– A divided U.S. appeals court ruled Monday that Donald Trump can send National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., despite objections from city and state leaders, handing the Republican president an important legal victory as he sends military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locations.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Justice Department’s request to stay a judge’s order blocking the deployment while a legal challenge to Trump’s action is pending. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland, who Trump appointed during his first term as president, ruled on Oct. 4 that Trump likely acted illegally when he ordered troops to Portland.
One judge dissented, while the other two ruled in Trump’s favor.
Immergut has blocked Trump from sending National Guard troops to Portland until at least the end of October and has scheduled a non-jury trial to begin on Oct. 29 to decide whether to impose a longer blockade.
DEMOCRATICLY GOVERNED STATES ARE TRYING TO STOP IMPLEMENTATION
In an extraordinary domestic use of US armed forces, Trump has sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Memphis and announced plans to deploy in Portland and Chicago.
Democratic-led states and cities have filed lawsuits seeking to stop the deployment, and courts have yet to reach a final ruling on the legality of Trump’s decision to send the National Guard to American cities.
City and state officials sued the administration in an attempt to stop the deployment in Portland, arguing that Trump’s action violates several federal laws governing the use of military force, as well as states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit accused Trump of exaggerating the severity of protests against his immigration policies to justify the illegal takeover of the state’s National Guard troops.
Trump ordered 200 National Guard troops to Portland on Sept. 27, continuing his administration’s unprecedented use of military personnel in American cities to quell protests and strengthen domestic immigration enforcement. Trump called the city “war-torn” and said, “I also authorize full force if necessary.”
Police records provided by the state showed protests in Portland were “small and peaceful,” resulting in only 25 arrests in mid-June and no arrests in the 3-1/2 months since June 19.
A federal law called the Posse Comitatus Act generally limits the use of the US military for domestic law enforcement purposes. In ordering troops to California, Oregon and Illinois, Trump relied on a law — Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code — that allows the president to deploy the state’s National Guard to repel an invasion, suppress an insurgency or allow the president to execute a law.
The National Guard serves as a state militia, answerable to state governors, except when called into federal service by the president.
The 9th Circuit panel that decided the Portland case consisted of two judges appointed by Trump in his first term as president and one appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
During arguments in the case on Oct. 9, two Trump-appointed judges suggested that Immergut focused too much on protests in the city in September without fully considering more serious protests two months before deploying troops. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson said courts should not get involved in a “day-by-day” review of whether troops are needed at any given time.
Immergut issued rulings against the administration on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, first ruling that Trump could not take over the Oregon National Guard and then ruling that he could not circumvent the ruling by calling up National Guard troops from other states.
The judge said there was no evidence that the recent protests in Portland had escalated to the level of an uprising or seriously affected law enforcement, and said Trump’s description of the city as ravaged by war was “simply unmoored from the facts.”
Immergut is one of three district court judges to rule against Trump’s use of the National Guard, and no district court judge has yet ruled for Trump in National Guard cases.
Appeals courts have so far split on the issue, with the 9th Circuit previously upholding Trump’s use of troops in California and the 7th Circuit ruling that troops should not stay out of Chicago for now.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
