Trump can keep National Guard deployed to Los Angeles for now, appeals court rules

LOS ANGELES: A US appeals court on Thursday (Jun 12) allowed President Donald Trump to maintain his deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles amid protests over stepped-up immigration enforcement, temporarily pausing a lower court ruling that blocked the mobilisation.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals' decision does not mean that the court will ultimately agree with Trump, but it does leave command of the Guard with the president for now.

Earlier on Thursday, San Francisco-based US District Judge Charles Breyer found that Trump's deployment of the Guard was unlawful. Breyer had ordered the National Guard to return to the control of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had brought the case.

It was a brief victory for Newsom, as Breyer's order was paused a short time later.

The three-judge panel that paused the ruling consisted of two judges appointed by Trump in his first term and one judge who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden. The panel said it would hold a hearing on Tuesday to consider the merits of Breyer's order.

The appeals court decision stands to leave in place the dynamic of weeklong street demonstrations that have been concentrated in downtown Los Angeles, largely at a federal detention centre where National Guard troops have stood watch.

The Guard had also accompanied Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on operations.

In his ruling, Breyer wrote that the presence of the troops in the city was itself inflaming tensions with protesters - a contention made by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, among others - and depriving the state of the ability to use the Guard for other purposes.

That ruling came hours after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to "liberate" Los Angeles at a press conference that was dramatically interrupted when federal agents dragged Democratic US Senator Alex Padilla out of the room, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Padilla was forcibly ejected after he tried to ask Noem a question during her press conference in Los Angeles, Reuters video showed. Noem said later Padilla had not identified himself as a senator during the scuffle, but the video clearly shows him doing so.

In a statement, DHS said US Secret Service agents believed Padilla was an "attacker" who did not comply with orders to back away. Noem and Padilla ended up meeting for 15 minutes to discuss his concerns over the immigration raids, the department said.

The video showed Padilla being forced to lie on the ground in a corridor outside the press conference room by federal agents, who then handcuffed his hands behind his back.

Padilla met with reporters after the incident telling them, "If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farmers to cooks to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country."

The court battle and press conference scuffle underscored the political polarisation generated by Trump's hardline approach to immigration enforcement and expansive use of presidential power.

Trump is carrying out a campaign promise to deport immigrants, employing forceful tactics consistent with the norm-breaking political style that got him elected twice.

Between the rulings, Newsom said the National Guard would be redeployed to its previous tasks, including border security, preparing for wildfires and countering drug smuggling.

But the Trump administration immediately appealed the judge's order, calling Breyer's ruling "an extraordinary intrusion on the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief".

Trump justified the deployment of troops by characterising the protests in Los Angeles as a "rebellion", but Breyer said in a temporary restraining order that the protests fell far short of that legal standard.

"The Court is troubled by the implication inherent in Defendants' argument that protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion," Breyer wrote.

Trump has said if he had not ordered in the National Guard the city would be in flames. The protests so far have been mostly peaceful, punctuated by incidents of violence and restricted to a few city blocks.

Trump summoned the National Guard on Saturday, then the US Marines on Monday, to help federal police forces guard federal buildings from protesters and to protect federal immigration agents as they picked up suspected violators.