White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller railed against a Saturday ruling that temporarily blocked President Trump’s attempts to deploy 200 National Guard soldiers to Portland, Ore.
“Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge … ,” Miller, an architect of many Trump administration immigration policies, wrote in a Saturday statement on the social platform X.
He accused local law enforcement of failing to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers facing “relentless terrorist assault.”
“This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself,” he added in the weekend post.
Hours prior, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, said there was ultimately no need for troops in Portland, siding with the state’s argument that the president’s attempt to deploy soldiers was “based largely on a fictional narrative” about public safety in the city.
In her Saturday ruling, Immergut agreed that the president is “certainly entitled” to a great level of deference but said that is not equivalent to “ignoring the facts on the ground.”
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” the judge wrote.
In recent months, Trump has deployed soldiers to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C., and said boots would soon be on the ground in Chicago — all of which are Democratic-led cities.
Local elected officials have urged the president not to do so, citing increased fear and protest outbreaks.
In late September, Oregon officials filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops in Portland. Immergut then issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday, which is set to expire in 14 days.
The block could be extended ahead of the trial date scheduled for Oct. 29.
