President Donald Trump has suffered another setback in the legal disputes over the deployment of the National Guard in major U.S. cities. Federal Judge Karin Immergut, appointed by Trump himself, described the deployment of the National Guard in Portland, Oregon, on Friday (local time) as “illegal” and ordered its permanent suspension.
In her ruling, obtained by the AFP news agency, she concluded that there was neither an insurrection nor the threat of one in Portland that would justify deploying the National Guard to support regular law enforcement forces.
The decision can be appealed. The ruling replaces a previous court order issued by Immergut, which had already temporarily blocked the operation in Portland. Political background Trump justified his decision to send the National Guard to Portland by claiming there was uncontrollable violence in the streets, referring mainly to protests against his tough immigration policy.
He described the northwestern U.S. city as being “devastated by war,” a characterization strongly rejected by local officials. In Portland, as in the other cities where Trump ordered National Guard deployments, Democrats are in power. Trump has defended all these deployments as a response to what he calls an escalation of violence and a serious threat to public safety. The president had also ordered the National Guard to be sent to Los Angeles, the capital, Washington, Memphis, and Chicago. This triggered a whole series of legal disputes.
