A federal judge’s ruling that President Trump has been using troops illegally to perform law enforcement functions in Los Angeles will — if it stands — pose impediments to any plans Mr. Trump may have for sending the military into the streets of other cities, like Chicago.
The Posse Comitatus Act, enacted in 1878, makes it illegal to use federal troops for domestic policing under normal circumstances. So to keep from running afoul of that law, Mr. Trump would need a legal rationale for deploying troops to cities like Chicago.
One potential model for Mr. Trump might be the reasoning his administration offered for sending troops to Los Angeles over the summer, ostensibly to protect federal agents and facilities. But on Tuesday, Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal District Court in San Francisco held that the administration has been using those troops too expansively.
In June, after protests erupted in Los Angeles, and sometimes became violent, over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Mr. Trump federalized part of the California National Guard and dispatched Guard troops and active-duty Marines. The stated purpose was to protect federal buildings, officials and functions.
But Judge Breyer found in his ruling that once the troops were deployed, the administration used them far too expansively — including by sending them out to accompany immigration and drug enforcement agents on operations across the region, to set up protective perimeters, blockade traffic, and perform crowd control, where there was no anticipated threat to the safety of federal agents.
The judge barred the federal government from using troops anywhere in California to engage in “arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants.”
The judge accused Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of engaging in “a top-down, systemic effort to use the military to perform law enforcement functions” and “instigated a monthslong deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles for the purpose of establishing a military presence there and enforcing federal law,” he wrote. “Such conduct is a serious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.”
The judge said the remaining troops under federal control in Los Angeles — about 300 National Guard troops — may remain there and “continue to protect federal property in a manner consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act.”
Mr. Trump’s continued threats have raised the question of whether he could claim that crime in Chicago threatens federal functions there, as he did in Los Angeles, as a basis for sending in troops without risking a legal fight over invoking the Insurrection Act without a request for assistance.
Yay, bureaucracy!
