Officials wait to find out if a judge’s final injunction of the National Guard in Portland will truly be able to send troops home.

On Sep. 27, President Donald Trump announced that he would be deploying the Oregon National Guard to Portland, Oregon to “protect the war-ravaged” city. Since this catalytic event, a series of legal battles about his right to do so has sparked discussion and protest over the rights of the president to send out these troops to cities across the nation.

Legally, the U.S. president is allowed to take control of the military in the case of, according to Title 10 of the U.S. Code, a “foreign invasion, a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the U.S. government, or when the President is unable to enforce federal laws with regular forces alone.” President Trump is using the latter to justify his own deployment, claiming the protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center in Portland throughout September were becoming increasingly aggressive and preventing laws from being enforced.

His attorneys argued Trump’s “determination was amply justified by the facts on the ground. In the weeks and months preceding the President’s decision, agitators assaulted federal officers and damaged federal property in numerous ways, spray-painted violent threats, blockaded the vehicle entrance to the Portland ICE facility, trapped officers in their cars, followed them when they attempted to leave the facility, threatened them at the facility, menaced them at their homes, doxed them online, and threatened to kill them on social media,” they stated.

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek responded to the ruling, originally calling Trump’s move to federalize the guard “a gross abuse of power.” She called for him to remove the troops immediately, and renewed this call Nov. 7.

The fight between the judiciary and the presidential administration has raged on throughout the months of October and November, as Portland residents and Oregon leaders expressed their dissent on the matter. 

The backlash began on Sep. 28, when the state of Oregon and the city of Portland sued the Trump administration the day after the official deployment. They were acting on the expressed opinions of over 100 Oregon leaders. In response, on Oct. 4, U.S. District Court Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocked the deployment until Oct. 17. In her original order, she stated that Trump was exaggerating his claims of extreme violence and descriptions of the city being “war ravaged.” 

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, “hours after Immergut ruled against Trump’s deployment, federal officers at the ICE facility escalated the crowd control tactics they were using on protesters.” 

Upon hearing this decision, President Trump followed it up by ordering 300 members of the California National Guard and 400 additional members of the Texas National Guard to replace the others. Immergut also temporarily blocked these troops.

This order was immediately appealed by the Justice Department, referring to “endangered federal personnel and property.”

After going through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and several rounds of rejections and appeals as well as the movement towards more peaceful protests, a most recent call was made.

On Nov. 7, Judge Immergut issued a permanent injunction, which prevents the National Guard from being deployed in Portland on grounds of the protests against immigration policies. U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut said she found “no credible evidence” that protests outside the ICE building “grew out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that resulted in no serious injuries to federal personnel.” 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated this decision is “a win for the rule of law, for the constitutional values that govern our democracy, and for the American people.”

Article by Alaya Drummond