Trump’s use of the National Guard against LA protesters defies all precedents

Posted on 10 June 2025 • Arts and social sciences, History

Dr Sinead McEneaney, Senior Lecturer in History at The Open University, debates President Trump’s latest stance in LA against protesters over immigration raids and shares the historical background regarding the Insurrection Act and National Guard.

Violence has erupted on the streets of cities across southern California over the weekend, as protesters clashed with agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detaining people they suspected to be illegal immigrants, notes

The US president, Donald Trump, took the unusual decision on Saturday to deploy 2,000 troops from California’s national guard, despite not being requested to by the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

Newsom has threatened to sue Trump over what he has called “an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act”. Other California officials have also denounced the move, with Senator Adam Schiff calling it a “dangerous precedent for unilateral misuse of the guard across the country”.

Raids by ICE agents have increased significantly since mid-May when the Trump administration threatened to fire senior ICE officials if they did not deliver on higher arrest quotas. Several high-profile wrongful arrests of US citizens have further inflamed tensions.

Read the full story in The Conversation here.