Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from deploying troops in Portland, Oregon

A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked President Donald Trump"s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland, ruling Saturday in a lawsuit brought by the state and city, Report informs via the AP News.

US District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order pending further arguments in the suit. She said the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon"s state sovereignty.

"This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs," Immergut wrote. She later continued, "This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law."

The Trump administration late Saturday filed a notice of appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

State and city officials sued to stop the deployment last week, one day after the Trump administration announced that 200 Oregon National Guard troops would be federalized to protect federal buildings. The president called the city "war-ravaged."

Oregon officials said that characterization was ludicrous. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city has been the site of nightly protests that typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.

Generally speaking the president is allowed "a great level of deference" to federalize National Guard troops in situations where regular law enforcement forces are not able to execute the laws of the United States, the judge said, but that has not been the case in Portland.

Plaintiffs were able to show that the demonstrations at the immigration building were not significantly violent or disruptive ahead of the president"s order, the judge wrote, and "overall, the protests were small and uneventful."

"The President"s determination was simply untethered to the facts," Immergut wrote.