BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is among 19 Republican state attorneys general backing former President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to send the National Guard into Los Angeles, even as critics say the deployment escalated tensions and undermined local control.
Marshall joined a legal brief last week defending Trump’s authority to federalize the California National Guard in response to protests against aggressive immigration enforcement. The brief claims Trump acted “decisively and constitutionally” to restore order after local officials “bowed to violent open border activists” and failed to act. But many in California, including Governor Gavin Newsom, say the city had the situation under control and that the president’s intervention inflamed rather than eased unrest.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the move a “test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state, or away from local government”. Local police said most protests were peaceful, and while some violence did occur, they felt equipped to handle it. The LAPD had not requested federal troops, and the deployment of Marines and thousands of Guard members came as a surprise to city officials.
Legal experts warn that Trump’s move—bypassing the governor’s consent—sets a dangerous precedent for federal overreach and the use of military force in domestic affairs. The last time a president deployed the Guard to a state without the governor’s approval was in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights marchers in Selma from violence by segregationist authorities. In that historic case, the Guard was used to defend citizens seeking justice; this time, critics argue, the troops were used to suppress dissent against harsh immigration crackdowns—crackdowns many say were provoking the unrest in the first place.
Marshall’s support for Trump’s action appears more political than practical, aligning Alabama with a hardline law-and-order agenda even as evidence mounts that the National Guard’s presence in Los Angeles may have worsened the situation, not calmed it. The episode highlights a stark contrast with Alabama’s own history, when federal troops were sent to ensure civil rights, not to stifle protest.