Legal rulings on Trump's National Guard deployment won't affect Texas troop dispatch

Hours after Gov. Greg Abbott announced he would deploy thousands of national guard troops to anti-Trump protests across the state, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump could not do the same in California. But the outcome of the case, which is still ongoing, won’t apply to Abbott’s deployment.

"None of this had anything to do with Texas," said Jeremy Paul, professor of law at Northeastern University.

That’s because Abbott made the decision — not Trump.

While the National Guard is part of the U.S. military, governors typically serve as commanders-in-chief of the guard in their respective states and thus decide when and if it is appropriate to deploy them, according to the National Governor’s Association. Such incidents could include natural disasters, riots and mass casualty incidents, according to the association.

That is one of the key claims in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s deployment of the California State Guard – that the president is infringing on state rights.

A federal judge on Thursday ruled Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles was illegal and ordered the president to return control of the National Guard to the state, according to the Associated Press. However, an appeals court temporarily blocked that order. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday, according to the report.

Paul said there are statutes that allow the president to federalize state militias, typically during insurrections and invasions, or times where there is a "plausible case that federal law cannot be enforced." That could include rioters storming federal buildings and overpowering state law enforcement, he said.

In his Thursday ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the situation in Los Angeles did not meet the definition of rebellion, according to the AP.

Abbott on Thursday announced he would deploy more than 5,000 National Guard soldiers across Texas to aid local and state law enforcement during Saturday's anti-Trump protests.

"Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles in response to President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration law," Abbott, a close ally of Trump, said in a news release.