California Governor, Gavin Newsom has disclosed a plan to file suit against Donald Trump to roll back the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
Speaking to a news agency, Newsom said that the lawsuit would challenge Trump’s federalizing of the California National Guard without the state’s consent, a move with little precedent in the country’s history.
He said that under Trump’s executive order, “it specifically notes – and under what the [Department of Defense] did – is they had to coordinate with the Governor of the state.” He added, “They never coordinated with the Governor of the state.”
“Donald Trump is reckless, he’s immoral. He’s taken the illegal and unconstitutional act of federalizing the National Guard and he’s putting lives at risk…There was no collaboration, there was no counsel, no consideration of the rules of engagement. It was a reckless act that has led to conditions that exacerbated and it’s putting people’s lives at risk.”
Gavin Newsom
US President, Donald Trump invoked a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
Roughly 300 National Guard members arrived in the city over the weekend, and Trump said he had authorized 2,000 members to deploy if needed.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, no President has done so since Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama.
Johnson, unlike Trump, invoked the Insurrection Act, an 18th-century wartime law that allows Presidents to deploy military forces during times of rebellion or unrest.
Trump instead relied on a similar federal law that places National Guard troops under federal command under circumstances that include the threat of rebellion.
However, the law also says that orders for those purposes “shall be issued through the governors of the States” — making it unclear whether the President can activate the Guard without the order of that state’s Governor.
Los Angeles has seen three days of protests over immigration arrests. Protests intensified after Trump deployed the National Guard.
Confrontations began when dozens of protesters gathered outside a federal detention center demanding the release of 44 people arrested by federal immigration authorities across Los Angeles on Friday, June 6, 2025, as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The arrival of the National Guard on Sunday followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.
More Rallies Planned For Downtown Los Angeles
Meanwhile, Union leaders are planning a rally for downtown Los Angeles Monday to support a labor leader arrested during immigration protests.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said that the rally at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles is in support of its California President, David Huerta.
Huerta was arrested on Friday and expected to appear in court Monday afternoon.
The SEIU represents thousands of janitors, security officers and other workers in California. The group is also planning rallies in at least a dozen other cities spanning from Denver to New York.
In Chicago, dozens of labor leaders, immigrant rights activists and elected officials rallied in a downtown plaza in support of Huerta. The crowd called for Huerta’s immediate release.
The group also called out the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics on immigration enforcement, including a travel ban and arrests last week at a Chicago office used for Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins.
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