A federal court has ruled that the Trump Administration’s deployment of California National Guard troops and U.S. Marines for law enforcement duties in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act. The decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also imposes a permanent injunction, preventing similar use of military forces for civilian law enforcement activities in the future. The order is stayed until September 12, 2025, at noon.
“Today’s ruling affirms that President Trump is not King, and the power of the executive is not boundless,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “For more than two months, the President has engaged in political theater, using National Guard troops and Marines as pawns to further his anti-immigrant agenda. In doing so, he trampled on one of the very basic foundations of our democracy: That our military be apolitical and the activities of troops on U.S. soil be extremely limited to ensure civil liberties and protect against military overreach. I applaud the District Court for firmly rejecting the Trump Administration’s reckless interpretation of the Posse Comitatus Act and rebuking its unprecedented use of military troops for civilian law enforcement in California communities.”
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits using military forces for civilian law enforcement except where expressly authorized by Congress. The law dates back to concerns from America’s founding era about keeping domestic policing separate from military authority.
During a recent three-day trial, evidence presented by California demonstrated that federalized National Guard units and Marines were directed by Trump Administration officials to provide armed support and blockades during operations, sometimes outnumbering civilian law enforcement agents on site.
The court found that “PCA violations were part of a top-down, systemic effort by Defendants to use military troops to execute various sectors of federal law (the drug laws and the immigration laws at least) across hundreds of miles and over the course of several months—and counting. The instructions to train Task Force 51 on the purported constitutional exception and thereby excuse unlawful military conduct came ‘all the way from the top’ of the Department of Defense.”
According to additional findings cited in court documents, these actions included “direct, active use” of military personnel for tasks such as armed perimeter support during Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operations.
The court’s permanent injunction prohibits federal authorities from using troops for activities including arrests, searches, security patrols, traffic or crowd control, evidence collection or interrogation within California unless explicitly allowed by Congress.
A copy of the court’s order can be accessed online.
