US appeals court says Trump can take command of Oregon troops though deployment blocked for now
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — Appeals court put on hold Monday lower court decision This prevented President Donald Trump from taking command of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. But Trump is still banned actually deployment these troops, at least for now.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued two temporary restraining orders earlier this month; One barred Trump from calling up troops to send to Portland, and the other barred him from sending any National Guard members to Oregon after the president tried to evade the initial order by deploying troops in California.
The Justice Department appealed the initial decision, and in a 2-1 decision Monday, a panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the administration. The majority said the president’s claim that he had the authority to federalize the troops, based on the decision that he could not enforce the laws without them, was likely to succeed.
However, with Immergut’s second order in effect, no troops can be deployed immediately.
The administration said it would now ask Immergut to rescind his second order and allow Trump to send troops to Portland because the legal reasoning supporting both temporary restraining orders was the same. The Justice Department has argued that it is not the court’s place to second-guess the president’s decision about when to deploy troops.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said he would request a larger appellate panel to reconsider the decision.
“Today’s decision, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral authority to send Oregon soldiers onto our streets with virtually no justification,” Rayfield said. “We are on a dangerous path in America”
The Justice Department did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Trump’s efforts Deploy National Guard troops We face legal challenges in Democrat-led cities. A judge in California ruled that the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a longstanding law that generally prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing, and the administration made that decision Friday. asked the US Supreme Court allow to be deployed National Guard Troops in the Chicago area.
Small nightly protests, mostly limited to a single block, have been taking place outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland since June. Larger crowds, including counter-protesters and livestreamers, joined the demonstration at times, and federal agents used tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
The administration has said the troops are needed to protect federal property from protesters and that having to send extra Department of Homeland Security agents to help protect property means they are not enforcing immigration laws elsewhere.
Immergut has previously denied the administration’s claims, saying the president’s claims that Portland was war-torn are “completely disconnected from the facts.” But the appeals court majority — Ryan Nelson and Bridget Bade, both Trump appointees — said the president’s decision should be more respected.
Bade wrote that the facts appear to support Trump’s decision, “even if the President exaggerates the extent of the problem on social media.”
Judge Susan Graber, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, disagreed. He called on his colleagues on the 9th Circuit to “reverse the majority’s decision before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses occurs.”
“In the two weeks before the President’s social media post on September 27, there was not a single incident in which protesters disrupted law enforcement,” Graber wrote. “It’s hard to see how a small protest that caused no disruption could meet the standard of the President’s inability to enforce the law.”
___
Gene Johnson reported from Seattle.
