Judge Blocks Trump From National Guard Activation in Los Angeles

As California Governor Newsom and President Trump continue to square off over the administration’s militarized response to anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles, a federal judge has blocked the activation of National Guard troops in the city.

Judge Charles Breyer ordered the Trump administration to return control of the guard to Newsom, saying the president had acted illegally in federalizing 4,000 guard troops against the governor’s wishes.

“The Court concludes that Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the balance of equities tips in their favor and that an injunction restraining the President’s use of military force in Los Angeles is in the public interest,” Breyer wrote.

Protests have lasted nearly a week in Los Angeles following a series of raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement around Southern California. Trump declared on June 7 that the protesters were engaged in “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” and called out the guard.

The ruling cites several dictionary definitions of “rebellion” and concludes that the protests — including sporadic acts of violence — does not qualify.

“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’” Breyer wrote.

The order does not goes into effect until 12 p.m. PT on Friday; the Trump administration is expected to seek an appeal beforehand.

The ruling came hours after Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference in Los Angeles, taken to the ground, and put in handcuffs. The moment became an instant media firestorm, leading news sites, playing on cable news all day and bringing condemnation from Democrats on the Senate floor.

In an interview Thursday evening on MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber,” Padilla said he was listening to a press conference from Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, when “the political rhetoric got to be too much.”

“At one point, it was just too much to take,” Padilla said in his first interview about the encounter. “Not the first, but the second attack on the political leadership of California and this notion that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have to come in and rescue the people of Los Angeles from Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass? It was too much. And so I spoke up.”

Noem appeared at the FBI building in Westwood to vow to continue to crack down on the protests.

“We are not going away,” Noem said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country.”

That was the point at which the senator reacted, moving toward the front of the room and raising his voice to ask a question. The agents apparently did not recognize Padilla — the lesser known of California’s two senators — and grabbed him. He identified himself as he was pushed backwards and out of the room.

“To suggest that they have to come into Los Angeles to restore order — ” he told interviewer Jacob Soboroff. “You know Los Angeles. It’s a big, spread-out city. The images that we’ve seen over the course of the last week of some vandalism, some violence, et cetera, that’s wrong. And I denounce it. But it’s very small and very contained in a big metropolis of the Los Angeles area. So the National Guard was not necessary.”

He said he did talk with Noem afterward, but never got a scheduled briefing on the federal response.

“If they’re allowed to do this in Los Angeles, they can and they will do this in any corner of the country,” Padilla said.