Gavin Newsom's Lawsuit Against Trump, Explained

By Steve Levine · Updated June 11, 2026 · 11 min read

Newsom v. Trump — Gavin Newsom's lawsuit against Trump over the California National Guard

Published: June 11, 2026

One year ago this week, the State of California did something no state had done in modern memory: it sued the President of the United States to get its own National Guard back. Newsom v. Trump, filed June 9, 2025 in San Francisco federal court, challenged President Trump's order federalizing thousands of California National Guard members during immigration protests in Los Angeles — an order issued without the Governor's consent and, California argued, without legal authority. Twelve months, one bench trial, several appeals, and one Supreme Court decision later, the case has reshaped how far a president can go in sending troops into American cities. Here is what the lawsuit says, why it was filed, and where it stands today.

What Is the Gavin Newsom Lawsuit Against Trump?

The formal caption is Newsom v. Trump, Case No. 3:25-cv-04870-CRB, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, assigned to Judge Charles R. Breyer. The plaintiffs are Governor Gavin Newsom, suing in his official capacity as commander-in-chief of the California National Guard, and the State of California, represented by Attorney General Rob Bonta's office. The defendants are President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and the U.S. Department of Defense, all sued in their official capacities.

The complaint asks for declaratory and injunctive relief — a ruling that the federalization orders were unlawful and an order blocking them. It does not seek money damages, and it is not a class action. There is no claim form and nothing for individuals to file; this is a sovereignty fight between a state and the federal executive over who commands the state's militia.

At its core, the lawsuit makes one central argument: the Constitution and federal statutes leave a state's National Guard under the governor's command except in narrow, exigent circumstances, and none of those circumstances existed in Los Angeles in June 2025. As the complaint puts it, one of the cornerstones of American democracy is that the people "are governed by civil, not military, rule."

The Weekend That Sparked the Case

On Friday, June 6, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out coordinated enforcement operations across Los Angeles County — executing search warrants outside the clothing wholesaler Ambiance Apparel, and conducting detentions and arrests at a doughnut shop in the Fashion District and two Home Depot stores in the Westlake District. According to Department of Homeland Security figures cited in the complaint, the day's operations resulted in roughly 44 arrests and 70 to 80 people detained. The complaint alleges federal officials gave the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff's Department no advance notice and made no attempt to coordinate.

Protests followed almost immediately — outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and its B-18 detention facility downtown, and in the city of Paramount. Most demonstrators were peaceful, though some individuals threw objects at officers, damaged property, and set fires — conduct Governor Newsom and local officials publicly condemned and asked prosecutors to charge. During the June 6 protests, David Huerta, the president of SEIU California, was injured and arrested during an encounter with federal agents, which further inflamed tensions.

The complaint walks through, hour by hour, how LAPD and the Sheriff's Department declared unlawful assemblies, dispersed crowds, and protected federal buildings on June 6 and 7 — without requesting help from neighboring counties, the state, or the federal government. That detail matters legally: California's position is that local law enforcement had the situation under control, and that nothing happening on the streets of Los Angeles resembled a rebellion. For comparison, the complaint points to the 1992 Los Angeles riots — the last time the National Guard was federalized for civil unrest — which involved over sixty deaths, thousands of injuries, more than 12,000 arrests, and a request from California's own governor. The June 2025 protests, the state argued, were not remotely comparable.

The Orders That Federalized California's National Guard

On the evening of Saturday, June 7, 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum titled "Department of Defense Security for the Protection of Department of Homeland Security Functions." It did not name Los Angeles or California. Instead, it cited "numerous incidents of violence and disorder" in response to immigration enforcement and asserted that "to the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States." Invoking 10 U.S.C. § 12406, it called at least 2,000 National Guard personnel into federal service for 60 days.

That same night, Secretary Hegseth sent an order to the Adjutant General of California federalizing 2,000 California National Guard members. Two days later, on June 9, a second order federalized 2,000 more — roughly 4,000 in total, drawn heavily from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, whose command shifted to U.S. Northern Command. About 700 active-duty Marines were also mobilized to the area. Neither order went through Governor Newsom. The Governor's office learned of the first order only after the Adjutant General shared it; Newsom had publicly objected hours earlier, posting at 5:13 p.m. on June 7 that there was "no unmet need" and that deploying troops would "only escalate tensions." On June 8, his office sent Secretary Hegseth a letter demanding the order be rescinded. The next day, California sued.

The Statute at the Center: 10 U.S.C. § 12406

Section 12406 of Title 10 lets the President call a state's National Guard into federal service in exactly three situations: when the United States is invaded or in danger of invasion by a foreign nation; when there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the federal government; or when the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States. The statute then adds a procedural command: orders for these purposes "shall be issued through the governors of the States."

