San Francisco: A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order late Thursday, directing U.S. President Donald Trump to return control of the National Guard to California. Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard and U.S. Marines in Los Angeles was deemed illegal, both violating the Tenth Amendment and exceeding Trump’s statutory authority, according to the order, which takes effect at noon on Friday.
According to Namibia Press Agency, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer stated that Trump overstepped his bounds by ordering the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles following protests over the immigration crackdown. California Governor Gavin Newsom had sued to block the National Guard’s deployment against his wishes, with the state later filing an emergency motion requesting the judge to prevent the Guard from assisting with immigration raids.
The restraining order from Breyer was described as “a sharp rebuke to President Trump’s effort to deploy thousands of National Guard troops on the streets of an American city,” a move contributing to nearly a week of political rancor and protests across the country, reported The New York Times.
During an hourlong hearing before Breyer in San Francisco, a lawyer for the Justice Department argued that courts lack the authority to second-guess the president’s decisions concerning the National Guard troops and Marines deployed by Trump, despite objections from state and local officials.
Breyer expressed doubt that Trump had complied with the terms of a statute specifying when National Guard units, normally commanded by the state’s governor, can be federalized. However, he was reluctant to grant Newsom’s request for an order forbidding the use of military personnel to enforce federal laws without strong evidence that troops were indeed doing so.
The judge stayed his order until noon on Friday to allow for appeals and scheduled a hearing for June 20 to determine whether to make the restrictions permanent. The Trump administration has filed for an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit following the ruling.