The use of federal troops of the Trump administration in Los Angeles to carry out operations to apply the law is illegal, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The American district judge Charles Breyer issued an order that prohibits troops from participating in security patrols, disturbance control, arrests, searches and crowd control. The order does not enter into force until September 12 to allow the Trump Appel administration.
Breyer said that the use of federal troops effectively created a “Force of the National Police with the president as a boss” and violated the POSSE Commitatus law.
“The evidence in the trial established that the defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by the protective armor) and the military vehicles to establish protective perimeters and traffic blocks, participate in the control of crowds and demonstrate a military presence in Los Angeles and its surroundings. In short, the defendants violated the act of the post -elected postse,” Breyer wrote.
The POSSE Commitatus Law of 1878 limits the military to be involved in the application of civil law unless Congress approves or under circumstances “expressly authorized by the Constitution.”
An exception is the insurrection law, a 218 -year law signed by President Thomas Jefferson.
The members of the California National Guard are deployed outside a complex of federal buildings in Santa Ana, California, in June 18, 2025.
Mike Blake/Reuters, file
The insurrection law establishes, in part: “provided there is an insurrection in any state against his government, the president can, at the request of his legislature or his governor, if the legislature cannot be convened, call the federal service as the militia of the other states, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the Armed Forces, as it is necessary to suppress the insurrection.”
Another provision establishes that it can be used “every time the president considers that illegal obstructions, combinations or assemblies or rebellion against the authority of the United States make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any state for the ordinary course of judicial procedures.”
Alexandra Hutzler of ABC News contributed to this report.
This is a development story. Consult the updates again.