California's complaint emphasizes how rarely this provision has ever been used on its own. By the state's account, June 2025 marked only the second time in American history a president relied exclusively on Section 12406 — the first being President Nixon's 1970 activation of the Guard to deliver mail during the postal workers' strike. And it was the first time since 1965, when President Johnson protected civil rights marchers in Alabama under different authority, that any president had activated a state's Guard without a request from that state's governor.

The "through the governors" language became the procedural heart of the case. California argued the phrase has real meaning — Congress added it by amendment in 1908 — and that sending federalization orders directly to the state's Adjutant General, bypassing the Governor entirely, violated the statute's plain text. The federal government argued the Adjutant General acts for the Governor in the chain of command, and that the Governor holds no veto over a lawful presidential call-up.

California's Three Legal Claims

The complaint pleads three causes of action against the administration.

First, ultra vires action — the claim that the President and Defense Secretary acted beyond any authority Congress gave them. None of Section 12406's three triggers existed, the state says: there was no invasion, no rebellion (which the complaint, quoting Black's Law Dictionary, defines as an organized, usually violent attempt to change a government — far beyond protests with scattered lawbreaking), and no showing the President was unable to execute federal law with regular forces. ICE, after all, carried out its operations and made arrests on both June 6 and June 7. On top of that, the orders skipped the Governor.

Second, a Tenth Amendment violation. Policing and crime control are core powers the Constitution reserves to the states, and the complaint frames the deployment as the federal government commandeering the state's own resources — its militia — to perform ordinary law enforcement functions that belong to civil authorities. The state argued the deployment did not just intrude on its turf; it stripped away 4,000 of its own emergency responders in the middle of peak wildfire season, including members of Task Force Rattlesnake, the Guard's specialized fire crews, and counterdrug task force members who work fentanyl interdiction.

Third, a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act by Secretary Hegseth and the Defense Department — the argument that the federalization orders were agency action contrary to law, in excess of statutory authority, and arbitrary and capricious.

The complaint also flagged a fourth concern that would soon dominate the case: the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 law that generally forbids using the military for civilian law enforcement. A violation, California warned in its filing, was "imminent, if not already underway."

How the Courts Ruled: A One-Year Timeline

Newsom v. Trump moved at extraordinary speed, swinging back and forth between San Francisco and the Ninth Circuit for months.

• June 12, 2025 — Judge Breyer granted California a temporary restraining order, finding the federalization unlawful on both statutory and constitutional grounds and ordering control of the Guard returned to the Governor. The administration appealed within hours, and the Ninth Circuit issued an administrative stay the same day.

• June 19, 2025 — A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel (Judges Mark Bennett, Eric Miller, and Jennifer Sung) unanimously stayed the TRO pending appeal. Applying what it called a highly deferential standard of review, the panel concluded the President likely acted within his Section 12406 authority and that transmitting the orders to the Adjutant General likely satisfied the "through the governors" requirement. The Guard stayed federalized, and the deployment continued.

• Summer 2025 — The Pentagon released most of the troops in phases as the protests faded, while keeping a contingent federalized. In August, Judge Breyer held a three-day bench trial on California's Posse Comitatus Act claim, hearing testimony about what the troops actually did on the ground.

• September 2, 2025 — Judge Breyer ruled that the months-long deployment was "a serious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act," and a willful one: the defendants, he wrote, knowingly contradicted their own training materials, which list the functions the Act bars the military from performing. He enjoined the use of troops in California for arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants, staying the order until September 12 to allow an appeal.

• December 10, 2025 — With a contingent of California Guard members still federalized months past the original 60-day window, Judge Breyer issued a preliminary injunction requiring their return to state control.

• December 23, 2025 — In the parallel Chicago case, Trump v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the administration had likely exceeded its authority under Section 12406(3), writing that the government "failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois." The decision read the statute narrowly and undercut the legal footing of the remaining California deployment.

• December 31, 2025 — The Ninth Circuit vacated its administrative stay in full, leaving the December 10 injunction operative. The same day, President Trump announced he would abandon efforts to deploy the National Guard over the objections of state officials in California, Illinois, and Oregon, and Governor Newsom directed Guard leadership to quickly send the remaining soldiers home.

Where Newsom v. Trump Stands Now (June 2026)

As of this writing, the California National Guard is back under state command, and no federalized troops remain deployed in Los Angeles. But the lawsuit itself is not over. In January 2026, the parties jointly asked Judge Breyer to pause briefing on the government's motion to dismiss while the Ninth Circuit works out what the Supreme Court's Trump v. Illinois decision means for this case and for Oregon's parallel suit over Portland. The September 2025 Posse Comitatus injunction and the appeals surrounding it also remain live. In short: California has won nearly everything on the ground, but the courts have not yet entered a final judgment defining exactly where a president's Section 12406 power ends.

