The first legal battle for the controversial deployment of military in Los Angeles ordered by Donald Trump without the authorities of California being requested this Thursday in a San Francisco Court And it has resulted in a defeat of the Republican. He Federal Judge Charles Breyer He has blocked that deployment of the National Guard and has ordered the Administration to return the control of that body of reserved to the governor, the Democrat Gavin Newsom. The order, which the government has immediately resorted to a Court of Appealstake effect this Friday at noon.
“Their actions were illegal, exceed the scope of their regulatory authority and They violate the tenth amendment of the Constitution“, The magistrate has written in a reference to the amendment that regulates the rights of the fent states to the federal government.” In our Constitution systeml does not correspond to the government import to state police power whenever it is dissatisfied with the rapid or vigorously that the State is applying its own laws, “he dictates.
The judge also ensures that “protests in Los Angeles are far from being a rebellion“, The argument that Trump used to authorize military deployment and says that” the right of individuals to protest against the Government is one of the fundamental rights protected by the first amendment and only because some bad actors are far away does not eliminate the right to all. “
In his decision he also accuses Trump of sitting a “dangerous precedent for future military activities” on American soil by giving up a new legal mechanism to try to arrive power over the National Guard. And before, during the sight prior to sentence, the judge had shown deep skepticism before Trump’s actions and has come to underline that USA “was founded in response to a monarch“And that” the Constitution is a document of limitations. “
Opposite reactions
Newsom has appeared at a press conference and the judicial decision has been “gratified” and has declared: “Today is A great day for the US Constitution, for our democracy. “
Now It remains to be seen If the White House and the Pentagon will comply Your decision. This same Thursday, in a comparison before the Congress before the judicial hearing, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, eluded to answer directly about whether they would. “We should not have local judges dictating national policy or national security of the country, ”said the head of the Pentagon, replicating an argument that Trump and his allies have been doing since he returned to the White House when they have faced judicial decisions against.
The judge and the decision
Judge Breyer was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and is the brother of a magistrate retired from the Supreme Court. His decision has arrived in response to a emergency motion who presented Governor Newsom and his fiscal general, Rob Bonta., in which they asked to limit the role of the role of federal buildings 4,000 National Guard reservists and 700 Marines whose deployment was authorized by Trump and Hegseth.
The fear expressed by California was for the military to be authorized to Participate or help in immigrant arrest racing and operations That ICE, the Immigration Police Agency, has been doing in a hardened campaign since last Friday. In fact, the National Guard had already begun to accompany ICE agents to protect them during their operations.
Los 700 marines They had not yet deployed in the streets, and it had been announced that they would begin operating this Friday, and that is why the judge has decided that he cannot rule on them.
The magistrate, however, has gone beyond what the emergency motion requested with respect to the National Guard and has included in his decision the order to return to Newsom the control over that body of reservists.
The protests and Trump
Protests against immigrants arrests and raids began Friday in Los Angeles and other surrounding cities affected by these police operations. Sporadically implication Vandalism and violence acts. And although local authorities, including the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, assured that His police forces were enough to contain them, Trump authorized the deployment of military Saturday.
He did it through a proclamation in which he came to talk about acts of “rebellion”Against the United States. But the president invoked the Title 10 of the US Code, which limits the capacity of the military to temporarily protect ICE agents, other government staff and federal properties. They can also temporarily stop someone to attack agents of the order but could not make arrests.
Deleted borders
If Trump wants Ley can be accompaniedyou must invoke the 1807 insurrection law. And although the Republican has not ruled out that possibility, he has not done so.
Even California feared that Trump and the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, would expand the abilities of the military. And that is why the emergency motion was expressly asked to activities that intertwine excessively military forces with civil order forces. ”
Troop withdrawal
That motion had been added to a Demand filed on Monday, the deployment In itself, in which The withdrawal of reservists and marines is directly requested, whose arrival according to local authorities was not necessary and has only served to set fire tensions. Almost two dozen states have presented Support writings To that request to block the deployment in California, which in the demand claimed that Trump is skipping the rights of the states recognized in the tenth amendment of the Constitution, Something that Judge Breyer has proved him right.
The last time a president deployed military without being requested by a governor was in 1965. In that case, Lyndon Johnson did to protect activists and civil rights protesters in Alabama after the governor, segregationist, refused to give them police protection.
California’s emergency motion asked only that military performance is limited while deciding on whether or not the military can be deployed in Los Angeles. The initial virulence of the protests has been reduced considerably since Wednesday, when local authorities began to apply a curfew Between eight in the afternoon and six in the morning in a limited area of the ‘downtown’ of this immense metropolis of four million inhabitants. Trump, despite this, attributes to his decisions calm.
In the judicial documentation California assured that Trump acted “without the assessment or consent” of Newsom. He accuses the president to be offering with his actions “an extraordinary vision of unlimited and exempt control power.”
The department of Justicefor his part, he had defended that The president’s action is legal and that the president You do not need to consult or get the governed approvalr. In the documentation submitted on Wednesday for the case, the legal representatives of the Government also assured that the Military “are not performing police work. In fact, “they wrote,” they are protecting the forces of order. “
