President Donald Trump can keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles, despite objections from city leaders and California Governor Gavin Newsom, an appeals court has ruled.
Trump deployed the troops in response to widespread protests about his immigration crackdown. Local officials called it an unnecessary provocation.
The BBC reports that a three-judge panel said he was within his rights to order the troops into service to “protect federal personnel… [and] property”. The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when mobilising the troops.
Trump described the ruling as a “big win”.
The unanimous ruling said Trump’s “failure to issue the federalisation order directly ‘through’ the Governor of California does not limit his otherwise lawful authority to call up the National Guard”.
The 38-page ruling, however, said the judges disagreed with the president on the merits of the legal challenge against his use of the National Guard. It said his decision to use the troops was not “completely insulated from judicial review”.
The National Guard was last deployed by a president without a governor’s consent during the civil rights era, more than 50 years ago.
[Image: By U.S. Northern Command – https://x.com/USNorthernCmd/status/1932256787626860604, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167354134]