Appeals Court Shuts Down Extended Deployment

The Trump administration hit a legal roadblock Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered it to pull California National Guard troops out of Los Angeles by Monday. The ruling upholds a lower court decision and effectively ends a military presence that's stretched on for six months.

According to The New York Times, the appellate court found that the federal government had unlawfully kept troops in Los Angeles long after the immigration enforcement protests that supposedly justified their presence had died down. The decision affects roughly 100 National Guard troops still stationed in California, at least for now.

Partial Win for California Officials

California officials are calling this a victory, though it's not exactly a clean sweep. While the judges ordered the troops withdrawn, they temporarily blocked part of the district court's ruling that would have handed control back to Governor Gavin Newsom. So come Monday, California won't have federal troops patrolling its streets, but the state isn't getting full command authority back just yet.

Rob Bonta, California's attorney general, didn't mince words: "The Ninth Circuit's decision means that, come Monday, there will be no National Guard troops deployed in California."

The numbers tell quite a story. Back in June, at the deployment's peak, approximately 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines descended on Los Angeles. State officials pushed back hard, arguing the federal government was massively overreacting to protests that were, in their view, perfectly manageable. The Justice Department has stayed silent on Friday's ruling.

Six Months of Legal Wrangling

This legal fight has been dragging on since June, with the courts ping-ponging between decisions. Earlier on, a federal appeals court actually sided with the Trump administration, letting it keep control of the troops despite a lower court finding that the deployment violated both statutory procedures and the Tenth Amendment.

California's argument throughout has been straightforward: this is federal overreach, plain and simple. The state wants its National Guard back under state control, where it belongs. The Ninth Circuit's latest decision marks a clear turning point, putting the brakes on federal authority over these troops and setting a Monday deadline that the administration will need to meet.