Despite a sharp rebuke of a federal judge on Thursday, the military forces deployed in Los Angeles will remain under presidential control over the weekend, establishing a series of high -risk clashes.
In the streets of Los Angeles, protesters will continue to meet armed soldiers. State and local officials remain in open conflict with the president. And in court, Trump administration lawyers are deepening the jurisprudence in search of archaic statutes that can be cited to justify the ongoing federal repression, including constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the 1850 fugitive slave law.
Many legal academics say that the current battle over Los Angeles is a trial case for the powers that the White House hoped to exercise, not only clenching the protest or blue state leaders of the large feet, but also extend the presidential authority to its legal limit.
“A lot rides about what happens this weekend,” said Christopher Mirasola, a professor at the Law Center of the University of Houston.
When remaining in the order that would have given the control of most of the troops to the Leaders of California until after the weekend, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals left the Trump administration under the command of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines ahead of the national “No Kings” protests planned for Saturday.
The Trump administration said in the court that the authority had to deploy troops in Los Angeles because protesters prevented ICE agents from arresting and deporting unauthorized immigrants, and because the demonstrations in the center were equivalent to the “rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”
But the judge of the United States District Court, Charles Breyer, from San Francisco, wrote on Thursday that Trump had accelerated state leaders when he federalized California's troops and deployed them against protesters.
“His actions were illegal, both exceeding the scope of their legal authority and violating the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States,” Breyer wrote.
While ICE “could not stop as many people as the defendants believe it could have done it,” he could still maintain the United States immigration law without the help of the military, Breyer ruled. Some belligerents among thousands of peaceful protesters did not make an insurrection, he added.
“The idea that protesters can cross the line so quickly between protected behavior and” rebellion against the authority of the United States government is unsustainable and dangerous, “the judge wrote.
The 9th circuit remained in Breyer's decision after issuing a temporary restriction order that would have allowed California leaders to withdraw the soldiers of the Los Angeles National Guard
The Pause will remain in force until at least Tuesday, when a panel of three judges, composed of two appointed by President Trump and one by former President Biden, will hear arguments about whether the troops can remain under federal direction.
The judicial battle has been based on precedents that date back to the base of the country, offering visions of federal authority and the rights of the states.
The last time that the federal president of the National Guard on the objections of a state governor was in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect Martin Luther King Jr. and the Selma to Montgomery March in Challenge to the then Gov. George Wallace.
But sending troops to help ice has less in common with Johnson's movement than with the actions of President Millard Fillmore a century earlier, Mirasola said. As of 1850, said Houston's law professor, Fillmore sent troops to accompany the federal sheriffs who sought to stop the escaped slaves who had fled north.
Trump's arguments to deploy the National Guard and Marines in support of federal immigration application efforts are based on the same principle, extracted from the “care” clause of article II of the Constitution, Mirasla said. He pointed out that the anger for the repeated confrontations of the military with civilians helped to envive the flames that led to the civil war.
“Much of the population actively opposed the application of the law of fugitive slaves,” said the professor.
Some analysts believe that Trump strategically chose immigration as the issue through which to advance in its version of the so -called “Unitary Executive Theory”, a legal doctrine that says that the legislature has no power and the Judiciary has no right to interfere with how the president controls the control of the executive branch.
“It is not a coincidence that we see immigration the point of inflammation,” said Ming Hsu Chen, professor at the UCSF Law School. “Someone who wants to exercise a strong federal power over immigration would see Los Angeles as a highly symbolic place, a zero zone to show their authority.”
Chen, who directs the breed, immigration, citizenship and the Equality Program in the UCSF Law, said it is clear that Trump and his advisors have a “vision of how ice can be completed.”
“He's putting that on steroids, “Chen said.” It is folding many different types of excess executive power as if they were the same. ”
Some experts point out that Judge Breyer's order is limited only to California, which means that until he is completely litigated, a process that can advance for weeks or months, the president can try similar movements elsewhere.
“The president could try the same in another jurisdiction,” said Elizabeth Goitein, principal director of the National Security and Freedom Program of the Brennan de Justicia de la Nyu Center.
“President Trump's memorandum to deploy troops in Los Angeles made it very clear that he thinks it is appropriate … wherever the protests occur,” Goitein said. “It certainly seems to think that even peaceful protests can find strength.”
The experts said that Breyer's ruling established a high bar for what can be considered “rebellion” under the law, which makes it more difficult, if it is allowed to be in appeal, so that the administration claims in a credible way that one is underway in Los Angeles
“It's hard to imagine that what we see during the weekend will be an organized and armed attempt to overthrow the government,” said Goitein.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has not moved because of its insistence that extreme measures are needed to restore order and protect federal agents as they do their work.
“The uproarators will not stop or decrease the ice to arrest the illegal criminal foreigners,” said the Department of National Security in a press release this week, which included failures of several alleged criminals who had been arrested. “Murderers, pedophiles and drug traffickers. These are the types of illegal criminal foreigners that the uproar is fighting to protect.”
Even after the decision of the ninth circuit, the problem could still go to the Supreme Court. Some legal scholars fear that Trump challenges the Court if he continues to lose. Others say that they can be happy with the ravages forged while the convicted cases break through the justice system.
“It's strange for me to say as a law professor that perhaps the law doesn't matter,” Chen said. “I don't know that [Trump] He particularly cares that he is doing something illegal. “
The Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.
