For the second time in two days, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon delivered a blow to the president’s effort to ship National Guard troops into Portland, temporarily blocking the deployment of National Guard members from anyplace in the US to the metropolis.
The late Sunday ruling expanded on a extra slim Saturday ruling that prevented the administration from sending Oregon National Guard troops to the state’s largest metropolis, which President Donald Trump has mentioned is critical to quell protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility – a declare strongly disputed by native and state officers.
The unexpectedly scheduled Sunday listening to got here after officers in each Oregon and California objected in court docket to Trump reassigning federalized guard troops in Los Angeles to Portland in an obvious effort to get round the judge’s Saturday order.
“There is no rebellion in Portland,” each states said in a movement asking for the expanded order. “There are no laws that defendants are unable to execute with regular forces in Portland.”
Portland is one among a number of Democratic-led cities the place the Trump administration has known as for the deployment of federal troops in the title of defending federal immigration personnel and property amid Trump’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Here’s what we know:
During Sunday’s listening to, which lasted lower than half-hour, US District Judge Karin Immergut pressed and infrequently interrupted the Justice Department’s lawyer, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton, expressing frustration over what she characterised as an obvious try to sidestep her Saturday order.
“Mr. Hamilton, you are an officer of the court. Aren’t the defendants simply circumventing my order?” Immergut mentioned.
The judge famous the Saturday order blocking Oregon National Guard troops from being despatched to Portland relied on her discovering that the president appeared to have “exceeded his constitutional authority” by federalizing the troops as a result of protests in Portland “did not pose a ‘danger of rebellion.’” Conditions in Portland had not modified when the Trump administration moved to mobilize members of the California National Guard to the metropolis as a substitute, Immergut mentioned.
During Sunday’s listening to, attorneys for the plaintiffs additionally pointed to a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calling up to 400 Texas National Guard troops into service in Illinois, Oregon and different US cities. The attorneys argued any short-term restraining order blocking National Guard troops from California must also embrace troops from all 50 states and Washington, DC, which the judge agreed with.
In granting the second short-term restraining order Sunday, Immergut blocked the Trump administration “from deploying federalized members of the National Guard in Oregon.”
She additionally denied a Justice Department request to keep, or pause implementation of, the ruling.
The short-term restraining order is in impact till October 19, and a listening to will likely be scheduled for October 17 to resolve whether or not it ought to be prolonged for one more two weeks.
Even as the deployment was being debated in court docket, the more and more contentious protests and counterprotests exterior of the South Portland ICE facility continued Sunday evening.
Two folks had been arrested by the Portland Police Bureau in a single day, the division mentioned, bringing its whole arrest rely exterior the constructing to 36 since nightly protests started in June. That determine doesn’t embrace arrests made by federal regulation enforcement brokers.
Ruling is each celebrated and slammed
About 100 California National Guardsmen arrived in Oregon early Sunday morning, and that deployment was anticipated to double by the finish of the day earlier than the judge issued her order, in accordance to a sworn statement from Brigadier General Alan Gronewold, the chief of the Oregon National Guard.
“President Trump’s actions are an effort to occupy and incite cities and states that don’t share his politics, and I believe that we should expect him to continue to push the limits of his authority,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a assertion late Sunday evening. “The President can expect Oregon to stand up to him at every turn.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield praised the Sunday ruling by Immergut, writing in a submit on social media: “The president can’t keep playing whack-a-mole with different states’ Guard units to get around court orders and the rule of law.” In a video response, he added, “We do expect the federal government to attempt to appeal this ruling.”
“We just won in court – again,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned in a post on X referencing the Sunday ruling. “Trump’s abuse of power won’t stand.”
Before Sunday’s ruling, Newsom vowed to sue over the deployment of California troops in Portland. “This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens,” the governor mentioned in a statement.
Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller issued a scathing critique of Sunday’s ruling, calling it “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”
“There is no legal distinction between a state volunteering guardsmen to guard the border and volunteering guardsmen to guard a federal immigration facility,” Miller said. “Either we have a federal government, a supremacy clause, and a nation, or we don’t.”
NCS has reached out to the Department of Justice for remark.
Chicago and different cities focused by Trump
The different metropolis in the administration’s crosshairs over the weekend was Chicago, the place Trump approved 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to “protect federal officers and assets” in opposition to “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness,” over the objections of metropolis and state leaders.
Chicago and Illinois leaders filed suit in federal court docket Monday, asking a judge to block the deployment, calling it “illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional.”
It’s a technique Trump first deployed to quell anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles in June — the first time a president had federalized National Guard troops in opposition to the needs of a state’s governor in over half a century.
“They want mayhem on the ground,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker informed NCS’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops,” he mentioned, referencing final week’s large ICE raid at a Chicago apartment advanced that shattered home windows and detained dozens of individuals in a single day.
Later Sunday, after studying of the plan to ship Texas National Guard members to a number of states, together with Illinois, Pritzker mentioned in a statement, “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.”
“The brave men and women who serve in our national guards must not be used as political props,” Pritzker added.
The ramping up of stress in Portland and Chicago comes as the Trump administration touts the effectiveness of a federal task force deployed in Memphis to help native regulation enforcement.
“273 arrests have been made in just under a week and 73 illegal guns seized,” Attorney General Pam Bondi mentioned in a post on X Sunday.
While the job pressure consists of federal regulation enforcement officers, the National Guard hasn’t but been formally “stood up” in the metropolis and isn’t anticipated to be up and working for “another couple of weeks or so,” Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis mentioned throughout a neighborhood assembly Thursday.