CERES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 16: California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at Gemperle Orchard on April 16, 2025 in Ceres, California. Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Trump administration's use of emergency powers to enact sweeping tariffs that hurt states, consumers, and businesses. The tariffs have disrupted supply chains, increased costs for the state and Californians, and inflicted billions in damages on California’s economy, the fifth largest in the world. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Los Angeles, California – California Governor Gavin Newsom announced late Sunday that the state will sue the Trump administration over what he described as an unlawful federal takeover of California’s National Guard. The announcement came just hours after hundreds of Guard troops were deployed to downtown Los Angeles to confront growing protests tied to immigration enforcement operations.
“Donald Trump is putting fuel on this fire,” Newsom posted on X. “Commandeering a state’s National Guard without consulting the Governor of that state is illegal and immoral.” By Monday morning, Newsom followed up with a sharper message: “We’re suing him.”
The deployment followed two days of immigration raids in the Los Angeles area, including in the city’s garment district, that drew thousands of protesters and sparked clashes with law enforcement. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said 39 people had been arrested as of Sunday evening. Images showed Guard troops using tear gas and non-lethal rounds against crowds outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Trump ordered the deployment Saturday night and quickly took aim at both Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, describing demonstrators as “troublemakers and insurrectionists.” Newsom responded by calling the deployment “purposefully inflammatory” and claimed the president was escalating a situation for political purposes. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he urged Trump to rescind the order federalizing the Guard and return command to the state.
While Trump claimed the protest response was necessary to maintain order, the legal justification for federalizing a state’s National Guard without the governor’s consent is tenuous. The last such action occurred in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to protect civil rights marchers in Selma. In this case, Newsom maintains there was no state request or need for federal intervention.
Further inflaming tensions, Trump’s immigration advisor Tom Homan suggested over the weekend that state officials could face arrest for impeding federal enforcement efforts. “It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job,” Homan said, threatening consequences for both Newsom and Bass.
Newsom responded during an MSNBC interview, challenging Homan to follow through. “So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
Bass dismissed the threats as political theater. “I spoke to him last night,” she said. “He knows I’m not interested in a brawl with the federal government.”
Still, the administration appears ready to escalate. Trump reiterated Sunday that officials who “stand in the way of law and order” will “face judges.”
With tensions mounting, Newsom’s lawsuit may set up a defining legal battle over the balance of power between state authority and federal enforcement — one playing out not in theory, but in the streets of Los Angeles.
