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Is there a federal trial on the president donald trump can deploy National Guard To portland, oregonThe hearing is scheduled to begin Wednesday, with local police officers expected to testify that federal agents have used excessive force at the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, sparking protests in recent weeks.
Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut will preside over the trial in Portland. The lawsuit stems from a lawsuit filed by the city and state against the Trump administration to block the troop deployment.
Immergut has already issued two temporary restraining orders in the case and barred the soldiers until further litigation. They found that Trump failed to show that he had met the conditions set by Congress for the use of military force domestically. He described his assessment of the situation in Portland, which Trump had called “war-ravaged”, as going “beyond mere facts.”
One of Immergut’s orders was blocked last week by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Court of Appeals. But late Tuesday the appeals court vacated that decision and said it would rehear the case before an 11-judge panel.
The complex issue comes as Trump targets Democratic cities, including through military involvement chicagoWho has filed a separate lawsuit on this issue – try to withdraw. They argue that the President has not met legal requirements to deploy troops and that doing so would violate the sovereignty of the states. The administration argues that it needs the troops because the protests have hindered law enforcement operations.
Portland’s ICE building outside downtown has been the site of nightly protests, culminating in June when police declared a demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then, and federal officers have fired tear gas to disperse crowds, which sometimes also included counter-protesters and live-streamers.
During the trial, witnesses are expected to represent both sides and face cross-examination. Federal defendants will call in officials from ICE, the Defense Department and the Federal Protective Service, the agency that provides security to federal buildings.
The administration argues that it has had to divert Department of Homeland Security agents from elsewhere across the country to respond to protests, which shows it is unable to enforce the law with regular forces — one of the conditions set by Congress for calling up the National Guard. It has also characterized the protests as an “insurrection” or “threat of insurrection” – among other conditions.
The state and city argue that federal officers used force at times that appeared to be “unnecessary and arbitrary.”
“They have repeatedly fired tear gas and pepper balls at small numbers of non-violent protesters outside the ICE building, in some cases without any apparent need or provocation, and without first exhausting de-escalation or other less aggressive alternatives,” the plaintiffs wrote in a trial brief.
The brief says Portland police were also “assaulted by federal law enforcement” and, on at least one occasion, hit with crowd-control projectiles.
The Trump administration says the Portland Police Bureau is unprepared to help control protests, describing local officers as “unhelpful and sometimes hostile” in a trial brief.
“The record is replete with evidence that PPB failed to provide assistance when federal officials requested it,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
Police say they make arrests when crimes occur, but they must also respect protesters’ First Amendment rights.
The state and city said communications between federal and local officials broke down as federal agents entered the building “without a clear command and control structure.”
“As just one example, at one point pepper balls were fired in the direction of a PPB officer,” the trial brief said. “When confronted, federal officials responded, ‘Help or get out of the way.’
In Chicago, police officers have similarly faced tear gas deployed by federal authorities against protesters.
The Portland trial is expected to last three days.
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Johnson reported from Seattle.