Trial begins Wednesday in Portland, Oregon, to decide whether President Trump had the authority to deploy roughly 200 Oregon National Guard troops during anti-ICE riots that saw federal buildings vandalized across the city.
Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, is presiding over the case. The trial is set to last all week.
The Trump administration attempted to deploy National Guard troops to Portland to protect ICE agents and other federal officers, but faced a series of legal setbacks. Judge Immergut issued two injunctions blocking the President from deploying Oregon troops and then again when he tried to send troops from other states, including California and Texas.. On appeal, the 9th Circuit initially ruled in Trump’s favor but reversed course this week.
All previous rulings have been emergency orders; however, the trial that begins today is expected to produce a more lasting ruling.
Lawyers from the Department of Justice have argued that the deployments are "amply justified." In court filings, they wrote:
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.
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According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents have faced a more than 1000 percent increase in violence since the beginning of President Trump's deportation efforts.
Oregon's lawyers described the challenges faced by the Trump administration as "ordinary," and therefore, they argued, it was unjustifiable to take "extraordinary measure[s]."
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