A Federal Oregon judge temporarily blocked the deployment of 200 troops of the National Guard in Portland.
US District Judge Karin J. Immergut, appointed President Donald Trump, made a temporary ban order after Oregon and Portland continued. The order expires on October 18 but could be extended.
IMMERGUT has written in its decision that the American Constitution grants the Congress the power to call the troops – the “militia” in the founding document – to execute laws, delete an insurrection or repel an invasion. She wrote that Trump’s attempt to federalize the absent National Guard The Constitutional Authority absent The sovereign interests of Oregon.
“This country has a tradition of long -standing and fundamental resistance to the overcoming of the government, in particular in the form of military intrusion in civil affairs,” wrote Immergut.
“This historical tradition comes down to a simple proposition: it is a nation of constitutional law, and not of martial law. The defendants have presented a range of arguments which, if they are accepted, are likely to muddle the border between the civil and military federal power-to the detriment of this nation,” she wrote.
The decision is not the last word, but Immergut wrote that the complainants have shown a probability of success on the merits, justifying a temporary prohibition order. It blocks the implementation of a September 28 memo ordering the federalization and deployment of the Oregon National Guard.
Oregon governor Tina Kotek said on Saturday that “justice had been done and that the truth prevailed”.
“There is no insurgency in Portland. No threat to national security. No fire, no bombs, no deaths due to civilian troubles. The only threat that we are faced with democracy-and is led by President Donald Trump,” she said in a statement.
A White House spokesman suggested that the prohibition order could be on appeal.
“President Trump has exercised his legitimate power to protect federal assets and staff in Portland following violent riots and attacks against the police – we plan to be justified by a superior court,” said spokesman Abigail Jackson.
The decision is a setback for the Trump administration because it seeks to use military troops in certain cities managed by Democrats.
A federal judge in California last month ruled that the use by the Trump administration of the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles was illegal.
In this case, the American district judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco judged that the administration had violated the Comitatus posse law – the law of 1878 which prohibited the president from using the army as a domestic police force.
In the Portland case, the city and the state continued on September 28 to prevent the use of military troops in Portland, and asked a federal court to put the deployment of the city.
A few hours after a Friday before Immergut hearing and before she made a decision, Us Northern Command announced that the defense secretary Pete Hegseth had activated the 200 soldiers.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Trump had ordered HegSeth to call the Oregon National Guard in Federal Service for 60 days to protect the application of immigration and customs and other members of the city government.
The Attorney General of Oregon, Dan Rayfield, said on Saturday: “We are in an incredibly dangerous place in America at the moment.”
He said the effort to deploy the National Guard “seems to be the president’s attempt to normalize the US military in our cities.”
Portland is not the only American city that Trump has targeted for the deployment of military troops.
On September 15, Trump signed a memo ordering the National Guard in Memphis. Although Tennessee has a republican government, the mayor of the city is a democrat.
This order was also to send federal law organizations to Memphis in what Trump described as repression against crime.
Trump told this September 15 by signing that Chicago was “probably the next one.”
Governors have the power to deploy the National Guard of their states. The Trump administration would federalize the National Guard to send troops to cities if the governor refuses to do so.
On Saturday, the Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, a democrat, said that he was informed by the Trump administration that the Ministry of Defense planned to federate 300 members of the Illinois National Guard and to deploy them within his state.
Pritzker said he had received an ultimatum by officials of the Ministry of Defense to “call your troops, or we will”. Pritzker said he would refuse.
“I want to be clear: there is no need for military troops on the ground in the state of Illinois,” said Pritzker. “I will not call our National Guard to advance Trump’s assault acts against our people.”
