A federal court has delivered a significant legal setback to the Trump administration’s domestic military deployment strategy. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a ruling on Wednesday prohibiting President Trump’s continued federal control of National Guard troops in Los Angeles and mandating their return to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s authority.
The judicial decision addresses the contentious deployment initiated in June 2020 when thousands of National Guard personnel were federalized and dispatched to Los Angeles following protests against intensified immigration enforcement operations. Judge Breyer determined the administration failed to demonstrate that ongoing protest activities justified maintaining federal command over state guard units six months after their initial mobilization.
In a robust defense of constitutional principles, Judge Breyer rejected the administration’s position that courts should refrain from reviewing presidential emergency authority over state guard units. “The Founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances,” Breyer stated in his ruling. “Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one.”
The implementation of the order has been stayed until December 15 to allow the administration opportunity to appeal. This ruling represents the latest development in an ongoing legal confrontation between federal and state authorities that has unfolded across multiple jurisdictions.
The Los Angeles deployment forms part of a broader pattern that has seen National Guard units deployed to various cities including Portland, Oregon and Washington D.C., with similar legal challenges emerging nationwide. While an earlier appellate decision had sided with the administration in June, Governor Newsom renewed legal efforts in November arguing that diminished protest activity eliminated the justification for continued military presence.
Administration lawyers contended during recent hearings that troops remained necessary due to ongoing targeting of federal immigration officials, but Judge Breyer questioned the persistence of emergency conditions months after initial unrest. “I think experience teaches us that crises come and crises go,” the judge remarked during proceedings.
The ruling further criticized the administration’s practice of deploying California National Guard personnel to other states, characterizing it as “effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops.” This marks the second judicial finding that the administration’s deployment methodology violated legal standards, following Breyer’s earlier determination that summer deployments were conducted illegally.