The National Guard, police and protesters stand off outside of a downtown jail in Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer
Source: USDC | Northern District of California
Breyer warned that further deployments of Guard and military troops in other American cities would create “a national police force with the President as its chief.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom gloated about the ruling in a social media post.
“DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” Newsom wrote on X.
“The courts agree — his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL,” wrote Newsom, who has become a leading Democratic voice in opposition to the Republican president.
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted an emergency temporary restraining order to stop President Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard, Thursday, June 12, 2025, at the California State Supreme Court building in San Francisco.
San Francisco Chronicle/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images
Breyer, in his ruling, wrote, “Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law.”
“Nearly 140 years later, Defendants — President Trump, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, and the Department of Defense — deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” the judge wrote.
“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote.
“Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
Police and national guards take measures as thousands of anti-ICE protesters are gathered outside of the Federal Building in Los Angeles, California on June 9, 2025 amid protests over immigration raids.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu | Getty Images
Breyer said that evidence introduced during a trial for the lawsuit shows that the defendants had “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”
CNBC has requested comment on the ruling from the Justice Department, which represented the Trump administration in the lawsuit.
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