A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s call-up of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon, ruling that Trump’s claims of daily unrest in Portland were “untethered to facts” and risked plunging the nation into an unconstitutional form of military rule.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” wrote U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee.
Immergut said Trump’s decision to enlist members of Oregon’s National Guard was based on false claims about nightly unrest targeting federal immigration authorities and buildings in Portland. Though Trump described the city as “war-ravaged” and wracked with violence, police said immigration-related protests had been small, manageable and largely peaceful in the days leading up to Trump’s pronouncement.
“These incidents are inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces,” Immergut wrote.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The administration is certain to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously restored Trump’s ability to call up the National Guard in Los Angeles after a federal judge in San Francisco ruled it should be halted. But Immergut said the protests in Portland were far less severe than those in Los Angeles and did not come close to the threshold Trump must meet to justify federalizing a state’s National Guard troops.
The administration, she said, has “made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.”
