National Guard troops under President Donald Trump's control were pulled into a chaotic Southern California immigration raid on short notice and with little guidance, according to a leaked internal Army document.
The military report shared with MS NOW suggests the soldiers may have crossed a long-standing legal line by taking part July 10, 2025, raid on a cannabis farm in Camarillo, and experts who reviewed the document say it strongly suggests that troops from the Guard's 49th Military Police Brigade were directly involved in taking custody of immigrant detainees and moving them to a nearby naval base.
"This is yet more evidence of the willingness of the Trump administration to blow the hinges off the constraints of what the military can do domestically," said Ben Farley of the National Immigration Law Center, which obtained the document through a public records request.
Earlier accounts had the troops only setting up a security perimeter, and the disclosure raises concerns about Trump invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops around the midterm elections – which he has refused to rule out.
The review describes an operation that was improvised from the start. Border Patrol asked for Guard support, canceled the request two days before the raid, then called troops back in once the raid was underway. Units arrived "without an in-brief and no information on staging, routes, ingress, egress, and supporting medical facilities."
According to the document, federal agents "were not tracking the plan or did not have a plan when it came to moving detainees." The lead agent then told troops that the Pentagon had approved Guard "personnel to transport detainees in military vehicles." Protesters blocked the convoy, climbed on vehicles and "threw items at our Soldiers."
Northern Command flatly denied that its troops handled detainees. A spokesperson said personnel "did not conduct arrests, searches, seizures, detention, or detainee transportation." The command did not respond when asked about the apparent conflict with its own report, and DHS deflected questions to the Defense Department.
Experts said the activities described in the document raise concerns under the Posse Comitatus Act, which largely bars the military from domestic law enforcement.
"Detention and traffic management would both count as execution of the laws," said Chris Mirasola, a University of Houston law professor and former Pentagon attorney. "Those are usually very straightforward examples of a violation."
Experts cautioned that the document alone doesn't prove a violation, because it doesn't say who drove the detainees or whether federal agents were on board.
A federal judge already ruled in September 2025 that the Los Angeles deployment violated the law, based only on troops' perimeter and traffic duties. The court never saw evidence of troops handling detainees.
Experts warn the episode lowered the barriers to using the military at home, an alarming precedent as Trump floats deploying troops around the election.
"That's not what the military does," said Daniel Maurer, a retired Army judge advocate.