Legal experts are questioning President Trump's justification for deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles.
In a memo Saturday, the president announced his decision to deploy 2,000 National Guard members due to ongoing protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the city.
The president cited a section of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, a federal law that allows the president to call in a state's National Guard if there's "danger of a rebellion" against the government.
In his memo, the president claimed that recent protests against ICE "constitute a form of rebellion" against the federal government.
However, multiple legal experts who spoke with the Scripps News Group said that's a weak legal justification.
"This is obviously not rebellion," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole. "This is a protest. People going out into the streets because they don't like what the government is doing. That is as American as apple pie. It is not a rebellion."
But defining what constitutes a rebellion is up for debate, according to Chris Mirasola, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston.
"There is no provision, no section of this statute that provides a definition of rebellion," Mirasola said. "This is a problem for a lot of these statutes that govern how the president can use the military in a domestic disturbance. "
Mirasola says President Trump's memo also leaned into a theory of presidential authority known as the protective power.
"The protective power asserts the president's ability to use the military to protect federal functions, federal property, and federal persons. It's based on an understanding of the president's inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution," Mirasola said.
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The president notably did not cite the Insurrection Act — a different mechanism the president can use to activate the military domestically. However, on Monday, President Trump did call some of the demonstrators insurrectionists.
California's attorney general and governor are suing the White House for deploying the National Guard troops.
In a statement, Attorney General Rob Bonta said, "There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends."
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