On June 7, 2025, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, titled “Department of Defense Security for the Protection of Department of Homeland Security Functions.” The memo orders that 2000 members of the California National Guard be called into service for 60 days or at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense, citing legal authority under 10 U.S.C. §12406. The stated purpose is “to temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property.” The memo also grants the Secretary of Defense the ability to deploy additional troops to “augment and support” the mission of the National Guard members. 

This action was taken in response to spontaneous protests that began in Los Angeles on Friday June 6. Protesters mobilized in response to a workplace raid conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subagency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that enforces immigration laws, at workplaces in the garment district in Los Angeles. ICE may have been supported by federal agents from other agencies during those action. The protesters were dispersed by law enforcement through the use of pepper spray and “less-than-lethal” bullets and flash-bang grenades. During those protests, David Huerta, the president of the largest union in the state, the Service Employees International Union of California, was arrested while protesting immigration raids on work sites in Los Angeles. Huerta was pushed down to the ground by federal agents and subsequently hospitalized and detained by federal authorities.After significant public outcry from SEIU and other labor unions he was later released on bond on Monday June 9. On Saturday, June 8, there was another protest that broke out in Paramount, California, after rumors surfaced that a raid was about to take place at a Home Depot in the area.  

Demonstrations took place also on Saturday night near a federal detention center, the Metropolitan Detention Center, and were largely peaceful, according to reports. On Sunday June 8, nearly 300 members of the California National Guard took positions in Los Angeles. On Monday June 9, the Trump administration took a further step by deploying a battalion of 700 Marines to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel. On Tuesday June 10, the California Governor and Attorney General filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for an immediate court order blocking the Trump administration’s use of National Guard and federal military forces. 

Impact: This is an extraordinary use of the National Guard, which California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly objected to, calling Trump’s activation of National Guard troops a “spectacle” and unwarranted given the situation. The last time a state’s National Guard was called into service without a request from the state’s governor was in 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, for the purpose of protecting civil rights demonstrators in Alabama. The deployment of Marines is also an extraordinary step which may violate federal law under the Posse Comitatus Act and related statutes, which generally prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Trump has referred to the protesters in Los Angeles as “insurrectionists,” which may mean the administration is preparing to use the protests as a rationale for invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would give the president broad authority to use the military to quell violence and civil unrest in the United States, with the law also acting as an exception to the general prohibition on doing so in the Posse Comitatus Act.