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As I pointed out here, the case that Los Angeles doesn’t need any additional law enforcement help is looking pretty thin after a dozen or more businesses were looted last night. And yet, Gov. Newsom is suing the Trump administration and today California’s AG Rob Bonta asked for an Emergency Restraining Order to stop the use of the National Guard and Marines.
“They must be stopped, immediately,” attorneys for the state wrote in a filing Tuesday. The request, submitted around 11 a.m. local time on Tuesday, urged U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to act within two hours.
The restraining order request.is focused explicitly on a growing expectation among California officials that those troops will soon be sent on arrest missions alongside agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — raising the likelihood of direct confrontations with L.A. residents.
“Such support activities would include holding a secure perimeter in communities around areas where immigration enforcement activities would take place, and securing routes over public streets where immigration enforcement officers would travel,” said Paul Eck, a state attorney who works with California’s National Guard, in a sworn statement accompanying the restraining order request.
Two hours is a pretty speedy request. That doesn’t give the Trump administration any time at all to respond, which is probably the point. The Trump administration countered by asking for 24 hours to consider the request before responding.
The Trump administration has said it opposes the request, and has asked the judge presiding over the case for more time to respond. In a separate filing, the Justice Department said California was seeking «an extraordinary, unprecedented, and dangerous court order» based on arguments that are «legally meritless.
