Members of the National Guard patrol along the Tidal Basin on the National Mall in Washington, DC., in August. The Trump administration ordered 200 hundred soldiers to Portland which was blocked by a court order. File photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
A judge on Sunday night blocked the Trump administration from sending any National Guard troops to Portland, saying federal authorities were trying to circumvent her earlier order.
U.S. Judge Karin Immergut issued her order late Sunday night after the Trump administration planned to send 200 federalized California National Guard troops to Portland to quell sometimes confrontational protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility located in the city.
Immergut’s order comes just a day after directing the Trump administration to halt its mobilization of the Oregon National over the objections of state and local leaders. The U.S. Justice Department appealed the earlier ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will rule on the case.
Portland is the latest city President Donald Trump has sought to dispatch federal troops to, saying they are needed to address what he has said is uncontrolled crime (a claim local officials have disputed).
The Department of Defense is working with authorities in Texas to call up 400 members of the GOP-led state’s national guard who will be deployed to Portland, Chicago and possibly other locations, according to a memo filed in federal court Sunday.
In a telephonic hearing, Immergut said she was bothered by the department’s plans to send Texas National Guard troops to other parts of the country, reported The Oregon Capital Chronicle.
“I see those as direct contravention of the order that this court issued yesterday,” she said.
Immergut, a Trump appointee, wrote in her Saturday order that the protests outside of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility were not a rebellion and did not pose a risk of rebellion, making the deployment of federal troops illegal. She wrote, “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
Hundreds of protesters marched at the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office Saturday, the latest in a series of demonstrations in the city since the Trump administration announced it would deploy the troops.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, earlier sued the Trump administration to stop the planned troop deployment, arguing it was an unconstitutional violation of the state’s sovereignty. In a court filing,. Rayfield dismissed Trump’s characterization of Portland as a “war ravaged” city “under siege” from “domestic terrorists,” calling his claims nothing “nothing more than baseless, wildly hyperbolic pretext.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a statement on Sunday saying he had not been consulted about the Department of Defense’s plans to deploy members of the Texas National Guard to his state.
“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier called the Trump administration’s move to send National Guard troops to Portland an abuse of law and power.
“The Trump administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words – ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., criticized President Donald Trump in a social media post referring to the court’s order to block the deployment that said Trump’s “determination is simply untethered from the facts.”
A White House spokesperson said that Trump “exercised his authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”
