US appeals court ruling allows Trump to send troops to Portland

A divided appeals court ruling on Monday put on hold that of a lower-court that kept US President Donald Trump from taking command of 200 Oregon National Guard troops, effectively allowing the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in Portland.

The Justice Department's request to put on hold a judge's order that had blocked the deployment was granted by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The verdict is the most recent step in a rapidly advancing case that started in September when the states of California and Oregon, along with the city of Portland, filed a lawsuit to prevent President Trump from deploying the National Guard.

The ruling permits the deployment of about 200 troops to guard federal buildings, even if state and local officials disagree, arguing that Portland does not require involvement.

It also comes after District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued two temporary restraining orders early this month — one that prohibited Trump from calling up the troops so he could send them to Portland, and another that prohibited him from sending any National Guard members to Oregon at all, after the president tried to evade the first order by deploying California troops instead.

The Justice Department appealed the first order, and in a 2-1 ruling Monday, a panel from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the administration.

The majority said the president was likely to succeed on his claim that he had the authority to federalise the troops based on a determination that he was unable to enforce the laws without them.

Soon after the ruling on Monday, the Justice Department asked Immergut to immediately dissolve her second order, which would allow Trump to deploy troops to Portland.

“The Ninth Circuit’s decision staying the first TRO is a significant change in law that plainly warrants dissolution of this Court’s second TRO,” the administration’s lawyers wrote.

Trump's crackdown on 'crime-ridden cities'

Although legal objections are still pending, the San Francisco-based appeals court's decision permits the troops to be deployed.

Trump has ordered National Guard troops into Portland and several other largely Democratic areas, including Los Angeles, California, and Washington, DC, as part of a crackdown on what he claims to be soaring crime, something that's now mired in legal challenges.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said he would ask for a broader panel of the appeals court to reconsider Monday's appeals court decision.

“Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification,” Rayfield said. “We are on a dangerous path in America.”

Mostly small nightly protests, limited to a single block, have been occurring since June outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.

Larger crowds, including counterprotesters and live-streamers, have shown up at times, and federal agents have used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

The administration has said the troops are needed to protect federal property from protesters, and that having to send extra Department of Homeland Security agents to help guard the property meant they were not enforcing immigration laws elsewhere.

A judge in California ruled that his deployment of thousands of National Guard troops in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a longstanding law that generally prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing, and the administration on Friday asked the US Supreme Court to allow the deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area.