A federal judge in Oregon on Wednesday extended temporary restraining orders that block President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying any National Guard troops to police Portland as part of his campaign to dispatch military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locales.
Portland-based U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut acted as the administration awaits a ruling from a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on whether it will lift one of her orders and allow Trump to deploy National Guard troops.
Immergut, during a telephonic hearing, cited timing concerns in deciding that she should extend by another 14 days two orders she previously issued, which had been set to expire later this week, even as the parties await the 9th Circuit’s ruling.
Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term, issued decisions against the administration on October 4 and October 5, first ruling Trump could not take over Oregon’s National Guard and then ruling that he could not circumvent that decision by calling in National Guard troops from other states.
The judge at the time said there was no evidence that recent protests in Portland rose to the level of a rebellion or seriously interfered with law enforcement. She said Trump’s description of the city as war-ravaged was “simply untethered to the facts.”
Immergut has scheduled a non-jury trial set to begin on October 29 to determine whether to impose a longer-term block.
She said on Wednesday that at trial, the “most important thing here is what’s going on on the ground and whether it warrants the deployment that was ordered.”
A lawyer with the Justice Department during Wednesday’s hearing opposed Immergut extending her temporary restraining orders. The White House had no immediate comment. – Reuters
