Only a few hours after President Donald Trump said he would deploy the National Guard in Washington, DC, a federal judge in San Francisco heard arguments on Monday about whether the administration violated federal law when he mobilized the troops to Los Angeles this summer.
California is asking the judge of the United States District Court, Charles Breyer, to order the Trump administration to return the control of the remaining troops to Governor Gavin Newsom and stop using the army “to execute or help in the execution of the Federal Law.”
The Federal Government argues that the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines was only to support immigration officials, who were prevented by large -scale protests throughout the city in early June.
In response, the Department of Defense ordered some 4,000 members of the California National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles while thousands of activists and immigration supporters marched in the streets and outside the federal buildings to show their opposition to Trump’s mass deportation effort.
Trump characterized protesters as violent mobs, but Mayor Karen Bassom and Newsom said the Local Police was equipped to handle protests.
Trump said the troops would protect federal staff and property and would not participate in activities to apply the law. Some 250 members of the National Guard remain on service, according to the Pentagon.
The State sued the Trump administration for what it called an unjustified deployment and won an early victory of Breyer, who discovered that the federal government had violated the tenth amendment that clarified the balance of power between federal and state governments.
The Trump administration appealed, arguing that the courts cannot guess the president’s orders. The United States Department of Justice assured a temporary detention for Breyer’s ruling, which allowed the control of the California National Guard to remain with Trump.
Central of the trial is the Law Posse Commitatus of 1878, which prohibits the president from using the military as a force of the National Police. The case, which is expected to continue until Wednesday, could establish a precedent of how the Trump administration manages future deployments of federal troops in DC, Baltimore and other cities led by democratic mayors. (Newsom and Bass are Democrats).
“The objective question, which the Court must address, is whether the army was used to enforce national law, and if so, if there continues a threat to be done again,” Breyer told the court.
The first of the three witnesses to testify on Monday was William Harrington, the former Cabinet Deputy Director of the Army Task Force that supervises the Operation of Los Angeles.
Harrington, who did not participate or in the work of witnesses in the countryside, said he raised concerns about the POSSE Comitatus Law on June 7 during an informative session of the working group before the federal forces arrived in Los Angeles.
During the interrogation by the state attorney general Jane Reilley, Harrington said he was concerned that if the California National Guard were deployed, he would lose the police authority due to the statute and would be reduced to a support role.
That was the case when the federal forces accompanied immigration agents to separate operations in Los Angeles MacArthur Park and a cannabis cultivation center in Camarillo, north of Los Angeles, Harrington said.
“They were asked to provide strength protection for agents while performing their federal functions,” he said under the interrogation. “The soldiers really did not participate in any activity.”
Before being deployed in MacArthur Park on July 7, when federal officers and national guard troops moved throughout the empty space, Harrington received an intelligence report that “did not indicate an objective or threat of high value for federal functions in this place,” he said.
Even so, about 90 members of the guard were among the forces seen adhesively through the popular park where the children played with a one -day camp.
“What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation,” Bass said at that time.
The greatest general of the Army Scott Sherman, commander of the Los Angeles Task Force, said in the Court that the federal forces have exceeded the number of local police officers on some occasions.
During an action of application of immigration in MECA, a desert community about 142 miles east of Los Angeles, approximately 300 soldiers of the task force were present, compared to 200 federal agents of application of the law, Sherman said.
Breyer seemed to be seen on multiple occasions, at a time arguing with Sherman’s lawyers and the Department of Justice about whether federal forces can intervene every time people protest a law they don’t like.
“What about the Fiscal Law?” He asked Sherman.
“We have never had a situation like that, your honor,” Sherman replied.
“I am trying to really discover what limits are established” by law, Breyer Teresher replied.
Ernesto Santacruz Jr., director of the field office of the Department of National Security in Los Angeles, declared that the federal intervention was necessary because the Local Police was slow to respond when a crowd of 1,500 gathered outside the federal building on June 6 to protest against immigration arrests.
The crowds made it difficult for their agents to do their job, including entry into a building where detained immigrants stop, he said.
“We had to pivot, and we had to condense the teams to have a bigger footprint,” said Santacruz in the Court. “That hit our ability to carry out our missions.”
The lawyers of the Department of Justice asked Breyer for a rapid trial at the end of the day, arguing that the State had not made their case. The trial resumes Tuesday morning.
