The American immigration and customs building is visible in Portland, Oregon this month.
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Jenny Kane / AP
A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, temporarily prevented President Trump from federating 200 members of the State National Guard.
US District Judge Karin J. IMMERGUT ruled that the government had not reached the threshold to declare the recent demonstrations outside an ice installation in Portland a rebellion. She noted in her decision that the 812 officers of the Portland Police Bureau are trained in the management of crowds and the law of the first amendment. She also noted their mutual assistance agreements with neighboring law enforcement agencies, as well as with the Oregon state police and the federal police, reporting that they had well -handed protests.
“If additional resources beyond all these elements are necessary, PPB may request that the Governor of Oregon provide national guard resources for a locally declared emergency,” she wrote.
Since July, said the judge’s decision, demonstrations were generally limited to less than 30 people and were “largely calm”.
The decision said that the Trump administration “presented evidence of sporadic violence against federal officers and material damage to a federal building.” IMMERGUT wrote that the government, however, proposed any evidence to demonstrate that these violent incidents were part of an organized attempt “to overthrow the government as a whole”.
IMMERGUT was appointed by President Trump in 2019.
A wider trial tabled on September 28 by the city and the state asking the courts to declare the deployment of illegal Trump will advance separately on a slower track.
The judge’s decision in Portland comes as the administration deploys the National Guard in a number of American cities. Trump sent troops to Los Angeles, Washington DC and will soon send them to Memphis, Tennessee With state approval.
He threatened to send them to Chicago, despite objections City and state leaders there. The Republican Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, has Troops requested To help at “high crime rate” in cities like New Orleans.
President Trump said deployments were necessary to protect ice agents when they make his mass deportation operations, as well as to reduce street crime. It is even if the crime Some cities mentioned fell – including in Portland. Deployment in California was The first time in 60 years – Since they were sent to protect militants from civil rights in Alabama – a president has deployed the National Guard on the objections of a state governor.
Trump turned to Portland last week
President Trump announced on September 27 his plan to send troops to “La Guerre Ravaée Portland”. In his article on social networks, the president said that he “authorized full force, if necessary” to face the “national terrorists”. Trump did not specify what he meant by “full strength”.
In court documents, the Trump administration argued that it was necessary to federate the National Guard to protect the federal staff in an ICE installation in Portland which “experienced important disorders targeting both the installation itself and those working there”.
State and premises officials reject the idea that the situation on the ground requires the National Guard – claiming that protests outside the ICE installation were small Without arrest by the Portland police In months until Trump’s decision to federalize Oregon custody.
By day, legal observers, the clergy and leaders of other religious and spiritual names are held outside the building, prepared to help people who present themselves to “verifications” required with ice officials. At night, a small group of demonstrators – sometimes a dozen or less – has demonstrated outside the building.
As a rule, says Portland police chief Bob Day, they were largely non -violent and contained.
“The city of Portland is 145 square miles. And it is a block of city,” said Day to journalists on Monday. “And even the events that occur there do not increase the level of attention they receive.”
Local officials say that the demonstrations had already decreased
The demonstrations are much smaller than the dozens of people who for months in 2020 have gathered at the Portland city center in downtown after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
On September 28, the state of Oregon and the city of Portland continued to prevent the Trump administration from deploying troops in the largest city in the state.
“In the pursuit of a national campaign to incorporate the army into the civil law enforcement – while also seeking to punish political and politically disadvantaged jurisdictions – they are preparing to deploy troops in Portland, Oregon,” lawyers said on Monday for the city and the state in their request for a detention order deposited on Monday. “The facts do not justify this overcoming remotely.”
In the same document, they declared that the Portland police office had made 25 arrests to the ICE establishment between June 11 and June 19 of this year, but had no reason to make it before the administration announces that they deploy the National Guard. After the president’s announcement on Saturday, Two other people were arrested on Sunday. Cammilla Wamsley, regional ice cream supervisor, said in a statement under oath The fact that the federal police proceeded to more than 20 arrests over about three weeks this summer, separated from the arrests by the local police.
“During a given weekend,” wrote the lawyers for the city and the state: “The nightlife of the Portland entertainment district forced PPB to devote greater resources than small protests outside the installation of the ice.”
Trump lawyers keep federal agents are threatened
Administration lawyers have countered in their own court documents that deployment was justified because demonstrations in Portland have forced the installation to close for about three weeks in June and July. They say that the demonstrators blocked the entry, threats painted by spraying and online ice agents.
“The agitators attacked federal agents of the application of laws with rocks, bricks, pepper spray and incendiary devices. They damaged the federal property, including breaking the desk windows, security cameras and card readers allowing entry into the building,” they said.
Friday, administration announced that she was investigating how the Portland police have managed the anti-ice protests.
Files provided to the courtyard by the city of Portland Show throughout September before Trump announced, the demonstrations rarely attracted more than a few dozen people. The files show that the police were in regular communication with federal police officers of the installation of Portland Ice.
There have been nights with incidents, as on September 20, when Portland police noted that a federal protection agent called them “throughout the night with information on black blockers assaulting people”. The “Black Bloc” groups wear black clothes and facial coverings.
But the files show that the majority of the nights were calm, as the day before Trump’s announcement on September 27 to send the National Guard, when the Portland police observed 8 to 15 people at any time: “especially sitting in lawn chairs and walking”. Portland police wrote: “Energy was a low minimum activity.”
The courts deliberated on the National Guard in California
This is not the first time that the courts have weighed on the deployment by Trump of the National Guard on the objections of local officials. In June, Trump sent 4,000 national guard troops and 700 US navies to Los Angeles to face demonstrations against ice operations. A federal judge judged that the situation did not constitute a level of interference with the ice or a “rebellion” against the federal authority to justify the sending of the troops.
But a court of appeal rejected this observationCiting cases where ice agents were “pinned” and had “pieces of concrete” and “bottles of liquid” which are launched to them. Oregon officials tried to distinguish there.
“These facts do not resemble the recent demonstrations of ICE facilities in Portland,” said lawyers representing Portland and Oregon when they asked the court to block deployment. “If the relatively small, contained and largely sedation demonstrations near the installation of Portland ice in recent weeks can justify the military intervention, then the authority of the president to federate the national guard of a state … would be practically unlimited.”
On September 2, a California judge judged that the troops of Los Angeles violated the longtime law against the military forces making civil law Application by helping ICE agents to traffic control and cords for their operations. This decision is now before the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Larry Kaplow of NPR has contributed to this story.
