# Newsom v. Trump **N.D. Cal. No. 3:25-cv-04870 (Judge [[Charles Breyer]]) · 9th Cir. No. 25-3727 · 141 F.4th 1032** California's challenge to Trump's federalization of the California [[National Guard]] during the June 2025 Los Angeles immigration-raid protests. Governor [[Gavin Newsom]] objected to the federalization. It was the first of the second-term Guard cases, and it produced the sequence's only **[[Posse Comitatus Act]] merits ruling**: the only time a court found, after trial, that troops on American streets had broken the law against using the military as police. ## The deployment - **June 7, 2025.** A presidential memorandum federalized about **2,000** California Guard members under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3). That provision lets the President call up the Guard when he is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws." - **June 9.** A second order added about 2,000 more Guard and about **700 Marines** from Twentynine Palms, for a total of roughly **4,000 Guard plus 700 Marines**. ## The case | Date | Step | |---|---| | 2025-06-09 | California sues | | 2025-06-12 | Breyer grants a TRO returning the Guard to the governor. The Ninth Circuit enters an [[Administrative Stay]] the same night. | | 2025-06-19 | A unanimous Ninth Circuit panel (Bennett, Miller, Sung) stays the TRO pending appeal. It holds that § 12406 decisions are reviewable, but only under a "highly deferential" standard. | | 2025-08-11 to 08-13 | Bench trial on the Posse Comitatus claim | | 2025-09-02 | **Breyer holds the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act.** He rejects § 12406(3) as an exception and enjoins troops from arrests, searches and crowd control. The injunction is stayed on appeal. | | 2025-10-22 | Rehearing en banc of the June stay order is denied. Judge Berzon's statement objecting is joined by ten colleagues (11 judges in all), and Judge Gould dissents separately. | | 2025-12-10 | Breyer orders the Los Angeles deployment ended and control returned to the state. About 100 Guard members remain. | | 2025-12-12 | The Ninth Circuit refuses to stay the end of the deployment, so troops must leave Los Angeles by Dec 15. It keeps federalization itself in place for now. | | 2025-12-31 | The government withdraws its stay motion, and control of the Guard returns to Newsom. | ## What turned it The government's retreat came eight days after **[[Trump v. Illinois]]** (Dec 23, 2025). There the Supreme Court refused, 6–3, to let Guard troops deploy in Chicago. It read "regular forces" in § 12406(3) to mean the regular **military**, not civilian law enforcement, so the statute's trigger requires showing that the armed forces themselves could not execute the law. California's attorney general [[Rob Bonta]] tied the withdrawal directly to that ruling. The Portland case ([[Oregon v. Trump]]), in which California was a co-plaintiff, ended the same way. The government dropped its appeal in February 2026, which left Judge [[Karin Immergut]]'s ruling against it in place. ## Status (Sept 30, 2026) The operative outcome is settled: the troops left and the Guard went back to the state. No source found confirms how the government's appeals from the September Posse Comitatus ruling and the December order were finally disposed of, or whether a final judgment has been entered. An earlier version of this page reported a January 2026 voluntary dismissal, but no source supports it, so treat the docket as unverified. ## Why it matters - **Reviewability.** The June panel's "highly deferential" review of the deployment decision is the doctrine the administration wanted. It is the [[Political Question Doctrine]] argument narrowed down without being fully accepted. - **The Posse Comitatus line.** Breyer's ruling is the only post-trial finding that federalized troops crossed into law enforcement. - **The exit.** The administration did not lose on appeal. It withdrew once *Trump v. Illinois* made the statutory theory unwinnable. The full flow is in [[National Guard Federalization Flow]]. ## See also - [[National Guard Federalization Flow]] · [[National Guard]] · [[Posse Comitatus Act]] · [[Insurrection Act]] - [[Trump v. Illinois]] · [[Oregon v. Trump]] · [[Administrative Stay]] · [[Political Question Doctrine]] - [[Gavin Newsom]] · [[Rob Bonta]] · [[Charles Breyer]]