A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday directing President Donald Trump to return control of the National Guard to California.
The order, which takes effect at noon Friday, said the deployment of the Guard was illegal and both violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority.
The White House had no immediate comment on the ruling.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump overstepped his bounds in ordering the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles after protests erupted over the immigration crackdown.
It was not immediately clear how that would change the situation on the ground.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued to block the Guard’s deployment against his wishes. California later filed an emergency motion asking the judge to block the Guard from assisting with immigration raids.
He argued that the troops were originally deployed to protect federal buildings and wanted the court to block the troops from helping protect immigration agents during the raids, saying that involving the Guard would only escalate tensions and promote civil unrest.
In a broad ruling, the judge determined Trump had not properly called the Guard up in the first place.
Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and one other media outlet, said that as of Wednesday, about 500 of the Guard troops have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations. Photos of Guard soldiers providing security for the agents have already been circulated by immigration officials.
Sherman is commander of Task Force 51, which is overseeing the Guard troops and Marines sent to Los Angeles.
Newsom has characterized the federal military intervention in the nation’s second-largest city as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has echoed that, saying the troop deployment was unnecessary and meant to undermine local jurisdictions and intimidate the city’s large immigrant population.
Earlier in the day, Breyer said he intended to rule quickly.
“This country was founded in response to a monarch, and the Constitution is a document of limitations. I’m trying to figure out where the lines are drawn,” the judge said before a packed courtroom.
