'If we didn't send military...': Trump declares 'we saved LA' after appeals court allows him to keep National Guard to quell immigration protests

US President Donald Trump has hailed appeals court decision to temporarily block a federal judge's order that directed the Trump administration to return control of California's National Guard troops to the state. 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. Trump had summoned the National Guard on Saturday in response to protests that had broken out over immigration raids, then on Monday ordered the US Marines to support the Guard.

Hailing the decision, Trump said that Los Angeles would be burning if he didn't send the military. "We saved LA," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He also wrote, “The Appeals Court ruled last night that I can use the National Guard to keep our cities, in this case Los Angeles, safe. If I didn’t send the Military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now.”

The appeals court's decision came hours after a San Francisco-based US District Judge said Trump's deployment of the troops to Los Angeles to quell immigration raids was illegal. The three-judge appeals court panel consisted of two judges appointed by Trump in his first term and one judge who was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

What did the US District Judge say in his order?

Senior US District Judge Charles Breyer had ruled that Trump unlawfully federalized thousands of members of California’s National Guard and must return control of the troops to the state by midday Friday. But the order from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals puts that on pause.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom from California sued Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this week for sending National Guard to Los Angeles after protests erupted over massive immigration raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Trump had emphasized on the provision of federal law that states that the president can call up a state’s troops to suppress a “rebellion.” But Breyer said in his ruling that “the protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion.’” “Violence is necessary for a rebellion, but it is not sufficient. Even accepting the questionable premise that people armed with fireworks, rocks, mangoes, concrete, chairs, or bottles of liquid are ‘armed’ in a 1903 sense – the Court is aware of no evidence in the record of actual firearms – there is little evidence of whether the violent protesters’ actions were ‘open or avowed,’” Breyer wrote.