By Dietrich Knauth and Jack Queen
(Reuters) -A landmark trial kicks off on Monday over the Trump administration’s use of National Guard troops to support its deportation efforts and quell protests in Los Angeles, in a legal challenge highlighting the president’s break from long-standing norms against deploying soldiers on American streets.
The three-day non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco will determine if the government violated a 19th-century law that bars the military from civil law enforcement when it deployed troops to Los Angeles in June.
Los Angeles suffered days of unrest and protests sparked by mass immigration raids at places where people gather to find work, like Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse.
The administration denies troops were used in civil law enforcement and plans to show they were protecting federal property and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Many of the troops have been withdrawn, but California said in recent court papers 2,000 National Guard members are still going on immigration raids and restricting civilian movements in the state. A ruling against the government could restrict those troops’ activities and constrain President Donald Trump if he tries to deploy troops to police American cities in the future.
Trump said on Wednesday he might send the National Guard, a reserve force that answers to both state governors and the president, to patrol Washington, D.C., a city he said was “very unsafe.”
California and its Governor Gavin Newsom have asked Breyer to prohibit the troops from directly participating in domestic law enforcement activities. California and Newsom say the National Guard is accompanying ICE agents on raids and assisting in arrests, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and other laws that forbid the U.S. military from taking part in civilian law enforcement.
Trump ordered 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June against Newsom’s wishes. Trump’s decision to send troops into Los Angeles prompted a national debate about the use of the military on U.S. soil and inflamed political tension in the country’s second-most-populous city.
California sued the Trump administration over the troop deployment, arguing it violates federal law and state sovereignty. A U.S. appeals court has allowed Trump to retain control of California’s National Guard during the legal challenge.
California’s lawsuit ultimately seeks a ruling that would return its National Guard troops to state control and a declaration that Trump’s action was illegal.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth and Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Tom Hals and Tom Hogue)
