Read Judge’s Ruling on Trump’s Use of Troops in California

United States District Court
Northern District of California

Case 3:25-cv-04870-CRB Document 176 Filed 09/02/25

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Moreover, a close look at the recognized statutory exceptions to the Posse
2 Comitatus Act counsels against, rather than in favor of, Defendants’ position. Many of

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these statutes apply only in very specific circumstances. See, e.g., 16 U.S.C. § 23 (authorizing the Secretary of the Army to use troops to prevent trespassers or intruders in national parks); 25 U.S.C. § 180 (authorizing the President to use military force to remove
6 persons unlawfully present on “any lands belonging, secured, or granted by treaty with the

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United States to any Indian tribe”); 42 U.S.C. § 97 (authorizing the Secretary of Health and
Human Services to use military officers to enforce quarantines). These exceptions are narrow; unlike Defendants’ proposed exception, they do not undermine the whole act.
Nor does the Insurrection Act, 10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255,14 support Defendants’ position here. To be sure, the Insurrection Act is a recognized exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. Dep’t of Def. Instruction No. 3025.21, encl. 3 ¶ 1.b(4). Yet the Insurrection Act, which provides three avenues for the President to deploy the National Guard (or other branches of the military), imposes meaningful guardrails on the President’s authority. The President can invoke the Insurrection Act only if (1) the state 16 legislature or governor so requests it, 10 U.S.C. § 251; (2) he determines that “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United 18 States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the 19 ordinary course of judicial proceedings,” id. § 252 (emphasis added); (3) he determines

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that “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy . SO hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State,
that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection
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State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that

protection” to the State’s citizens, id. § 253.

Under the Insurrection Act, then, the President’s authority is restricted in some

14 The Insurrection Act was, until recently, codified at 10 U.S.C. §§ 331–335.

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