New York Times: Trump Is Calling Up National Guard Troops Under a Rarely Used Law

President Trump bypassed the authority of Gov. Gavin Newsom to call up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests.

President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”

Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites “10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

Although some demonstrations have been unruly, local authorities in Los Angeles County did not indicate during the day that they needed federal assistance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/us/trump-national-guard-deploy-rare.html

Guardian: A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king

The bill could stop federal courts from enforcing their rulings, eliminating any restraint on Trump

Robert Reich

So what’s the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations?

Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads:

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued …”

Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable.

Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts.

But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/27/a-hidden-measure-in-the-republican-budget-bill-would-crown-trump-king

Politico: Judges have a warning about Trump’s rapid deportations: Americans could be next

A fundamental promise by America’s founders — that no one should be punished by the state without a fair hearing — is under threat, a growing chorus of federal judges say.

That concept of “due process under law,” borrowed from the Magna Carta and enshrined in the Bill of Rights, is most clearly imperiled for the immigrants President Donald Trump intends to summarily deport, they say, but U.S. citizens should be wary, too.

Across the country, judges appointed by presidents of both parties — including Trump himself — are escalating warnings about what they see as an erosion of due process caused by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. What started with a focus on people Trump has deemed “terrorists” and “gang members” — despite their fierce denials — could easily expand to other groups, including Americans, these judges warn.

“When the courts say due process is important, we’re not unhinged, we’re not radicals,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Washington, D.C.-based appointee of President Joe Biden, said at a recent hearing. “We are literally trying to enforce a process embodied in probably the most significant document with respect to peoples’ rights against tyrannical government oppression. That’s what we’re doing here. Okay?”

It’s a fight that judges are increasingly casting as existential, rooted in the 5th Amendment’s guarantee that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” The word “person,” courts have noted, makes no distinction between citizens or noncitizens. The Supreme Court has long held that this fundamental promise extends to immigrants in deportation proceedings. In a 1993 opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia called that principle “well-established.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/judges-have-a-warning-about-trump-s-rapid-deportations-americans-could-be-next/ar-AA1EvZfM