California governor, in letter to defense secretary, calls move unlawful and asks for troops to be placed back under state command.
The Guardian reports that the California governor, Gavin Newsom, on Sunday evening formally requested that the Trump administration rescind the deployment of national guards troops in Los Angeles. In a letter to the US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, Newsom called the deployment unlawful, and asked for the troops to be put back under the state’s command.
“There is currently no need for the national guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation,” Newsom wrote.
“We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved,” the governor tweeted. “This is a serious breach of state sovereignty – inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California.”
Reuters reported on June 7 that that President Donald Trump's administration said it would deploy 2,000 National Guard troops on Saturday as federal agents in Los Angeles faced off against a few hundred demonstrators during a second day of protests following immigration raids.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly warned that the Pentagon was prepared to mobilize active-duty troops “if violence continues” in Los Angeles, saying the Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were “on high alert.”
The national guard reportedly began deploying to Los Angeles on Sunday morning.
CalMatters reported on June 8 that hundreds of California National Guard soldiers are deployed in downtown Los Angeles in an escalation of the Trump administration’s rolling immigration enforcement action throughout Southern California.
Their deployment comes over the objections of California leaders, including Governor Gavin Newsom, who say that local law enforcement agencies are more than capable of keeping the peace in the city. He sent a letter on Sunday afternoon to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting that the administration withdraw the troops and questioning the legality of their deployment. The National Guard is usually called in at the request of a state’s governor; a president has not deployed troops without a governor’s requests since 1965, according to CalMatters.
The Guardian says Trump’s federalization of the guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots.
