LOS ANGELES >> Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged Thursday to carry on with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown despite waves of unrest across the U.S.

But that was before a federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order directing President Donald Trump to return control National Guard troops to California after he deployed then as protests erupted over the immigration actions.

Late Thursday, an appeals court temporarily blocked the judge’s ruling, which was to take effect at noon Friday. The court said it would hold a hearing on the matter on June 17.

The White House had no immediate comment, but the federal government immediately filed its appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Wednesday the Trump administration called Newsom’s lawsuit a “crass political stunt endangering American lives.”

More than 40 Guard members stood behind riot shields outside the Metropolitan Detention Complex in downtown Los Angeles, where immigration detainee are being held, facing down a crowd of demonstrators who have gathered nightly to protest their presence.

“It goes to show that Trump is abusing his power,” said Omar Briseno, a 36-year-old warehouse associate, in response to the news of the order. “Now they really shouldn’t be here. It’s illegal.”

The developments unfolded as cities nationwide braced for major demonstrations against Trump over the weekend, and as demonstration leaders pleaded with participants to protest peacefully.

Noem vows to continue immigration crackdown

Noem said the immigration raids that fueled the protests would move forward and agents have thousands of targets.

“This is only going to continue until we have peace on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said during a news conference Thursday that was interrupted by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was forcibly removed from the event.

The immigration agents conducting the raids are “putting together a model and a blueprint” for other communities, Noem said.

She pledged that federal authorities “are not going away” even though, she said, officers have been hit with rocks and bricks and assaulted. She said people with criminal records who are in the country illegally and violent protesters will “face consequences.”

“Just because you think you’re here as a citizen, or because you’re a member of a certain group or you’re not a citizen, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected and not face consequences from the laws that this country stands for,” she said.

Senator roughed up

Noem criticized Padilla’s interruption, calling it “inappropriate.” A statement from her agency said the two met after the news conference for about 15 minutes, but it also chided him for “disrespectful political theater.”

Padilla said later that he was demanding answers about the “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions” and only wanted to ask Noem a question. He said he was handcuffed but not arrested.

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community,” he said.

Video shows a Secret Service agent on Noem’s security detail grabbing the California senator by his jacket and shoving him from the room as he tried to speak up during the DHS secretary’s event. Padilla interrupted the news conference after Noem delivered a particularly pointed line, saying federal authorities were not going away but planned to stay and increase operations to “liberate” the city from its “socialist” leadership.

“I’m Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” he shouted in a halting voice.

Scuffling with officers outside the room, he can be heard bellowing, “Hands off!” He is later seen on his knees and then pushed to the ground and handcuffed in a hallway, with several officers atop him.

The shocking scene of a U.S. senator being aggressively removed from a Cabinet secretary’s news conference prompted immediate outrage from his Democratic colleagues.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said what he saw “sickened my stomach.”

Scene in L.A.

Gov. Newsom, a Democrat, has warned that the military intervention is part of a broader effort by Trump to overturn norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy. He also said sending Guard troops on the raids has further inflamed tensions, not eased them.

Some 2,000 Guard soldiers were in the nation’s second-largest city and were soon to be joined by 2,000 more, along with about 700 Marines, said Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who is in charge of the operation.

About 500 of the Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, Sherman said Wednesday. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement.

There have been about 470 arrests since Saturday, the vast majority of which were for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement, according to the police department.

There have been a handful of more serious charges, including for assault against officers and for possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injuries.

So far the protests have been centered mostly in downtown near City Hall and the federal detention center. Much of the sprawling city and its many suburbshave been spared from the protests.

Police in riot gear — many on horseback — charged at a group of protesters Wednesday night in just before the start of the second night of a downtown curfew. The officers struck some demonstrators with wooden rods and later fired crowd-control projectiles, and there were a handful of arrests.

Mayor Karen Bass said during a news conference Thursday that the previous night’s arrests were for more minor infractions like unlawful assembly and curfew violations. She said the curfew would be in place again.

Mayor calls out Noem

Standing alongside a hundred civic leaders Thursday, Bass delivered her most impassioned critique of the federal response to anti-ICE protests to date.

The mayor — flanked by faith leaders, business leaders, immigrant rights advocates and others — defended the city’s ability to handle the protests.

“To characterize what is going on in our city as a city of mayhem is just an outright lie,” Bass said, responding to comments by Noem earlier in the day. “I’m not going to call it an untruth. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m going to call it for what it is, which is a lie.”

“I served with the Secretary for probably about 10 years in Congress. And Madame Secretary, I do not recognize you. I do not know Kristi Noem that I served with,” she said.

Noem told the media earlier Thursday that the Trump administration planned to “liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that the governor and the mayor have placed on this country.”

Military involvement escalates

Demonstrations have picked up across the U.S., emerging in more than a dozen major cities. On Wednesday, police in Seattle used pepper spray to clear out protesters, and officers in Denver used smoke and pepper balls to control a crowd.

The administration has said it is willing to send troops to other cities to assist with immigration enforcement and controlling disturbances — in line with what Trump promised during last year’s campaign.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has put 5,000 National Guard members on standby in cities where demonstrations are planned. In other Republican-controlled states, governors have not said when or how they may deploy troops.

This report contains information from the Los Angeles Times.