⁍ A U.S. judge in California said she plans to hold a new hearing Saturday on a request by WeChat users to temporarily block the Commerce Department order.

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⁍ Earlier, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued an order declaring a request for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by U.S. WeChat users.

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⁍ The hearing is set for 4:30 p.m. Saturday so Beeler has time to decide whether to block the Commerce Department order from taking effect.

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– President Trump’s emergency declaration to block imports of steel, aluminum, and certain other goods from seven Muslim-majority countries appears to have backfired, at least according to a federal judge. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued an order declaring a request for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by US WeChat users appeared moot after the Commerce Department order, Reuters reports. Michael Bien, a lawyer for the WeChat users, said at a hearing Friday “the key is to maintain the status quo, to stop the ban from going into effect.” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network that “for all practical purposes, (WeChat) will be shut down in the US” as the order takes effect Sunday. A Commerce official told Reuters WeChat would still work for existing US users but would suffer some degraded functionality and sporadic outages. Beeler directed lawyers for WeChat to file an amended complaint by late Friday to take into account the Commerce Department order. She directed the government to respond to WeChat users’ new request. The hearing is set for 4:30pm Saturday so Beeler has time to decide whether to block the Commerce Department order from taking effect. “The implementation is on Sunday and so we have to address the issue between now and sometime tomorrow afternoon,” Beeler said. The Justice Department in a court filing said Beeler should reject the request because President Trump “has invoked his emergency powers to address (the WeChat) threat, and plaintiffs have articulated no legal basis for the Court to take the extraordinary step of enjoining his exercise of that authority.”