Court temporarily halts removal of Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cematary

The Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery was in the process of being disassembled, but operations paused when a Virginia-based federal judge issued a temporary restraining order. 

Federal Judge Rossie Alston, a Trump appointee to the Eastern District of Virginia, issued the order Monday blocking "any acts to deconstruct, tear down, remove, or alter the object of this case," according to a court filing obtained by The Hill. 

The U.S. Army had started disassembling the monument before the court order but paused operations after Alston's ruling, leaving the memorial in place at the Virginia military cemetery. 

Alston's order will expire late Wednesday afternoon after a hearing at 10 a.m. that day to decide whether the restraining order will remain.

The group Defend Arlington, which is affiliated with the historical preservation organization Save Southern Heritage Florida, filed the lawsuit against the Defense Department to stop the monument from being removed. 

The memorial, which was placed in Arlington in 1914, features a classical female future standing on a 32-foot-tall pedestal and an inscription from Isaiah 2:4: "They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks," according to the cemetery's website. 

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