A federal judge in Oregon on Wednesday extended two temporary restraining orders that block the Trump administration from federalizing and deploying national guard troops to Portland.
The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, extended by 14 days the orders which had been set to expire later this week, as a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals considers a government request to lift her first order, which said the president did not have the legal authority to take control of the Oregon national guard.
The extension maintains the status quo on the ground as Donald Trump’s administration and the state of Oregon wait for a ruling from the appeals court panel. Two judges on the panel were nominated by the president.
Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, ruled earlier this month Trump’s false claims about conditions in Portland resembling those in a war zone due to a small protest against immigration raids were “simply untethered to the facts”.
After Trump responded to the judge’s first order, blocking his attempt to deploy 200 federalized Oregon national guard troops to Portland, by sending federalized national guard troops from California to Oregon, Immergut issued a second order that barred the deployment of any national guard troops to the city.
Immergut has scheduled a non-jury trial to start on 29 October to determine whether to impose a longer-term block on the deployment of national guard troops to Portland, where protesters have rallied in their dozens outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office since June.
Immergut said on Wednesday the “most important thing here is what’s going on on the ground and whether it warrants the deployment that was ordered”.
A lawyer with the justice department during Wednesday’s hearing opposed Immergut extending her temporary restraining orders.
The government lawyer reportedly responded to the state of Oregon’s request for records of internal White House discussions that helped the president decide to send in troops to Portland by saying that Trump’s “deliberation” was carried out in public, in comments to reporters and on his social media platform.
