A federal judge said he will have an order “very soon” over whether the Trump administration can deploy National Guardsmen and Marines to the Los Angeles area to assist with enforcing federal immigration laws.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an emergency request on Tuesday to block expansion of what they called President Donald Trump and the Department of Defense’s “unnecessary” and “unlawful militarization.”
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said during a federal hearing Thursday that the issues at hand are “extremely significant” and urgent, and that he intends to “act expeditiously.” Following arguments from attorneys for the federal government and California, the judge said he will have an order out “very soon,” possibly as soon as Thursday.
The request, which was filed as part of Newsom and Bonta’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeks to prevent the use of federalized National Guard and active duty Marines beyond protecting federal buildings and property.
To send thousands of National Guardsmen to Los Angeles, Trump invoked Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which allows a federal deployment in response to a “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” In his order, Trump said the troops would protect federal property and federal personnel who are performing their functions.
Breyer said during Thursday’s 70-minute hearing that the main issue before him is whether the president complied with the Title 10 statute and that the National Guard was “properly federalized.”
The federal government maintained that the president did comply while also arguing that the statute is not justiciable and the president has complete discretion. The judge was asked not to issue an injunction that would “countermand the president’s military judgments.”
Meanwhile, the attorney on behalf of the state of California and Newsom said their position is that the National Guard was not lawfully federalized, and that the president deploying troops in the streets of a civilian city in response to perceived disobedience is an “expansive, dangerous conception of federal executive power.”
Bonta additionally argued in the emergency filing that Trump failed to meet the legal requirements for such a federal deployment.
“To put it bluntly, there is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together,” Bonta wrote.
Breyer declined California’s request to issue a temporary restraining order immediately and instead set the hearing for Thursday afternoon in San Francisco and gave the Trump administration the time they requested to file a response.
In their response, Department of Justice lawyers asked the judge to deny Newsom’s request for a temporary restraining order that would limit the military to protecting federal buildings, arguing such an order would amount to a “rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law.”
“The extraordinary relief Plaintiffs request would judicially countermand the Commander in Chief’s military directives — and would do so in the posture of a temporary restraining order, no less. That would be unprecedented. It would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous,” they wrote.
They also argued California should not “second-guess the President’s judgment that federal reinforcements were necessary” and that a federal court should defer to the president’s discretion on military matters.
Some 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines have been ordered to assist in the Los Angeles area following protests over immigration raids. California leaders claim Trump inflamed the protests by sending in the military when it was not necessary.
Protests have since spread to other cities, including Boston, Chicago and Seattle.
Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to send in the National Guard and Marines, saying the situation in LA was “out of control.”
“All I want is safety. I just want a safe area,” he told reporters. “Los Angeles was under siege until we got there. The police were unable to handle it.”
Trump went on to suggest that he sent in the National Guard and the Marines to send a message to other cities not to interfere with ICE operations or they will be met with equal or greater force.
“If we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country,” he said. “But I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force than we met right here.”
ABC News’ Alyssa Pone, Peter Charalambous and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
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