Gov. Katie Hobbs is one of almost two dozen Democratic governors who issued a statement against the Trump administration’s National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
President Donald Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to LA this weekend in a memo that said the deployment was needed to protect federal personnel and property.
Local law enforcement had already fired rubber bullets and tear gas at people during protests — which began as ICE and other federal officers conducted workplace raids and made dozens of arrests as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.
The California Guard were deployed by the federal government, despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said local law enforcement was already responding, and sending troops would escalate tensions.
“The last time a president did something like this — that is to federalize the National Guard without the participation of a state governor — was in 1965,” said William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University who specializes in military affairs.
That’s when then-President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect Black civil rights activists from local authorities ahead of a voting rights march in Selma, Alabama.
States are generally in charge of deploying their own Guard and do so for several different reasons. About 40 National Guards from Arizona have been deployed by Hobbs for months to assist with a drug interdiction initiative along the border.
Banks says federally deployed National Guard don’t have the same authority as troops deployed by a state — for example, the troops in LA are officially charged with protecting federal personnel and property, but can’t enforce the law themselves or make arrests.
He says it’s a rarely-used executive authority because it’s not typically within their role or training.
“This is quite anachronous to the way that we order our society. Decisions about using the military are made at the lowest levels of government, not the highest, except in the most extraordinary circumstances,” he said. “With civilian law enforcement, we expect the officials who are in charge of it — the police — to understand relations with civilians, to protect civil liberties, to show proper respect …these soldiers haven't had any training like that.”
Still, Banks says, there’s no clear legal pathway for Newsom to force the federal government to remove the troops.
Hobbs and other governors called the deployment an “alarming abuse of power” and said executive authority should be given to governors to manage their own National Guard personnel.
The statement came a day before the Pentagon deployed 700 U.S. Marines on Monday to join Nation Guard troops in LA.
