What's happening in Portland: Judge temporarily blocks use of National Guard, protests outside ICE facility escalate
The Defense Department had said it was placing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard under federal control for 60 days to protect federal property.
A federal judge in Oregon on Saturday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.
US District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, said “the relationship between the federal government and the states, between the military and domestic law enforcement, and the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.”
“Whether we choose to follow what the Constitution mandates with respect to these three relationships goes to the heart of what it means to live under the rule of law in the United States,” the judge added.
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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.
What has been happening in Portland, Oregon?
This comes after the Department of War said it was placing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard under federal control for 60 days to protect federal property at locations where protests are occurring or likely to occur after Trump called the city “war-ravaged.”
Officials there called it ludicrous. However, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland has been seeing nightly protests, which have drawn many for weeks before the announcement about deployment came. Demonstrations and occasional clashes with law enforcement have been limited to a one-block area in a city that covers about 145 square miles (375 square km) and has about 636,000 residents.
On September 28, a large crowd protested after troop deployment was announced. The Portland Police Bureau had to arrest two people on assault charges at this time. Since then, conservative influencer Nick Sortor was also arrested by the cops there, after an altercation, but was then released.
On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency would send additional federal agents and the Justice Department was launching a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sortor’s arrest, and whether the Portland Police Bureau engages in viewpoint discrimination.
The escalation of federal law enforcement in Portland, population 636,000 and Oregon's largest city, follows similar crackdowns to combat crime in other cities, like Chicago, Baltimore and Memphis.
(With AP inputs)
