California National Guard personnel stand outside the Edward R. Roybal federal building after their deployment by U.S. President Donald Trump, in response to protests against immigration sweeps, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 8, 2025.
David Ryder | Reuters
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday asked a federal judge to quickly block the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard members and Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration raids.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta asked the judge to grant a temporary restraining order by 1 p.m. PT blocking President Donald Trump’s actions in order to “prevent immediate and irreparable harm to Plaintiffs.”
Without that fast relief, Trump’s deployment of the military and the National Guard poses “imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” Bonta told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer.
“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement later Tuesday.
“Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President,” the governor said. “We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions.”
Trump earlier Tuesday defended his decision to authorize the deployment of 4,000 federalized members of the California National Guard and about 700 Marines to Los Angeles.
“Look, if we didn’t get involved right now, Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to devastating wildfires that tore through swaths of the city earlier this year.
“Los Angeles right now would be on fire, and we have it in great shape,” he claimed.
Newsom’s request for a restraining order comes one day after he sued Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon in federal court in San Francisco.
The lawsuit says Trump broke the law when he federalized the California National Guard without the governor’s consent or input last week. The federal government’s actions not only unwarranted but are stoking more fear and civil unrest in Los Angeles, Newsom’s legal complaint argues.
Trump and his administration have insisted that the scale of the protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city necessitated the deployments.
But Newsom’s lawsuit says that the recent unrest pales in comparison to past examples in Los Angeles, including the 1992 “Rodney King riots.”
Most of the protesters against the ICE raids have been engaged in nonviolent activity protected by the First Amendment, the suit said.
“There have no doubt been exceptions,” it added, including some who have thrown things at law enforcement officers or set fires to property.
But the lawsuit maintained that “at no point in the past three days has there been a rebellion or an insurrection,” as Trump has suggested repeatedly.
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