An appeals court sided with President Donald Trump in his effort to keep National Guard troops in Washington DC, pausing a lower court order that would have ended the deployment in the coming days.

Last November, District Judge Jia Cobb, appointed by former President Joe Biden, ruled to temporarily block the authorization of the The Trump administration used the National Guard in the capital without the mayor's permission. However, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has now lifted an injunction that stated the troops must leave the nation's capital by December 11. The DC Circuit's order, while not a final ruling, allows Trump to continue a deployment that began this summer and has intensified in response to the November 26 shooting of two National Guard members near the White House. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia's Attorney General, Brian Schwalb, a Democrat and the capital's top legal official. More than 2,000 National Guard troops have been in Washington since Trump's initial deployment in August, as part of the president's controversial crackdown on immigration and crime targeting Democratic-led cities. From beginning the withdrawal, Trump even ordered the deployment of 500 additional troops were sent to Washington after the shooting that injured two members of the West Virginia National Guard, an incident instead authorities described as a “targeted” attack. The perpetrator was a 29-year-old Afghan national, who faces charges in connection with the shooting, prompting Trump to intensify his anti-immigrant rhetoric and declare a suspension of immigration from what he called “third world countries.”