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A federal appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to maintain control of the California National Guardsmen he deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a judge in San Francisco had erred the week before when he ordered the president to return the troops to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Their unanimous ruling held that the conditions in Los Angeles were sufficient for the president to decide he needed to take charge of California’s Guard and deploy it to ensure enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The deployment was the first by a president of a state National Guard without the governor’s permission since 1965, according to the National Guard Bureau.
It began with 2,000 California Guardsman on Title 10 orders but now includes more than 4,100 personnel.
They are involuntarily mobilized members of the state’s 49th Military Police Brigade and 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
Approximately 700 active-duty Marines are also part of Task Force 51, which is commanded by Maj. Gen. Scott M. Sherman, the deputy commanding general-National Guard for U.S. Army North. Sherman is a Colorado Army Guard officer.
TF51’s mission is to protect federal personnel conducting federal functions and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area, according to a U.S. Northern Command press release.
“They can and have accompanied ICE on missions, but they are not a part of the operations,” the release said. “Title 10 forces do not do law enforcement functions. They protect; they don’t participate.”
A lower-court judge had concluded that the protests were not severe enough for Trump to use a rarely triggered law to federalize the Guard over Newsom’s objections.
But the appeals court panel, which included two Trump appointees and one of former President Joe Biden, disagreed.
It said that while a president does not have unfettered power to seize control of a state’s Guard, the Trump administration presented sufficient rationale for its actions.
“The undisputed facts demonstrate that before the deployment of the National Guard, protesters ‘pinned down’ several federal officers and threw ‘concrete chunks, bottles of liquid, and other objects’ at the officers,” the court wrote.
“Protesters also damaged federal buildings and caused the closure of at least one federal building,” the three-judge panel added. “And a federal van was attacked by protesters who smashed in the van’s windows. The federal government’s interest in preventing incidents like these is significant.”
Last week, the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the mobilization of up to 700 military personnel in support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
—By John Goheen
