President Donald Trump speaks after signing a bill blocking California’s rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A group of states are imploring a federal judge to side with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and against President Donald Trump, by removing the National Guard from the streets of Los Angeles.
In a 31-page amicus brief on Wednesday, Washington and 21 other states say the 45th and 47th president’s federalization and deployment of California’s National Guard in response to immigration protests without Newsom’s consent “is unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic.”
The friend of court brief also says Trump’s controversial decision is “in clear violation of the statute” relied upon to engineer the mobilization.
The Trump administration has cited 10 U.S.C. §12406, a statute that says the “the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State” and that federalization of such troops “shall be issued through the governors of the States.”
In the case before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, Newsom has taken issue with the federal government’s interpretation of the statute and claims it “does not provide the authority” the president claims “and cannot be the vehicle” for a militarized City of Angels.
Separately, Newsom filed an ex parte motion requesting a temporary restraining order within two hours on Tuesday morning. This effort flamed out – but the judge set a quick briefing schedule and now the court’s docket is open for input from various interested parties.
The states see themselves as uniquely positioned to offer input.
“Here, the States’ perspective is plainly relevant, and their interests in preventing the President’s unlawful deployment of the National Guard and Marines are numerous,” the amicus brief reads.
The amici say they are primarily concerned with “the unlimited scope” of the presidential memorandum used to announce the stateside military action in response to anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests on June 7.
“This memo, which federalizes the National Guard in support of ‘ICE’ and other unspecified ‘Federal functions,’ does not restrict its application to Los Angeles, the State of California, or any specific geographic region,” the brief reads. “Instead, it is an unlimited claim of presidential authority to deploy the National Guards of any State for a period of 60 days.”
To hear the states tell it, Trump’s “broad invocation” of presidential control over those troops implicates their interest in making sure the “deployment of their National Guard units is governed by the rule of law, and not the whims of the President or his appointees.”
“[T]he circumstances where Congress authorized invocation of §12406 were not and are not present in California, and the President failed to issue the orders through the governor of California as required by statute,” the brief goes on. “Allowing the President and the Secretary of Defense to ignore the plain-text requirements of the statute they invoked undermines the rule of law.”
The U.S. Department of Justice, for its part, says the statute only requires the president to find conditions necessary for such a deployment. And, when accounting for the section of the law that deals with a governor’s role, the DOJ says that language is simply about communicating a president’s decision.
The states urge the court to reject this understanding.
From the amicus brief, at length:
President Trump’s invocation of the statute here—to call forth armed National Guard soldiers and entangle them in protests that local law enforcement is able to manage, is contrary to the purpose of the militia and tradition of restraint in their use. And that President Trump mobilized the National Guard over the objection of California’s Governor is utterly unprecedented in our history. While our leaders have long recognized that the armed forces, including the National Guard, might sometimes be necessary to respond to emergencies, this has always and only been used as a last resort, and always with an eye toward respecting the primacy of civil law enforcement and state control of the militias. By invoking Section 12406 here, President Trump undermines one of our Nation’s founding principles: that freedom depends on the subordination of the military to civilian authority.
Another issue cite by the amici is the ability of the states to use the National Guard for dealing with crises like natural disasters. They argue that Trump’s “unlawful federalization”of those units threats to pull volunteers “away from performing vital services for which they are specially trained” and which the states cannot replace.
As an inverse to the natural disaster argument, the states also flatly accuse the Trump administration of making the Los Angeles situation – a political crisis of sorts – even worse and they warn the same playbook might be run across the country.
“Defendants’ actions exacerbate these challenges in the name of addressing them,” the brief continues. “In Los Angeles, the President’s deployment has dramatically worsened the situation on the ground. And in Amici States, the unjustified deployment of military personnel to California stokes fear that the same will happen throughout the nation. As a result, local law enforcement may be required to respond to incidents of violence that may otherwise never have occurred.”
The states also frame one of their major complaints in terms of principled opposition to the general idea of using the military against protests.
“[T]he States have an interest in maintaining and promoting a free and open society in which lawful dissent is not chilled by the presence of military forces deployed domestically in our cities and towns,” the brief goes on. “Of course, under the First Amendment, the States’ residents may use public spaces to exercise their views lawfully and peacefully—and where any violation of the law is addressed by civil law enforcement instead of the military. The President’s unlawful deployment of military to California without justification or legal authority is already having, and will likely continue to have, a chilling impact on constitutionally protected activity.”
The federal government, meanwhile, sees the constitutional issues vastly differently. In its response to the injunction request, the DOJ argued along the path of the unitary executive theory.
“There is no rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law,” the response motion reads. “And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law.”
On Thursday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a combative 27-page reply – taking issue with Trump’s “breathtaking vision of unlimited, unreviewable executive power” and calling his “unfettered view of executive authority” a contradiction of “foundational American traditions.”
In their reply, the Golden State plaintiffs tell the judge to ignore most of the weighty issues – framing their request as relatively mild.
“The only question before the Court now is whether to grant narrow and temporary relief to avoid the immediate harms that will arise from Defendants’ unprecedented decision to move federal troops beyond their initial mission to protect federal buildings, and instead to employ them to participate in civil immigration enforcement throughout our communities,” California’s reply argues.
Breyer is slated to hear oral arguments for and against the temporary restraining order on Thursday at 1:30 p.m.
