A three-judge appeals panel heard arguments from lawyers Tuesday afternoon over the question of whether President Donald Trump can continue to control California’s National Guard as his administration carries out his deportation agenda, or if the troops should be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s control.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted a restraining order last week, putting Newsom back in control of the Guard and calling Trump’s actions “illegal.”

But lawyers for the Trump administration appealed, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Breyer’s ruling, pending Tuesday’s hearing.

The judges on Tuesday noted there is a time element to the case — Breyer is set to preside over another related hearing in the matter on Friday — but did not indicate when they will make a decision. Two of the judges on the panel are Trump appointees; the other was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

Brett Shumate, an attorney for the Trump administration, told the judges Tuesday that the National Guard is needed to protect federal buildings and agents in Los Angeles amid “ongoing violence.” Without the Guard, Shumate argued, properties and people would be at risk.

“The situation on the ground has not changed,” Shumate, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, said.

Shumate also argued that the courts do not have a role in reviewing Trump’s order federalizing the National Guard.

Meanwhile, Samuel Harbourt, who represented California, said a further pause of Breyer’s ruling would “profoundly injure the state of California and our nation more generally (because) it would allow defendents to continue diverting thousands of guardsmen away from critical work at the state level, including wildfire prevention and drug interdiction.”

He also argued that continued federalization of the National Guard escalates tensions and risks violence in Los Angeles.

“The president has not even attempted, defendants have made no attempt whatsoever, to provide argument or evidence that they even contemplated more modest measures to the extreme response of calling in the National Guard and militarizing the situation,” Harbourt, a supervising deputy solicitor general for the California Department of Justice, said.

Tuesday’s hearing was remote and streamed live online. It lasted for just over an hour.

Trump earlier this month federalized the California National Guard, moving more than 4,000 troops to Los Angeles to respond to large-scale demonstrations over immigration enforcement efforts.

The administration made those moves without the consent or request of Newsom; the Democratic governor later sued, requesting a temporary restraining order to halt the National Guard troops from being used to enforce immigration or civil laws in the state.

Ahead of the hearing, Newsom alleged that Trump is “hamstringing firefighting resources in California just as peak fire season begins” by diverting National Guard members to the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts. The governor said more than half of the Task Force Rattlesnake firefighting team has been moved off firefighting efforts to help the administration.

“With peak fire season right on the horizon, we need all available boots on the ground to protect communities,” Newsom said.

But Trump has alleged that without his calling up the National Guard, protesters would “rip Los Angeles apart.”

In a recent post on his Truth Social account, Trump said, “If I didn’t put the National Guard into Los Angeles, the place would be burned down to the ground right now.”

“I did incompetent Governor Gavin Newscum,” the president continued, invoking his derogatory nickname for California’s governor, “who doesn’t have a clue, the favor of a lifetime.”

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday lifted a curfew that had been imposed on a roughly 8-square-mile radius of Downtown L.A., including parts of Chinatown, Little Tokyo, the Fashion District and the Arts District.

The Democratic mayor had scaled back the curfew on Monday, but lifted it outright Tuesday because of “continuing successful crime prevention and suppression efforts.”

“I am lifting the curfew effective today, and as we continue quickly adapting to chaos coming from Washington, I will be prepared to reissue a curfew if needed,” Bass said. “My priority will continue to be ensuring safety, stability and support in the Downtown neighborhoods.”

Breyer ruled the Trump violated the use of Title 10, which allows the president to call the National Guard into federal service when the country “is invaded,” when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is unable “to execute the laws of the United States.”

Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that what has been happening in Los Angeles does not meet the definition of a rebellion.

The National Guard hasn’t been activated without a governor’s permission since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.