Judge blocks Trump administration from deploying national guard to Portland | Oregon

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from deploying the national guard to Portland, Oregon, according to court documents.

Donald Trump had announced on 27 September that he would deploy troops to Portland, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary”, ignoring pleas from local officials and the state’s congressional delegation, who suggested that the president was misinformed or lying about the nature and scale of a single, small protest outside one federal immigration enforcement office.

A coalition of 17 mayors in the state had opposed the deployment. Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, filed a lawsuit on Monday fighting the activation of 200 federalized members of the Oregon national guard.

In the restraining order released on Saturday, US district judge Karin Immergut – nominated by Trump – concurred with Oregon’s assertion that Trump deploying federalized national guard troops to Portland would likely inflame rather than calm protests, just as it did in 2020.

The plaintiffs say the deployment would violate the US constitution as well as a federal law that generally prohibits the military from being used to enforce domestic laws.

The stark divide in how the two sides described the situation on the ground in Portland was evident at a Friday court hearing before Immergut.

US Department of Justice attorney Eric Hamilton said “vicious and cruel radicals” had laid siege to the Portland headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). The decision to send 200 troops – just 5% of the number recently sent to respond to Los Angeles protests – showed restraint, Hamilton said.

Caroline Turco, representing Portland, said that there had been no violence against Ice officers for months and that recent Ice protests were “sedate” in the week before Trump declared the city to be a war zone, sometimes featuring fewer than a dozen protesters.

“The president’s perception of what is happening in Portland is not the reality on the ground,” Turco said. “The president’s perception is that it is world war two out here. The reality is that this is a beautiful city with a sophisticated police force that can handle the situation.”

For years, Trump has promoted an inaccurate narrative that Portland is a “war-ravaged” city with anarchists engaging in chronic chaos. In late September, the president designated antifa as a “major terrorist organization”. Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is not a centralized organization in the US but closer to an ideology with a loose network of activists.

“Today’s ruling validates what Oregonians already know: justice has been served, and the truth has prevailed,” Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, said after the restraining order was granted. “There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security. No fires, no bombs, no fatalities due to civil unrest. The only threat we face is to our democracy – and it is being led by President Donald Trump.”

The ruling by Immergut in Portland is a setback for Trump as he seeks to dispatch the military to cities he describes as lawless over the objections of their Democratic leaders.

Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy troops in several US cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Memphis. Speaking Tuesday to US military leaders in Virginia, the president proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.

Robert Mackey and José Olivares contributed reporting.