Gavin Newsom issues legal ultimatum to Trump

Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Gavin New­som issued a point­ed warn­ing to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Wednes­day, threat­en­ing to take legal action if he pro­ceeds with plans to deploy Nation­al Guard troops to San Fran­cis­co.

The move comes amid reports in the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle that Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has dis­patched more than 100 fed­er­al agents to the Bay Area as part of an immi­gra­tion enforce­ment surge.

Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Gavin New­som is threat­en­ing legal action against for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump over plans to deploy Nation­al Guard troops to San Fran­cis­co — a move that could spark one of the most con­se­quen­tial tests of pres­i­den­tial pow­er and state sov­er­eign­ty in decades.

At a Thurs­day press brief­ing, New­som warned that he would “file a law­suit with­in a nanosec­ond” if Trump orders troops into the city, call­ing the mea­sure “an assault on state author­i­ty and the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion.”

“We’re going to be fierce in our response,” New­som said. “San Fran­cis­co is one of the safest large cities in this coun­try — only Don­ald Trump can wreck that, and we will push back with clar­i­ty and con­vic­tion.”

New­som fol­lowed up with a point­ed mes­sage on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), writ­ing: “Send troops to San Fran­cis­co and we will sue you, @realDonaldTrump.”

Federal Forces on Alert

The stand­off esca­lat­ed after the U.S. Coast Guard con­firmed prepa­ra­tions at its Alame­da base to host Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion (CBP) agents as part of a broad­er fed­er­al immi­gra­tion enforce­ment ini­tia­tive.

A Coast Guard spokesper­son told ABC 7 News that the oper­a­tion “con­tin­ues efforts to con­trol, secure, and defend U.S. bor­ders and mar­itime approach­es,” describ­ing it as a “whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach” to inter­cept indi­vid­u­als enter­ing the coun­try ille­gal­ly.

Trump, who has made immi­gra­tion enforce­ment a sig­na­ture issue of his pres­i­den­cy, reit­er­at­ed his inten­tions dur­ing a Fox News appear­ance on Octo­ber 20. “We’re going to San Fran­cis­co, and we’ll make it great. It’ll be great again,” he said.

His admin­is­tra­tion has already deployed Nation­al Guard units to Los Ange­les, Chica­go, Mem­phis, and Port­land under what legal experts call an expan­sive read­ing of the Insur­rec­tion Act — a 19th-cen­tu­ry law allow­ing pres­i­dents to use mil­i­tary forces domes­ti­cal­ly under lim­it­ed cir­cum­stances.

Legal and Constitutional Stakes

A White House spokesper­son defend­ed the move, cit­ing the Insur­rec­tion Act’s pro­vi­sions for enforc­ing fed­er­al law and address­ing civ­il dis­or­der. The law was last used wide­ly dur­ing the 1992 Los Ange­les riots.

Any attempt to invoke it in San Fran­cis­co would almost cer­tain­ly face imme­di­ate court chal­lenges. The U.S. Supreme Court has pre­vi­ous­ly set strict lim­its on mil­i­tary involve­ment in domes­tic affairs — notably in Reid v. Covert (1957), which affirmed that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment can­not act against U.S. cit­i­zens with­out con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards.

“The Unit­ed States is entire­ly a crea­ture of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” Jus­tice Hugo Black wrote for the major­i­ty.

San Fran­cis­co May­or Daniel Lurie accused the Trump admin­is­tra­tion of “incit­ing back­lash, chaos, and vio­lence” to jus­ti­fy mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion. “These tac­tics are designed to instill fear,” he said, warn­ing that the move could endan­ger res­i­dents.

Civ­il rights groups, includ­ing the ACLU of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, have also voiced alarm. “We’ve seen CBP agents stop and arrest peo­ple based on appear­ance or per­ceived immi­gra­tion sta­tus,” said Shilpi Agar­w­al, the organization’s legal direc­tor.

A Brewing Legal Battle

If Trump fol­lows through with the deploy­ment, New­som is expect­ed to imme­di­ate­ly seek a fed­er­al injunc­tion, like­ly set­ting the stage for a fast-tracked case that could reach the Supreme Court.

Legal schol­ars say the dis­pute may hinge on whether immi­gra­tion enforce­ment qual­i­fies as a legit­i­mate use of mil­i­tary force under the Insur­rec­tion Act. The case could echo Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), the land­mark rul­ing that lim­it­ed Pres­i­dent Har­ry Truman’s wartime pow­ers.

New­som framed his oppo­si­tion as a defense of state rights and demo­c­ra­t­ic norms. “This isn’t about pub­lic safe­ty, it’s about pow­er,” he said ear­li­er this month. “The com­man­der-in-chief is using the U.S. mil­i­tary as a polit­i­cal weapon against Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.”

Trump, mean­while, has main­tained that his author­i­ty is beyond ques­tion. “I have unques­tioned pow­er to deploy the Nation­al Guard,” he said. “Don’t for­get — I can use the Insur­rec­tion Act.”

As both men dig in, the con­fronta­tion could rede­fine the bal­ance of pow­er between Wash­ing­ton and the states — and deter­mine how far a pres­i­dent can go in using the mil­i­tary on U.S. soil.