President Trump cannot deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., a federal judge ruled Saturday.
Trump had announced plans to send 200 Guard members into the city, and his administration appealed the judge’s decision late Saturday.
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” District Judge Karin Immergut, a 2019 Trump appointee, wrote in her decision. “This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”
During his second term, Trump has sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., while threatening to do so in a number of other cities, including Chicago, Memphis and Portland. He has occasionally met resistance from federal judges, who have ruled the deployments unconstitutional.
In Portland, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office has seen nightly protests in a city known for its liberal politics and civic engagement. But before Trump announced plans to send in the National Guard, the protests were only drawing a couple dozen people per night.
“Overall, the protests were small and uneventful,” Immergut wrote. “The president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.”
While Immergut noted the president has wide latitude on when to deploy National Guard troops, she argued nothing on the ground in Portland could not be handled by local authorities. On Sept. 28, the same day Trump announced his intent, a large protest march in the city drew zero arrests.
“Portland is not the president’s war-torn fantasy. Our city is not ravaged, and there is no rebellion,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said. “Members of the Oregon National Guard are not a tool for him to use in his political theater.”
With News Wire Services
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