U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer said sending the California National Guard and the U.S. Marines to the city violated a 19th century law.
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A federal judge in California on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration violated a 19th-century law when it mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June.
"The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles," U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said in a 52-page filing.
"In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act," he said.
The judge's ruling strikes a blow to President Donald Trump's push to deploy troops to city streets as part of an effort to fight crime, though
critics have branded it the deployments as an overreach. Trump first deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles before sending soldiers into Washington, D.C.,
enraging many opponents and residents. The president has indicated his interest in deploying troops to
other cities as well.
Lawyers representing California argued during a three-day trial last month that the president had exceeded his authority by deploying federal troops after thousands of protesters took to the streets of downtown L.A. to protest his immigration policies.
California had asked Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom and to stop using the military “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law.”
The Department of Justice countered that the deployment was necessary to protect federal property and personnel, and that the troops acted within the confines of an obscure law called the Posse Comitatus Act.
The 1878 statute prohibits the president from using the military as a domestic police force without approval from Congress.
The Trump administration “deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” the judge wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” he wrote. “Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
Breyer ordered the Trump administration to stop using military troops in California “to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants” unless the situation meets the bar for invoking the Posse Comitatus Act.
The judge wrote that Trump’s intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities would be “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”
NBC news has reached out to the White House and Newsom's office for comment.