have requested support from state partners had it been necessary.

The state of California on Monday filed suit against the Trump administration over its move to take control of the state’s National Guard and deploy troops to Los Angeles to protect immigration enforcement agents, accusing President Trump of an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources.”

The 22-page complaint, filed in the Federal District Court in San Francisco, declared that Trump was violating both federal law and the Constitution and sought a judicial order that would unwind the deployment and return control of the National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“President Trump has repeatedly invoked emergency powers to exceed the bounds of lawful executive authority,” the complaint said. “On Saturday, June 7, he used a protest that local authorities had under control to make another unprecedented power grab, this time at the cost of the sovereignty of the state of California and in disregard of the authority and role of the Governor as commander-in-chief of the state’s National Guard.”

The Justice Department declined to comment on the litigation.

The lawsuit argues that President Trump’s federalization of the state’s National Guard was illegal because the move bypassed Gov.  Gavin Newsom, and because it violated the Tenth Amendment, which protects state rights. Newsom had foreshadowed the filing in a social media post earlier on Monday, a day of fast-moving events that began with a focus on the federalized National Guard moving into the streets of Los Angeles but ended with a significant escalation, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was sending in 700 active-duty Marines.

In an interview on Monday, Newsom warned other governors across the country that Trump could repeat his move in their states, too, in the name of suppressing protests against the administration’s immigration crackdown.

“The president’s order that we are litigating on is a national order,” Newsom said. “It’s not just for Los Angeles. And so I continue to remind my fellow governors — not just Democratic governors, Republican governors — of how consequential it is and how significant an escalation it is.”

The complaint largely focused on the legitimacy of Trump’s seizure of control over the state’s National Guard. It sought a judicial declaration nullifying Trump’s order and declaring that it was unlawful for Hegseth to bypass Newsom in federalizing those forces.

But while the complaint declares that “use of the regular armed forces is similarly unlawful here,” it does not develop that idea at length or request a judicial order to send the Marines back to their base. It is possible the state could file an expanded complaint later.

The complaint also argued that by sending troops to perform the law enforcement function of keeping protests under control — a public safety job it said the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments were best equipped to handle — the Trump administration was violating the Tenth Amendment, which preserves the rights of states.

Using military force “to quell a protest or prevent future protests despite the lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety during such protests represents the exact type of intrusion on state power that is at the heart of the Tenth Amendment,” the suit argued.

Before the complaint was filed, Attorney General, Rob Bonta said in a news conference on Monday that, “We don’t take lightly to the president abusing his authority and unlawfully mobilizing California National Guard troops.”

He argued that local law enforcement had been capable of handling the situation and could have requested support from state partners. Bonta also said that the situation had been calming before Trump incited new unrest.

“Trump and Hegseth jumped from 0 to 60,” Bonta said. “Bypassing law enforcement expertise and evaluation, they threw caution to the wind and sidelined strategy in an unnecessary and inflammatory escalation that only further spurred unrest.”

Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he was imposing federal control over at least 2,000 National Guard troops for at least 60 days to quell the protests, and directed Hegseth to determine which ones to use. He also authorized Hegseth to use active-duty troops if necessary.

On Monday evening, hours after saying that 700 active-duty Marines were going into Los Angeles, the Defense Department announced that Trump was federalizing an additional 2,000 California National Guard troops.

Trump’s order suggested that protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and detention facilities were interfering with federal functions, and that they constituted a rebellion against the federal government’s authority and its ability to enforce federal law.

That is the standard for invoking the Insurrection Act to use the military for domestic policing. Under 19th century laws, it is normally illegal to use federal military forces to perform police functions on domestic soil, unless there is an insurrection.

But the order did not invoke the Insurrection Act. Instead, it cited only a statute that allowed the president, under certain circumstances, to federalize a state’s National Guard. It also appeared to gesture toward a claim of inherent presidential power to use troops to protect federal functions.

Notably, during the Vietnam War, the Justice Department wrote memos saying that the military could be used to protect federal functions and the Pentagon from antiwar protesters as a matter of inherent power, notwithstanding the law against military policing on domestic soil.

Bonta acknowledged that isolated pockets of trouble had surfaced amid protests that remained peaceful, and he suggested that it was Trump’s provocation that caused them to become violent. Bonta also said his office had studied the Insurrection Act and was prepared to respond if Trump later tried invoking it as an alternate legal authority to deploy the U.S. military to address the protests.

But Bonta reiterated that he was not aware of any conditions suggesting that the protests in Los Angeles necessitated federal troops, and that the local authorities were “completely prepared” to address any developments.

Trump’s order raises many legal complexities, including whether a rebellion against federal authority is indeed taking place, and whether a court could reject a president’s claim that the situation rises to the level that would make it lawful to send in troops.

But there is also a basic procedural issue about the National Guard: whether it was lawful for Hegseth to cut Newsom out of the administration’s decision-making process.

Trump’s order instructed Hegseth to consult with state governors about calling up National Guard units, and the call-up statute Trump cited said that orders for National Guard call-ups “shall be issued through the governors of the states.”

Trump’s move was the first time in about 60 years that a president had sent troops under federal control into a state to quell unrest without a request from the state’s governor. That last happened during the civil rights movement, when governors were resisting court orders to desegregate public schools.

The last time a president used military force to carry out police functions on domestic soil was in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops into Los Angeles to calm widespread rioting after a jury’s acquittal of police officers who had been videotaped beating a Black man, Rodney King. But in that case, both the California governor and the mayor of Los Angeles had requested the federal assistance.

 

Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Charlie Savage and Laurel Rosenhall are reporters with The New York Times. Copyright 2025, The New York Times.