President Donald Trump authorized the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago on Saturday, marking the latest escalation of the his use of federal intervention in cities.
But the same day, a similar mobilization of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon was temporarily blocked after a federal judge found President Donald Trump was likely overstepping his legal authority in responding to relatively small protests near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.
Trump voiced his frustration on Sunday morning about the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, who he appointed during his first term, that is preventing him as of now from deploying troops to Portland.
“I wasn’t served well by the people that picked judges,” Trump said, adding that the judge “ought to be ashamed of herself” because “Portland is burning to the ground.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorized using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.
Trump has characterized both Portland and Chicago as cities rife with crime and unrest, calling the former a “war zone” and suggesting apocalyptic force was needed to quell problems in the latter. Since the start of his second term, he has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore, Maryland; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But the governors of Illinois and Oregon see the deployments differently. “This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek talked to Trump in late September and said the deployment was unnecessary. She refused to call up any Oregon National Guard troops, so Trump did so himself in an order to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. That prompted the lawsuit from city and state officials.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a memo that also directs component agencies within the Justice Department, including the FBI, to help protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, including in Chicago and Portland.
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