Federal judge extends order blocking Trump from deploying National Guard troops to Portland

By Danya Gainor, Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — A judge has extended her order blocking President Donald Trump from deploying any National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, until Friday – keeping soldiers in the city in limbo as the legal showdown over presidential power continues.

US District Court Judge Karin Immergut’s decision on Sunday followed a three-day trial that saw arguments over whether the Trump administration violated the law by federalizing and trying to deploy Oregon and California troops to Portland.

The legal saga over the balance of presidential and state power has seen numerous twists and turns as it unfolded in both the district court and before appeals judges.

The ruling comes as the Trump administration faces challenges over its power to send National Guard troops into Democratic-led cities. A federal court last month blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago. And last week the Supreme Court took the rare step of asking for additional briefing in that high-profile case.

National Guard troops have been staging at Portland training bases for weeks while the legal case plays out, having been activated to protect federal officials and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that has been the focal point of daily protests since June.

Federal attorneys have argued it’s within Trump’s presidential authority to respond to the daily protests outside the facility that have subjected the building and its agents to what it described as coordinated violence.

But state and city attorneys called the move “one of the most significant infringements” on Oregon’s sovereignty in the state’s history and argued the Trump administration is dramatically misrepresenting the situation and risking inflaming tensions.

The order from Immergut, a Trump appointee from his first term, says the federal government was unable to show the situation in Portland was out of control or federal officers were unable to do their jobs.

“Based on the trial testimony, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months before the President’s federalization order, protests grew out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that resulted in no serious injuries to federal personnel,” her order reads.

Judge says protests do not justify a National Guard deployment

Immergut preliminarily ruled the federal government’s deployment of the National Guard in Oregon exceeded its legal authority, violated the Tenth Amendment by infringing on state sovereignty, did not meet the legal definition of a “rebellion,” and caused ongoing constitutional harm that justified immediate judicial intervention.

She noted the trial testimony “included evidence of sporadic isolated instances of violent behavior toward federal officers and property damage to a single building,” but those incidents do not appear to be backed by an “organized group engaged in armed hostilities for the purpose of overtaking an instrumentality of government by unlawful or antidemocratic means.”

“The majority of violence that did occur during this time period involved violence between protesters and counter-protesters and isolated sporadic incidents of low-level unlawful conduct,” the order read.

Oregon has argued federal agents used “disproportionate” force against demonstrators, introducing surveillance video at the trial to support the claim.

One exhibit appeared to show an agent running into a protester at full speed from behind and knocking the person to the ground. The video, taken in August and obtained by the Oregonian newspaper, did not show any provocation from the protester immediately before being hit.

Another video, from October 2, showed a protester who took a step across a line marking the ICE facility property immediately rushed by more than a dozen agents and taken into custody.

CNN reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on those videos. A government attorney argued at trial that protesters have exhibited “disturbingly intrusive behavior” and organized violence.

Nearly 250 arrests were made or citations issued against protesters at the ICE building between early June and mid-October, according to the FBI and Portland Police Bureau. It is not clear how many of those taken into custody have been charged with a crime.

Meanwhile, a separate Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing Trump to deploy the Oregon National Guard troops to Portland is being reconsidered “en banc” by a broader 11-judge panel. That case revolves around a now-frozen second order from Immergut that blocked the deployment of troops from Oregon. A date for the hearing was not set.

While 400 soldiers from Oregon and California together were federalized and sent to the greater Portland area, a Trump administration lawyer said in a previous hearing before the Ninth Circuit that the administration didn’t plan to deploy more than 200.

Oregon and Portland officials jointly sued on September 28 after Trump declared he was sending National Guard troops to the city, and Immergut’s two temporary orders blocking those efforts closely followed.

Then, the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel on October 20 issued a stay on Immergut’s first restraining order — a ruling that could have paved the way for a deployment as the legal battle played out. But the decision to have a new set of appeals judges rehear the case meant that the Trump administration was still barred from deploying troops.

Insights and surprises from the trial

The October trial Immergut presided over featured a surprising revelation: National Guard troops were on the ground at Portland’s ICE facility earlier last month even after the judge ordered them not to show up.

Though Immergut filed her restraining order at 3:40 p.m. PT on October 4, Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton told her as many as 10 soldiers were at the facility until midnight. Earlier, his colleague Jean Lin had said the troops were there until 2 a.m.

Hamilton argued it took time to implement the order. “My clients were working to end the mission,” he added.

The trial also provided insight on what federal and National Guard officials knew – and didn’t know – when Trump called for hundreds of troops to protect the ICE facility.

Top officials charged with the safety of the Portland ICE facility were not consulted before Trump ordered National Guard troops to Portland in September, a deputy regional director for the Federal Protective Service, identified in court by the initials R.C., said.

Testifying in court, R.C. stated he and his boss, the FPS regional director, were “surprised” by the order, which they had learned about on the news.

A fundamental disagreement from the trial was over how extreme the demonstrations were – and whether local law enforcement can handle them.

State and city attorneys argued a simmering protest scene only ramped up after Trump ordered Guard troops to enter Portland in late September, and while there had been “sporadic and inexcusable crimes” along with peaceful protests, they were nothing existing law enforcement couldn’t handle.

For months, the Trump administration has argued that federal agents face systematic disruption and assault from protesters which justifies a more forceful response.

“It is a frequent occurrence for agitators to carry bats, improvised weapons and shields,” Hamilton told the court. Protesters have displayed “disturbingly intrusive behavior” and organized violence, he said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s John Fritze, Dalia Faheid, Jason Kravarik, Elizabeth Wolfe and Andy Rose contributed to this report.