Judge to block 'relocation, federalization, or deployment' of any National Guard to Oregon
The Trump administration's attempt to deploy members of the California National Guard to Portland was in "direct contravention" of a court order issued on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said during a highly unusual late-night emergency hearing.
Immergut, a Trump appointee, said she was "troubled" by the Trump administration's attempt to work around her earlier court order prohibiting the deployment of the Oregon National Guard to Portland.
"It seems to me that based on the conduct of the defendants and the now seeking National Guard from Texas to go to Oregon again, I see those as direct contravention of the order that this were issued yesterday," she said.
Her order on Saturday concluded that conditions in Portland were "not significantly violent or disruptive" to justify a federal takeover of the National Guard, and that the president's claims about the city were "simply untethered to the facts."
With DOJ lawyers unable to identify anything that has changed since her order Saturday, Immergut said her same reasoning would apply to prohibit the deployment of the National Guard from any other state. The federalization, she said, would violate the federal law that allows the federal takeover of the National Guard in response to an invasion or rebellion, as well as the Tenth Amendment, encroaching on the sovereign rights of Oregon.
"I have demonstrated that it is not appropriate to put in military into Oregon," she said.
She denied a request to issue a stay of her order pending appeal.
The Trump administration has already appealed her order from Saturday to the Ninth Circuit, which has not responded yet.
Some 200 National Guard personnel arrived this weekend from California on orders from the White House and were prepared to begin protecting federal buildings on Monday, a U.S. official told ABC News.
