Trump Can Keep Deploying Troops in LA for Now, Court Says (3)

The Trump administration won a brief reprieve from a judge’s order to pull back on its use of military troops in Los Angeles to deal with protests over the president’s immigration raids.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco put the judge’s order on hold and scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to discuss further action in the case.

The move came hours after US District Judge Charles Breyer directed the federal government to return control of the California National Guard to state leaders and cease efforts to direct those troops to respond to protests while a lawsuit challenging the actions proceeds.

Early Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed the ruling in a post on Truth Social, repeating his claim that if he had not deployed troops, Los Angeles “would be burning to the ground right now.”

“We saved L.A. Thank you for the Decision!!!,” he wrote.

The appeals court set a hearing for Tuesday to consider whether to continue to allow Trump to use troops in Los Angeles for longer. Written arguments from the administration and California are due before then.

California officials didn’t respond outside regular business hours to a request for comment.

Lawyers for the state had urged the appeals panel to reject the federal government’s request to pause Breyer’s order, arguing that his ruling clearly identified the “irreparable harm” the state would face if the deployment continued in LA.

Demonstrators in Los Angeles have clashed for days with law enforcement, sometimes violently, while California Governor Gavin Newsom and Trump are at odds over how to restore order and who should do it. The activities spurred a dispute over the limits of Trump’s executive powers after he federalized the National Guard over the objections of Newsom and other local leaders.

In doing so, Trump issued a proclamation stating that the protests are a “form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”

Breyer said in his ruling that he “is troubled” by the implication that “protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion.”

Read More: Newsom Asks Judge to Immediately Limit Trump Use of Military

Attorneys for California had asked Breyer to bar the troops from helping federal law enforcement in immigration raids, though they would be allowed to protect federal courthouses, offices and personnel. In their request for an emergency order, the state’s lawyers argued that the military deployment “creates imminent harm to state sovereignty” and “escalates tensions.”

The president has called the demonstrations “migrant riots” and said on his Truth Social platform that his decision to call in the troops has helped address unrest in the city. Without the military presence, he said “Los Angeles would be a crime scene like we haven’t seen in years.”

Explainer: Why Trump’s Use of Military in US Is So Controversial

The government has maintained that Trump acted legally and lawyers said in a court filing that any order from Breyer limiting the scope of Trump’s authority would “jeopardize the safety of Department of Homeland Security personnel and interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out operations.”

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested in the Los Angeles area this week.

Local law enforcement has handled nearly all of the crowd control, as protests largely are confined to a few parts of the Los Angeles area and downtown. The past two nights have been relatively quiet after Mayor Karen Bass imposed a 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew over a one-mile-square area of downtown to tamp down the protests.

The case is Newsom v. Trump, 25-cv-04870, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

(Updates with California court filing in eighth paragraph.)

--With assistance from John Gittelsohn.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Madlin Mekelburg in Austin at mmekelburg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Magan Crane

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