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A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump to give back control of California’s National Guard to the state’s governor, in a major blow to the US president’s anti-immigration crackdown.
The ruling also temporarily blocked the federal government from deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
Trump’s “actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution”, which defines the concept of federalism, Charles Breyer, the San Francisco judge presiding over the case, said in his order on Thursday evening.
The decision is a victory for Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, who has forcefully opposed the federalisation of the National Guard to support the Trump administration as it clamps down on immigration and pushes back against protests in Los Angeles.
The judgment “is a win for all Americans”, Newsom said in a statement. “The President’s action to turn the military against its own citizens threatened our democracy and moved us dangerously close to authoritarianism.”
The government is appealing against Breyer’s ruling, which will not be enforced until Friday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by California on Monday that alleged Trump’s order to mobilise the National Guard was illegal and unconstitutional. It stressed that orders to federalise such troops should be issued through state governors, as per the statute Trump cited.
Breyer said the government had not notified Newsom prior to issuing its order.
During a hearing earlier on Thursday, Breyer questioned the government’s argument that the president had complete discretion and that courts therefore could not weigh in on the issue.
“How is that any different from what a monarchist does?” the judge, brother of former liberal Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, told a packed courtroom. That is “not where we live . . . This country was founded in response to a monarch.”
The “president is of course limited to his authority”, added Breyer, a former Watergate prosecutor. “That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George.”
The Trump administration in court documents argued that California was seeking “an extraordinary, unprecedented, and dangerous court order” that would interfere with the federal government’s “ability to carry out operations”.
The government also mobilised hundreds of US Marines to Los Angeles, but Breyer did not rule on this move.
His order came hours after California and other states on Thursday filed a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration, escalating the clash between Newsom and the president.
The plaintiffs alleged that a resolution blocking California’s ban on new petrol-powered cars by 2035 was illegal and unconstitutional.
The resolution signed by Trump on Thursday morning revokes a waiver that former president Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency gave to California to let the state implement extremely strict emissions standards and require all new vehicle sales be electric by 2035. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this lawsuit.
Additional reporting by Jamie Smyth in New York and Lauren Fedor in Washington
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