A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump from deploying 200 Oregon National Guard troops to Portland until a lawsuit challenging the move is resolved, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The ruling by District Judge Karin Immergat in Portland is another setback for Republican Trump in his attempts to send the military to cities he says are lawless, over the objections of their Democratic leaders.
The office of Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit on September 28, a day after Trump said he would send troops to Portland to guard federal immigration facilities from "domestic terrorists".
The case was initially assigned to District Judge Michael Simon, a Democratic appointee of President Barack Obama. However, he recused himself after the Trump administration raised concerns about comments made by the judge's wife (a member of Congress) criticizing the troop deployment. The case was handed over to Immergat, who was appointed by Trump during his first term in office.
Oregon asked the court to declare the deployment of the Guard illegal and block it from continuing, saying Trump exaggerated the threat of protests against his immigration policies to justify illegally seizing control of the state's National Guard units.
While Trump has described the city as "war-torn," Oregon officials have said the protests in Portland have been "small and peaceful," resulting in just 25 arrests in mid-June and none in the three-and-a-half months since June 19. Oregon's lawsuit says Trump announced the deployment after Fox News aired videos of "much larger and more violent protests" in Portland in 2020