Arizona’s Kris Mayes is one of almost two dozen attorneys general named in a new court filing to oppose the Trump administration’s military deployment in California.
President Donald Trump issued a memo ordering 2,000 National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles earlier this week in response to widespread protests over a spate of workplace raids and arrests by federal immigration authorities. The deployment came despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders.
Mayes and other attorneys general filed what’s called an amicus brief with a federal court in San Francisco asking it to grant Newsom’s request to block that deployment.
"The president’s decision to federalize and deploy California’s National Guard without the consent of California state leaders is unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic,” Mayes said in a statement. “The Trump administration should be working with local leaders to keep our communities safe, not mobilizing the military against the American people.”
Their brief argues that by calling forth troops when there is no invasion to repel, Trump undermined the rule of law and founding principles. And that, under his memo, troops could be deployed to any state for the next two months.
