Appeals court upholds order handing California's Guard back to Newsom, saying Trump's 2025 federalization exceeded his authority

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge's order that stopped the Trump administration from deploying California National Guard troops in Los Angeles and returned control of the Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the temporary restraining order U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued in June 2025, after President Donald Trump called 4,000 members of the California Guard into federal service for 60 days in response to demonstrations over federal immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

What the court decided

Judge Jennifer Sung, writing for the majority, said the law that lets a president federalize a state's Guard depends on specific emergencies existing, and that courts can review whether a president's finding of such an emergency holds up, though only in a very deferential way.

The panel said the administration did not show that either provision it relied on applied. Under the part of the law covering a president who cannot enforce federal law with regular forces, the court pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2025 order in Trump v. Illinois and found the administration had not made the threshold showings that order requires.

The administration also argued that the order was justified independently by the provision covering "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion." The majority found that California is likely to prevail in arguing that treating conditions in Los Angeles on June 7, 2025, as rebellion was not a colorable judgment.

Because neither provision applied, the order exceeded the president's authority and violated the separation of powers, the majority wrote. Judge Eric Miller joined the decision and wrote a separate concurrence.

The dissent

Judge Mark Bennett dissented. He wrote that the court should not have decided the appeal, and that the majority erred in three ways: by resolving hard questions with little briefing on the Illinois decision, by misapplying the standard for claims that an official acted beyond legal authority, and by finding California likely to win its Tenth Amendment claim, which he considered unlikely to succeed.

What comes next

According to Attorney General Rob Bonta's office, the panel also turned down the administration's request to withdraw its appeal. Related appeals remain pending, including over a separate ruling that the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act and an injunction against later extension orders, the opinion notes.

"Once again, the courts have rejected the Trump Administration's attempts to circumvent the law for its own political agenda," Bonta said in a statement. Newsom called it "a crucial day for the rule of law."

No response from the White House or the Justice Department appeared in the sources reviewed for this story.

Sources

oag.ca.gov

oag.ca.gov