Why This Case Matters

Newsom v. Trump became the template for an entire genre of litigation. When the administration later moved to deploy troops in Portland and Chicago, Oregon and Illinois filed suits built on California's playbook, and the legal questions first raised in this complaint — what counts as a rebellion, when is a president "unable" to execute the laws, and what "through the governors" requires — went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case also produced the first major Posse Comitatus Act ruling in decades, drawing a concrete line between protecting federal property and using soldiers as police.

Beyond the doctrine, the case settled a practical question with enormous stakes for every state: a governor's control of the National Guard is not a formality the federal government can paper over. California framed the dispute as a defense of a founding-era principle — civil government, not military rule — and a year later, the troops went home largely on the state's terms. Whatever the final judgment says, the litigation has already redefined the modern limits of domestic military deployment.

Read the Newsom v. Trump Complaint

You can read the full complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, as filed June 9, 2025, below.

Related Coverage

Federal courts have repeatedly been the venue where the administration's immigration-related actions get tested. For another recent example, see our coverage of the federal ruling striking down USCIS application hold policies that had paused asylum, green card, work permit, and citizenship decisions.

How Do I Find Class Action Settlements?

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Gavin Newsom lawsuit against Trump about?

Newsom v. Trump, No. 3:25-cv-04870 (N.D. Cal.), filed June 9, 2025, challenges President Trump's federalization of roughly 4,000 California National Guard members during the June 2025 Los Angeles immigration protests. California argues the orders violated 10 U.S.C. § 12406 because none of the statute's trigger conditions existed and the orders were not issued through the Governor, and that the deployment violated the Tenth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. The state seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, not money damages.

Is Newsom v. Trump a class action or settlement?

No. Newsom v. Trump is a lawsuit brought by the State of California and its Governor against federal officials. It is not a class action, there is no settlement fund, there is no claim form, and it does not pay money to individuals. The relief sought is a court declaration that the federalization orders were unlawful and an injunction against enforcing them.

What is 10 U.S.C. § 12406?

10 U.S.C. § 12406 is the federal statute President Trump invoked to call the California National Guard into federal service. It allows federalization only when the United States is invaded or in danger of invasion, when there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against federal authority, or when the President is unable with regular forces to execute federal law. It also says orders "shall be issued through the governors of the States." According to California's complaint, June 2025 was only the second time in history a president relied on this statute alone, and the first activation without a governor's request since 1965.

What is the Posse Comitatus Act and how does it apply here?

The Posse Comitatus Act is an 1878 federal law that generally bars the use of the military for civilian law enforcement unless Congress expressly authorizes it. On September 2, 2025, after a bench trial, Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the Los Angeles deployment violated the Act and enjoined federal officials from using troops in California for arrests, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants.

Did Gavin Newsom win the lawsuit against Trump?

Mostly, on the outcomes that matter, though the case is not over. California won a temporary restraining order on June 12, 2025, which the Ninth Circuit stayed a week later. The state then won the September 2, 2025 Posse Comitatus Act ruling and a December 10, 2025 preliminary injunction. On December 31, 2025, the Ninth Circuit let that injunction take full effect, the remaining Guard members returned to state control, and President Trump announced he would stop deploying the Guard over the objections of California, Illinois, and Oregon. As of June 2026 there is no final judgment and parts of the case remain on appeal.

How many troops were sent to Los Angeles in June 2025?

Two Defense Department orders, issued June 7 and June 9, 2025, federalized roughly 4,000 California National Guard members, drawn largely from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, for an initial 60-day period. About 700 active-duty U.S. Marines were also mobilized to the Los Angeles area. The deployment wound down in phases over the following months, and the last federalized Guard members returned to state control at the end of December 2025.

Sources

• Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, Newsom v. Trump, No. 3:25-cv-04870 (N.D. Cal. filed June 9, 2025) — California Attorney General complaint filing
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California — Newsom et al v. Trump et al case-of-interest page and the June 12, 2025 temporary restraining order
• Ninth Circuit stay opinion, Newsom v. Trump, No. 25-3727 (June 19, 2025)
• Newsom v. Trump docket on CourtListener
• NPR coverage of the September 2, 2025 Posse Comitatus Act ruling
• SCOTUSblog on Trump v. Illinois (December 23, 2025)
• Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, December 31, 2025 statement
• 10 U.S.C. § 12406, Cornell Legal Information Institute

About This Page

This article summarizes a public court filing and subsequent public court rulings in Newsom v. Trump, Case No. 3:25-cv-04870-CRB (United States District Court, Northern District of California). OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and information site and is not a law firm, a government agency, or a party to this case. This page is general information, not legal advice, and the status of the litigation may change after the date above. For the current status, consult the court docket.

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