Court Lifts Block On Deploying National Guard In Portland
Appeals Court Lifts Block On Trump Deploying National Guard In Portland
Despite morale being low for the guardsmen already deployed in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump is intent on deploying National Guard troops into more American cities. It seems like he may be getting his wish after an appeals court ruled he can deploy the National Guard to Portland.
According to the New York Times, Judge Karin J. Immergut of the Federal District Court for the District of Oregon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland earlier this month. Immergut’s ruling placed a block on National Guard troops from Oregon, as well as guardsmen from across the nation. The appeals court ruling only struck down the block on deploying Oregon National Guard troops.
“After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority,” the 2-1 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said. The judges added that “Even if the President may exaggerate the extent of the problem on social media, this does not change that other facts provide a colorable basis” for Trump to deploy the National Guard to Portland.
Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that since the first block was appealed, Immergut should drop the second as the judges wrote that the two restraining orders “rise and fall together” in their ruling.
Judge Susan P. Graber did not mince words in her dissent on the ruling. Graber called the ruling “absurd” and wrote that “It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.”
Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, has been critical of the Trump administration’s effort to deploy the National Guard to Portland, calling it “a gross, un-American abuse of power.”
“I’m very troubled by the decision of the court,” Kotek said in a news conference on Monday. “These citizen soldiers have been pulled away from their families and their jobs for weeks to carry out some kind of mission in Oregon.”
Portland is not the only place President Trump is looking to deploy the National Guard, as he recently expressed a desire to send Guardsmen into San Francisco, according to the Guardian. “We’re gonna go to San Francisco. The difference is, I think they want us in San Francisco,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News. The “they” he’s referring to largely consists of tech billionaires like Elon Musk, White House Crypto Czar David Sacks, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Sacks has previously said a “targeted operation” could clean up the city, and Benioff has received substantial criticism for saying he supported the National Guard being deployed to San Francisco.
During the interview, Trump said he had “unquestioned power” to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco. “Don’t forget: I can use the Insurrection Act,” he said. The Insurrection Act gives the president the ability to deploy the military and federalized National Guard troops to quell domestic uprisings. While legitimately terrifying, it’s also deeply hilarious that a guy who incited an actual ass insurrection during the Capitol riot wants to call someone else an insurrectionist.
It’s just sad that cities that didn’t vote for Trump are being threatened with occupation, all because people who’ve never left their hometown believed what Fox News told them about Democrat-led cities.
SEE ALSO:
Judge Blocks Trump From Invading Portland, Illinois Sues Next
Trump Floats Idea Of Deploying National Guard To New Orleans
