As riots continue to tear through Los Angeles, President Donald Trump has made efforts to enforce law and order. Among the most controversial of those orders was Trump’s decision to federalize the California National Guard, deploying thousands of troops to the violence-stricken city. As has been the case with many of the president’s executive actions, federal courts have gotten involved.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration this week, asking Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to stop the president from taking command of the National Guard. Breyer rejected Newsom’s emergency petition, instead offering the Trump administration time to respond to the governor’s demands. On Thursday, however, Breyer granted Newsom’s request for a temporary restraining order (TRO), declaring Trump’s federalization of the National Guard to be “illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” The judge ordered Trump to “return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”

The Trump administration quickly filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, asking the appellate court to stay Breyer’s “unprecedented order enjoining the President from deploying National Guardsmen to protect federal officers attempting to enforce federal immigration laws from ongoing violent protests and attacks intended to interfere with those efforts, and to protect federal property from further damage.”

The emergency appeal described Breyer’s TRO as “an extraordinary intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief to call forth the National Guard as necessary to protect federal officials, as well as his statutory authority … to mobilize state National Guards into federal service to quell riotous mobs committing crimes against federal personnel…” The Trump administration further warned that Breyer’s “order also puts federal officers in harms’ way every minute that it is in place.”

Late Thursday, a panel of appellate judges — Trump appointees Eric Miller and Mark Bennett and Biden appointee Jennifer Sung — agreed to temporarily stay Breyer’s order. The judges gave Newsom until Sunday morning to respond to the Trump administration’s arguments and gave the Trump administration the option of replying to any arguments Newsom advances.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, “We are fortunate the Ninth Circuit stepped in to override the unlawful decision of Judge Charles Breyer that tried to tell President Trump that troops could not be used to protect federal officials and federal buildings from violent attacks by mobs in Los Angeles.” He explained, “This was far outside this ultra liberal judge’s authority and posed a serious danger to the health, safety, and lives of federal officers trying to enforce federal immigration laws.” 

Von Spakovsky recounted: “President Eisenhower is fortunate he didn’t have Judge Breyer to deal with when he sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 to enforce federal civil rights laws and protect black students. Breyer apparently would have allowed those students to be attacked in the face of the massive resistance by local and state officials. The historical parallel is eerily similar.”

The Washington Stand has been chronicling the numerous instances of federal judges imposing injunctions and TROs on the president’s agenda. Court orders have targeted everything from immigration enforcement, tariff adjustments, and military personnel decisions to the Trump administration’s actions on gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.