A federal judge from the United States ruled on Tuesday (2) that the sending of the National Guard to Los Angeles, ordered by President Donald Trump, is a violation of federal law and prohibited the use of these troops activated in California.
Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal Court to the Northern District of California in San Francisco ruled in favor of the state authorities, considering that the President’s decision violates the Combitatus Possession Law.
Federal Law prohibits the use of the Army and Air Force for law enforcement tasks at the national level, except in cases expressly authorized by the Constitution or by a Congress law.
“The trial has shown that the defendants systematically used armed military (whose identity was often hidden by armor) and military vehicles to establish perimeters of protection and traffic blocks, exercise control of crowds and generally demonstrate a military presence on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
In June, California Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration and asked the court to cancel what they called the “illegal action of the president of federalizing the California National Guard.”
Breyer also ordered the White House to refrain from “mobilizing, ordering, instructing, training or using the currently allocated National Guard in California, as well as any previously highlighted military troop in California.”
The magistrate clarified that, among other issues, these agents will not be able to participate “in prisons, arrests, records, seizures, safety patrols, traffic control, multitudes control, disorder control, test collection, interrogation or acting as informants.”
The ban will be valid until the Trump government “meets the requirements of a valid constitutional or legal exception.”
The White House and California have faced each other in recent months for Trump’s decision to send the National Guard to contain protests in Los Angeles against immigration operations, a measure rejected by state authorities and since 1965 was not made without request to the corresponding governor.
Trump even sent about 5,000 national guard men to Los Angeles.
The president ordered the work of more than 800 members of the National Guard in Washington DC after placing the police department of the capital under federal control as part of a campaign against the city’s wave of crime, given the rejection of local authorities.
In recent days, Trump has redoubled his intention to issue similar orders in Chicago, which he called on Tuesday as “the worst and most dangerous city in the world, no doubt.”
