Why is Trump trying to deploy the National Guard to US cities?
Kayla Epstein
Why does Trump want to use the National Guard in Portland?
Trump is again seeking to use the National Guard to respond to demonstrations, after protests near an ICE building in Portland in early October.
Federal officers, including with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Patrol agency (CBP), clashed with demonstrators who opposed Trump's mass deportation initiative.
Trump has claimed the city is "burning down," but Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said "there is no insurrection in Portland, no threat to national security."
The Trump administration has moved to send 200 California National Guard troops to neighbouring Oregon to respond to the protests. But US District Judge Karin Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term, has temporarily blocked this.
On 4 October, Judge Immergut blocked Trump from federalising the Oregon National Guard.
"This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law," she wrote in her ruling. The next day, she issued a temporary restraining order against Trump deploying California's National Guard in Portland instead.
The Trump administration has appealed.
BBC
He's governing like the British or the US when invading foreign countries by sending forces from a different area or ethnicity to quell resistance in another. |
