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a federal judge in oregon On Sunday, President Donald Trump’s administration stopped short of deploying National Guard At least as of Friday in Portland, Oregon, he said he found “no credible evidence” that protests in the city had gotten out of control before the president ordered troops to unionize earlier this autumn.
The city and state filed a lawsuit in September to stop the deployment.
It is the latest development in a weeks-long legal battle in Portland. chicago and other American cities as trump The administration has moved to federalize and deploy the National Guard on city streets to quell the protests.
The decision by Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut followed a three-day trial in which both sides argued over whether the protests at the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building met the conditions for using force domestically under federal law.
In a 16-page filing late Sunday, Immergut said it would issue a final order on Friday due to the overwhelming evidence presented in the lawsuit, including more than 750 exhibits.
Judge says claims of protest violence exaggerated
According to the Trump administration, the purpose of the deployment is to protect federal personnel and property where protests are occurring or are likely to occur. Legal experts said the high appellate court order, which remains in effect, would prevent troops from being deployed in any way.
Immergut wrote that most of the violence occurred between protesters and counter-protesters and found no evidence of “significant damage” to the immigration facility at the center of the protests.
“Based on testimony at trial, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months preceding the President’s defunding order, protests got out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that did not result in any serious injuries to federal personnel,” she wrote.
Decisions come and go in federal court for weeks
The complex case comes as Democratic cities targeted by Trump for military involvement — including Chicago, which has filed a separate lawsuit over the issue — seek to push back. They argue that the President has not met the legal limit for deploying troops and that doing so would violate the sovereignty of the states. The administration argues that it needs the troops because it is unable to enforce the law with regular forces – one of the conditions set by Congress for calling up troops.
Immergut issued two orders in early October blocking the deployment of troops for the test. She had previously found that Trump had failed to show that he had met legal requirements to mobilize the National Guard. He described his assessment of Portland, which Trump has called “devastated by fires everywhere,” as “beyond mere facts.”
One Immergut’s orders were blocked on October 20 by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. But late Tuesday, the appeals court vacated that ruling and said it would rehear the case before an 11-judge panel. Until a larger panel hears the case, the appeals court’s initial order in early October — under which the National Guard is federalized but not deployed — will remain in effect.
Federal witness describes ‘surprise’ at troop deployment
During the Portland trial, witnesses including local police and federal officials were questioned about the law enforcement response to the nightly protests at the city’s ICE building. The demonstrations peaked in June, when Portland police declared one a riot. Demonstrations in the weeks before Trump’s National Guard announcement typically attracted a few dozen people.
The Trump administration said it had to dispatch federal agents from elsewhere across the country to respond to the Portland protests, which it described as an “insurrection” or “threat of insurrection” — one of the conditions for calling out troops under federal law.
Federal officials working in the field testified about staffing shortages and requests for more personnel that have not yet been met. They included an officer of the Federal Protective Service, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that provides security at federal buildings, whom the judge allowed to be sworn in as a witness under his initials, R.C., due to security concerns.
RC, who said he would be one of the most knowledgeable people at DHS about security at the ICE building in Portland, testified that the troop deployment would reduce stress on staff. However, when cross-examined, he said that he had not requested the troops and had not been consulted on the matter. He also said he was “surprised” to learn of the deployment and that he did not agree with statements made about the burning of Portland.
Attorneys for Portland and Oregon said the city’s police are capable of responding to protests. After declaring a riot on June 14, the Police Department changed its tactics to instruct officers to intervene when personal and property crimes occurred, and crowd numbers have largely diminished since the end of that month, police officials testified.
Another Federal Security Service official, whom the judge allowed to testify under his initials, said protesters had at times been violent, causing damage to the facility and behaving aggressively toward officers working in the building.
The ICE building was closed for three weeks over the summer due to property damage, according to court documents and testimony. Camilla Wamsley, ICE’s regional regional office of enforcement and removal operations, said her staff worked out of another building during that period. The plaintiff argued that this was evidence that they were able to continue their work functions.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Scott Kennedy said that without “minimizing or ignoring offensive expressions” or some examples of criminal conduct, “none of these incidents suggest that … there is an insurrection or an inability to execute the laws.”
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Johnson reported from Seattle.