Newsom v. Trump
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.450934/gov.uscourts.cand.450934.64.0.pdf
Decision
“On June 6, 2025, the federal government initiated immigration raids across the City of Los Angeles. Protests swiftly followed, and some individuals involved in those protests were unruly and even violent. State and local law enforcement responded. The following day, President Trump ordered that members of the California National Guard be federalized, and thereupon assumed control of those forces. At this early stage of the proceedings, the Court must determine whether the President followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions. He did not. His actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”
Analysis
The President sought to federalize the California National Guard by taking away control of the Guard from the Governor and CA elected officials and placing it instead under the control of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Under the virtually never used Militia Act of 1903, there must be a foreign invasion, a rebellion, or the President must be unable with his regular forces to execute the laws of the US. The Court found 1) there was no foreign invasion, 2) there was no rebellion (simply protests and sporadic violence), and 3) ICE was able to arrest and detain people and was doing so (although not without community protests).
“In short, individuals’ right to protest the government is one of the fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment, and just because some stray bad actors go too far does not wipe out that right for everyone.”
The Militia Act requires the President to act “through the Governor of the State.” The President did not do so and did not even notify the Governor that he had federalized the CA National Guard. The views of the Governor of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles were that there were adequate numbers of LA Police, county sheriffs and state law enforcement on hand that were both better trained and better prepared to deal with any violence that could occur. Their views were not sought; they were not consulted, and they were not even notified of the President’s actions.
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the US military from performing local law enforcement duties and responsibilities domestically, like arresting and detaining people. The judge said there was, as of his decision, no evidence that the National Guard or the Marines were performing policing duties. The first detention just occurred – an Army Veteran going to the West LA VA facility was arrested by the Marines, it was temporary, however. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-allowed-keep-national-guard-los-angeles-more-protests-planned-2025-06-13/
The Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution reserves all powers not specifically authorized by the Constitution for the federal government to the states. The judge points out that “It is well-established that the police power is one of the quintessential powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment. … it is not the federal government’s place in our constitutional system to take over a state’s police power whenever it is dissatisfied with how vigorously or quickly the state is enforcing its own laws.”
Significance:
This is an extremely important test case for the Trump Administration and the fate of American democracy. What Trump, Noem, and Hegseth are saying is that they can use their purported powers discussed above to take over the police powers from Governors and Mayors with whom they disagree. They further maintain that the courts cannot review their decisions that the elected officials and the public are in “rebellion” against the US and/or are resisting or blocking the implementation of Trump Administration’s policies on immigration. These policies include snatching people off the streets, placing them in detention, shipping them off to prisons in foreign countries, without any semblance of a due process hearing.