California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit on Monday against President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to stop them from federalizing and deploying the California National Guard to help crush protests against the president’s mass deportation campaign in Los Angeles.The lawsuit challenges Trump’s invocation of a provision of the U.S. Armed Services Code (10 USC 12406) that allows for the limited presidential deployment of National Guard troops. Trump has federalized and deployed 4,000 members of the California National Guard and 700 Marines to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raid worksites, schools and churches to round up and deport undocumented immigrants.California argues that Trump’s use of this provision, which has never been invoked in this manner before, is illegal on numerous grounds, including that Trump failed to issue his orders through the state’s governor, as seemingly required by the law, that it deprives the state of the use of its National Guard “to protect itself and its citizens” and that it infringes on the governor’s role as head of the California National Guard.This provision has been previously invoked in conjunction with the Insurrection Act, a series of statutory provisions authorizing the president to deploy military forces domestically in certain limited situations. But the president has not invoked the authorities under the Insurrection Act, instead relying solely on this one provision. The lawsuit contends this novel use exceeds the federal government’s power and violates the 10th Amendment, which delegates certain powers to the states alone.“Deploying over 4,000 federalized military forces to quell a protest or prevent future protests despite the lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety during such protests represents the exact type of intrusion on State Power that is at the heart of the Tenth Amendment,” the lawsuit argues.National Guard soldiers stand outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Sunday.Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images“Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends,” Bonta said in a statement released about the lawsuit. “Federalizing the California National Guard is an abuse of the President’s authority under the law – and not one we take lightly.”For a president to invoke this provision of the Armed Services Code, one of three conditions must be met. There must be an “Actual or threatened foreign invasion,” an “Actual or threatened rebellion ‘against the authority of the Government of the United States,’” or “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”Trump claims his authority to use this law by calling the protests against ICE activity “a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” The lawsuit challenges this, stating, “Conditions in California did not fall under any of the situations set forth in section 12406 that would allow its invocation at the time it was invoked.”“Indeed, nothing about the scale of the protests or acts of violence set these events apart from other recent periods of significant social unrest,” the lawsuit states.In addition, the law in question requires that “[o]rders” to National Guard members when this law is invoked “shall be issued through the governors of the States.” Trump has not coordinated with or communicated any such orders to the governor’s office at all, Newsom, a Democrat, said on Sunday.“There’s a protocol. There’s a process. He didn’t care about that,” Newsom said on MSNBC.Trump’s effort to federalize the California National Guard came after ICE officers raided a Home Depot on June 6 to detain supposed undocumented immigrants seeking work there. Protests erupted in response to ICE’s workplace raid and grew as ICE and the Los Angeles Police Department deployed tear gas and fired rubber bullets at protesters, the press and onlookers stuck in traffic.The protests have been mostly peaceful, and the LAPD and state law enforcement officials have all stated that they do not need National Guard troops to respond.