Judge blocks fed troops to Portland; Trump appeals

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland, ruling Saturday in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order pending further arguments in the suit. She said the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

The Trump administration late Saturday filed a notice of appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Oregon officials said that characterization was ludicrous. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city has been the site of nightly protests that typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.

“The President’s determination
was simply untethered to the facts”

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut

Generally speaking the president is allowed “a great level of deference” to federalize National Guard troops in situations where regular law enforcement forces are not able to execute the laws of the United States, the judge said, but that has not been the case in Portland.

Plaintiffs were able to show that the demonstrations at the immigration building were not significantly violent or disruptive ahead of the president’s order, the judge wrote, and “overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”

“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later continued, “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

Watch a press conference with Attorney General Dan Rayfield in the video player below.

In a press conference about 30 minutes after the temporary restraining order was issued, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson hailed the decision.

Rayfield said this was “an important wake up call for the President of the United States. No president is allowed to make up facts or rely on social media trolling or posts when deploying the Unites States military in our cities. It’s an incredibly dangerous precedent to set in America.”

Wilson said they “provided substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days or even the weeks leading up to the president’s directive of September 27.”

Read: City of Portland response

The Oregon attorney general said this current restraining order lasts for two weeks. During that time they will ask for an extension and they hope to get a preliminary injunction by October 29 that would last a much longer period of time.

Portland’s mayor also said he doesn’t want to see anything escalate at the ICE facility.

“We’re asking for the entire city and to disengage from the ICE facility,” Wilson said during the press conference. “We don’t want to incite or have any interaction with ICE at that time.”

He also said the truth wins.

“Portland is a peaceful city. This narrative was manufactured,” Wilson said. “Facts matter.”

White House ‘expects to be vindicated’

Following the ruling, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that “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.”

Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy troops in several U.S. cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Memphis. Speaking Tuesday to U.S. military leaders in Virginia, he proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.

Last month a federal judge ruled that the president’s deployment of some 4,700 National Guard soldiers and Marines in Los Angeles this year was illegal, but he allowed the 300 who remain in the city to stay as long as they do not enforce civilian laws. The Trump administration appealed, and an appellate panel has put the lower court’s block on hold while it moves forward.

The Portland protests have been limited to a one-block area in a city that covers about 145 square miles and has about 636,000 residents.

The protests grew somewhat following the Sept. 28 announcement of the guard deployment. The Portland Police Bureau, which has said it does not participate in immigration enforcement and only intervenes in the protests if there is vandalism or criminal activity, arrested two people on assault charges. A peaceful march earlier that day drew thousands to downtown and saw no arrests, police said.

On Saturday, before the ruling was released, roughly 400 people marched to the ICE facility. The crowd included people of all ages and races, families with children and older people using walkers. Federal agents responded with chemical crowd control munitions, including tear gas canisters and less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls. At least six people were arrested as the protesters reached the ICE facility.

Trump sent federal officers to Portland over the objections of local and state leaders in 2020 during long-running racial justice protests following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The administration sent hundreds of agents for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.

That deployment antagonized demonstrators and prompted nightly clashes. Federal officers fired rubber bulled and used tear gas.

Viral videos captured federal officers arresting people and hustling them into unmarked vehicles. A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that while the federal government had legal authority to deploy the officers, many of them lacked the training and equipment necessary for the mission.

The government agreed this year to settle an excessive force lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union by paying compensating several plaintiffs for their injuries.

KOIN 6 News contributed to this report.