California's Chief Executive Gavin Newsom Files Lawsuit Targeting President Trump Regarding State Guard Deployment to Portland
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared this past Sunday that he is filing a lawsuit against President Trump over the reported dispatch of 300 Californian national guard members to the state of Oregon.
“The troops are currently en route,” the governor said in a press statement. “The Trump Administration is unapologetically undermining the judicial framework itself and enacting their harmful statements – defying court orders and considering judges, even presidential appointees, as foes.”
Legal Background and Federal Decision
This planned court challenge comes after a federal judge’s ruling that blocked the federal government from sending the Oregon national guard to Portland. US district judge Karin Immergut supported claims that it would escalate rather than reduce tensions in the urban area.
Immergut said in her ruling, which puts off deploying the guard until at least 18 October, that there was a lack of evidence that the recent protests in the city justified the action.
City Authorities React
The senior deputy attorney, the deputy attorney, commented that there had been an absence of violent incidents against immigration officials for months and that the latest demonstrations were “sedate” in the days before the president declared the metropolis to be a battlefield, sometimes featuring fewer than a dozen demonstrators.
“This issue goes beyond safety, it concerns authority,” Newsom said. “Legal action will be our response, but the people cannot stay silent in the wake of such irresponsible and dictatorial behavior by the nation's leader.”
Oregon Legal Chief Comments
In a statement online, the state's attorney general expressed that the government is “quickly assessing our options and preparing to take legal action.
“Donald Trump is obviously intent on using the armed forces in domestic metropolitan areas, without facts or authority to do so,” he wrote. “It is up to us and the courts to hold him accountable. That’s what we intend to do.”
National and State Response
State guard officials directed inquiries to the defense department. A official representative declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from the executive branch.
Broader Context
This development from the state came just a short time after Trump ordered the dispatch of state guard forces to the city of Chicago, the most recent in a string of similar actions across numerous American states.
Trump had initially revealed the proposal on the 27th of September, saying he was allowing complete use, should it be required” despite appeals from local leaders and the state’s congressional delegation, who reported there had been a solitary, uneventful protest outside a federal agency location.
Past Context
For years, Trump has amplified the storyline that Portland is a battle-scarred urban center with radicals engaging in unrest and criminal acts.
During his first term in 2020, he sent national troops to the city amid the protests over the killing by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The demonstrations expanded across the nation but were notably severe in that city. Regardless of rallies against Ice being modest in size in the state currently, Trump has cited them as a reason to deploy personnel.
Speaking online about the latest move from the President, Newsom stated: “This is shocking. It’s un-American, and action is needed to halt it.”