WATCH: Judge blocks California National Guard in Portland

By Dave Mason
The Center Square

President Donald Trump, for now, can’t deploy 300 federalized California National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., under a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge.

Attorneys General Rob Bonta of California and Dan Rayfield of Oregon succeeded Sunday night in getting a temporary block against the Trump administration, which is expected to appeal.

While the temporary restraining order was issued on Sunday night, protests and counterprotests continued outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Portland’s South Waterfront. Portland Police Bureau said it has arrested 36 people outside the building since nightly protests started in June. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that on Sept. 30, it arrested four criminal illegal immigrants who used a laser point to temporarily blind an ICE helicopter pilot’s ability to see.

U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut’s order on Sunday blocks Trump temporarily from deploying National Guard troops from California or any other state to Oregon. The order is in effect through Oct. 19, and a hearing has been set for Oct. 17 to determine if the order should be extended for another two weeks.

Immergut said Trump’s actions was an improper attempt to “circumvent” her ruling Saturday that Oregon National Guard members could not be federalized and deployed.

“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” according to Immergut, who made her ruling after conducting a hearing Sunday night by telephone.

Immergut, a Trump appointee who is with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, said she saw the president’s deployment of California National Guard on Sunday as a “direct contravention” of her order Saturday against the deployment of the Oregon National Guard.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom praised the judge’s decision to grant the temporary restraining order, saying the “rule of law has prevailed.”

“This ruling is more than a legal victory, it’s a victory for American democracy itself,” the Democratic governor said in a statement.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in California blocked Trump from deploying the remaining 300 federalized National Guard troops in the Los Angeles area. The judge ruled the Republican president violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which says the federal government can’t use the military to enforce domestic laws. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco put a stay on the ruling and allowed the deployment to continue.

During a virtual press conference early Sunday evening before Immergut’s ruling, Bonta accused Trump of violating the law and the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by deploying California National Guard troops to Oregon. The amendment reserves for states and the American people all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government.

“Trump is not king. He is not above the law,” Bonta said. “He’s acting as if he has carte blanche to deploy National Guard troops anywhere in the country. He doesn’t. It’s our national guard, California’s National Guard, not Trump’s Royal Guard, as he seems to think.

“Trump can’t use our military troops as his own personal police force,” Bonta said. “He can’t turn our cities into his military training ground.”

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, responded to Immergut’s temporary restraining order by saying a district court judge has no authority to restrict the nation’s commander-in-chief from dispatching troops to defend federal lives and property.

“The President has undisputed authority under both statute and the Constitution to deploy troops, stationed in any state, to defend a federal facility from domestic terrorism or violent assault,” Miller posted on X.

“The Portland Police have refused to render aid and assistance to ICE officers,” Miller wrote. “The intention and purpose of the attacks on ICE is to prevent ICE from performing its duties and to force as many ICE officers as possible out of the field and into a defensive posture. It is a violent armed resistance designed to incapacitate the essential operations of the duly-elected federal government, by force.”