Trump's Military Crackdown on Los Angeles Was Unconstitutional

Newsweek

19-06-2025

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What unfolded in Los Angeles this month wasn't about restoring order. It was a calculated power play—testing the outer limits of executive authority and showcasing just how far President Donald Trump is willing to go in his second term. Federal judges have begun to rebuke his authoritarian actions. But courts alone aren't enough.
Protests began on June 6 as grassroots responses to a surge in aggressive ICE raids across Southern California. Students, clergy, and immigrant advocates led calls for dignity, due process, and an end to mass detentions. On June 14, the movement swelled into the "No Kings" protests—a nationwide day of action timed to coincide with the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary and Trump's birthday. Tens of thousands flooded downtown Los Angeles to reject authoritarianism and the militarization of civic life. Interfaith leaders prayed. Students marched. Families carried signs.
According to both LAPD and journalists on the ground, a small group of individuals unaffiliated with organizers later clashed with police barricades. Law enforcement responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and baton charges, resulting in injuries to medics, journalists, and at least one protester now at the center of an LAPD use-of-force investigation. Still, the overwhelming majority remained peaceful. As Vanity Fair reported, 98 percent of the city was unaffected—protests were largely confined to a few blocks downtown.
Even before the June 14 "No Kings" demonstrations, President Trump had already ordered the deployment of more than 4,000 National Guard troops and nearly 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles. The decision, made over the objections of state and local officials, defied constitutional norms. The sight of uniformed soldiers patrolling immigrant neighborhoods under federally imposed curfews was not just legally dubious—it echoed the tactics of authoritarian regimes.
Trump's supporters cited the Insurrection Act of 1807, which permits the president to use domestic military forces during instances of insurrection or if local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to act. But as a federal court confirmed, nothing happening in Los Angeles meets that standard. The city remained under the control of its mayor and police department. There was no breakdown in law enforcement, and Governor Gavin Newsom made no request for federal intervention.
Nevertheless, the White House invoked the act—without issuing the formal proclamation of unrest required by statute—and sent in soldiers.
This is not law enforcement. It's authoritarian theater.
"Trump's militarization of the already tense situation in Los Angeles is unprecedented," wrote Rachel E. VanLandingham, a former judge advocate and professor at Southwestern Law School. "Instead of protecting protestors, Trump federalized the National Guard this past weekend without Newsom's support, which risks squashing First Amendment-protected protests... thereby throwing gasoline on an already volatile situation."
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a temporary restraining order halting the federalization of California's National Guard and ordered that command of it be returned to the state. But within hours, a Ninth Circuit panel issued an emergency stay, allowing the federal deployment to continue pending appeal.
The hearing is expected to resume this week.
US Customs and Border Protection agents disperse protester in front of the Federal Building during ongoing demonstrations in response to federal immigration operations in downtown Los Angeles on June 12, 2025.
US Customs and Border Protection agents disperse protester in front of the Federal Building during ongoing demonstrations in response to federal immigration operations in downtown Los Angeles on June 12, 2025.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP/Getty Images
California officials pledged to keep fighting. Governor Newsom wrote on X, "The military belongs on the battlefield, not on our city streets."
Meanwhile, ICE activity continues to surge. Recent raids have targeted schools, job sites, hotels, and even places of worship. These operations, while controversial, are not indicative of a breakdown in order. The response they sparked—rallies, vigils, walkouts—has remained largely nonviolent.
Citing isolated incidents of unrest to justify a military crackdown across a city as large as Los Angeles, as Trump's supporters have done, is both legally indefensible and dangerously misleading. As Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern noted, Judge Breyer's ruling clarified that "a handful of individuals toppling a Waymo or lighting up fireworks does not in fact strip thousands of peaceful protesters of their First Amendment rights."
This case, Stern notes, is not just a fight over legal statutes—it's a fight over truth.
Rather than meeting dissent with dialogue or reform, the Trump administration chose curfews, soldiers, and a deliberate rebranding of protest as rebellion. We've seen this playbook before—during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests—but today, the implications are more dire.
The militarization of civic life is not just an American problem—it's a textbook marker of democratic backsliding in any society. Democracies don't collapse in a single night. They erode slowly, often through the normalization of exceptional measures. Troops on the streets. Judges overruled. Political opponents smeared as traitors.
That dystopian trajectory is now underway. In Los Angeles, federal agents have detained clergy and journalists. Drones monitor protest zones. And even elected officials have been pushed out of the conversation.
Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), after being physically removed from a Department of Homeland Security press briefing for asking about the raids, remarked: "I'm OK. But if they can do that to me, a United States senator...what are they doing to a lot of folks out there when the cameras are not on?" He added: "What we've seen here should not be normalized."
The threat isn't just to Los Angeles. It's to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the democratic norms that separate the United States from the regimes it claims to oppose.
When the White House invokes emergency powers to suppress dissent, it sets a global precedent. Authoritarian governments take note. Domestic democratic erosion accelerates.
We cannot simply wait on the courts to clean this up. They may. But law alone cannot preserve democracy. That responsibility lies with all of us—with journalists who expose abuse, with attorneys who challenge overreach, and with ordinary citizens who refuse to be intimidated.
As Judge Breyer said, the president is not a king. The military does not belong on Main Street. Protest is not rebellion. Dissent is not a crime.
The choice before Americans is clear: continue down this road—or rise, together, and say: enough.
Faisal Kutty is a Toronto-based lawyer, law professor, and frequent contributor to The Toronto Star.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.