A San Francisco federal judge will hold a landmark bench trial this week to determine whether the Trump administration violated a 19th-century law barring the use of military forces for domestic law enforcement when it sent Marines and California National Guard troops into Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests.
Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, the brother of retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, will preside over the three-day trial beginning Monday, marking the first time in U.S. history that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a post-Reconstruction law that prohibits federal military involvement in civilian policing, will be tested in a courtroom.
The case, Newsom et al. v. Trump et al., stems from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) lawsuit against President Donald Trump, filed on June 9. The plaintiffs allege that the president’s federalization of 4,000 California National Guard troops and deployment of Marines in support of immigration enforcement operations and efforts to quell riots was illegal.
The lawsuit has become a constitutional clash between the president and a governor.
While Breyer temporarily blocked Trump’s actions last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quickly reversed that ruling, granting the federal government continued authority over the National Guard’s presence in Los Angeles.
