A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that President Donald Trump’s deployment of U.S. troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer violated a law barring the military from acting as domestic police.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, Judge Charles Breyer concluded that the Trump administration broke the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military to enforce civilian law without congressional approval. Breyer found that Marines and National Guard soldiers stationed in Los Angeles this June were ordered to carry out policing functions during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The rebuke from Breyer comes as Trump signals he may send troops into other blue cities.
“Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote. “There was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law. In short, defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act.”
Breyer accused the administration of attempting to create “a national police force with the president as its chief.” While he did not order the immediate withdrawal of the roughly 300 troops who remain in Los Angeles, he barred them from engaging in policing duties unless Congress explicitly authorizes it. The ruling is on hold until September 12 to allow the administration to appeal. The Trump administration has signaled that it will not back down.
“The military will remain in Los Angeles,” Bill Essayli, the acting attorney general for the Central District of California, wrote on X. “This is a false narrative and a misleading injunction. The military has never engaged in direct law enforcement operations here in LA.”
Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.
The possible legal setback comes as Trump has publicly mulled expanding his military crackdown to other cities, including Oakland, San Francisco, and Chicago. Just before Breyer issued his decision, the president posted on Truth Social that he intended to “solve” the Windy City’s “crime problem fast, just like [he] did in DC.”
“JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME,” Trump wrote while citing recent shootings.
Trump carried out his recent deployment of federal officers in the nation’s capital under a different legal justification than the one in L.A., since the Constitution does grant the president authority over the D.C. National Guard.
Gov. Pritzker blasted the suggestion, calling it “an invasion with U.S. troops.”
“National Guard troops or any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency – and there is not,” Pritzker told CBS News. “If they do, they’ll be in court pretty quickly, because that is illegal.”
