A U.S. federal judge on Saturday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from deploying 200 Oregon National Guard troops to Portland while a lawsuit challenging the move proceeds.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Portland represents a setback for Trump as he seeks to dispatch the military to cities he describes as lawless, despite objections from their Democratic leaders.
Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, blocked the Republican president from sending troops at least until 18 October, saying there was no evidence that recent protests had risen to the level of a rebellion or seriously interfered with law enforcement.
While Trump described the city as “war-ravaged,” lawyers from the Oregon Attorney General’s office said protests in Portland were “small and sedate,” resulting in only 25 arrests in mid-June and none in the three and a half months since 19 June.
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote.
The White House said it would appeal.
“President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said at a press conference that his city was peaceful and that “this narrative was manufactured.”
Trump has already deployed the National Guard to police Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and has said he would send troops to several other cities. Earlier on Saturday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a social media post that Trump was preparing to send 300 National Guard troops to Chicago over his objections.
The Portland lawsuit was filed by Oregon’s Democratic Attorney General, Dan Rayfield, on 28 September, a day after Trump announced plans to send troops to Portland to protect federal immigration facilities from what he described as “domestic terrorists.”
Oregon asked the court to declare the deployment illegal and to block it from proceeding, arguing that Trump exaggerated the threat of protests against his immigration policies to justify unlawfully seizing control of state National Guard units.
The lawsuit stated that Trump’s announcement followed Fox News broadcasts showing footage of “substantially larger and more turbulent protests” in Portland in 2020. The state argued that the deployment violated several federal laws and Oregon’s sovereign right to police its own citizens.
It also contended that Trump’s decision to send troops only to “disfavoured” Democratic-led cities such as Portland breached states’ rights under the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Immergut ruled that Oregon was likely to succeed in its argument that Trump had illegally called up the National Guard and violated the state’s rights under the Tenth Amendment.
Although the president must be given “a great level of deference” in military decisions, she wrote that Trump could not ignore “the facts on the ground.” Accepting his legal arguments, she said, would mean he could “send military troops virtually anywhere at any time” and “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power to the detriment of this nation.”
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The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to Trump’s deployment of military forces to Democratic-led cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., which he has claimed are overrun with crime and hostile to immigration enforcement.
State and local Democratic leaders have disputed those claims, accusing Trump of breaching long-standing U.S. laws and norms that prohibit the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from using the military to fight crime in California on 2 September, though that ruling is on hold pending appeal. The Democratic Attorney General of Washington, D.C., also filed a lawsuit on 4 September to halt Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the capital, a case on which a ruling has yet to be issued.
