A federal judge in Oregon has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Portland. The order follows President Trump’s announcement that he planned to send troops to protect what he described as a “war-ravaged” city.
The decision, by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut — a Trump appointee — is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the administration’s efforts to increase federal intervention in Democratic-led cities experiencing high levels of unrest and crime, CNN reported.
In her ruling, Judge Immergut wrote that Oregon and the city of Portland “are likely to succeed on their claim that the President exceeded his constitutional authority and violated the Tenth Amendment.”
Critics immediately panned the ruling as wrong-headed, noting that Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution names the president as the “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”
Recent incidents cited by the Trump administration of protesters clashing with federal officers, “are inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces,” the judge claimed in her ruling.
