US appeals court says Trump can send soldiers to Portland, Oregon

Despite the absence of a serious emergency and the opposition of state and local officials, a court of appeals has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration can continue with its plans to send soldiers to Portland, Oregon.

The Trump administration will be able to dispatch 200 National Guard personnel to the Democratic-run city following a ruling from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court on Monday.

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The three-judge panel stated that “we can conclude that the President likely exercised his statutory authority lawfully when he federalized the state’s National Guard.”

In addition to aggressive immigration raids where heavily-armed federal agents wearing masks have escorted people off the streets in order to demand that they prove their legal status, the Trump administration has deployed armed forces to Democratic-run cities across the country.

Civil liberties organizations have accused immigration agents of operating based on racial profiling and holding people without justification during those raids, which also involved a large number of US citizens.

The court’s decision disappointed the ACLU, which is headquartered in Los Angeles.

The director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, Hina Shamsi, said in a statement that “the founders stressed that domestic deployment of troops should be reserved for rare, extreme emergencies as a last resort.”

The presence of troops in otherwise beautiful, vibrant American cities undermines the fundamental freedoms of assembly and opposition.

Despite the absence of any significant crisis in the city, the Trump administration claims that protesters are “war-ravaged” by Portland and are putting pressure on immigration enforcement measures. Trump and his allies frequently used flimsy claims of emergency as a pretext to elicit extraordinary powers both domestically and internationally.

Demonstrators have wore costumes and blasting music while protesting outside immigration offices. Federal employees have been accused of using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators.

After casting the dissenting vote, Circuit Judge Susan Graber wrote that the majority’s decision, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, was merely absurd. “Because Portland protesters are known for their penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], observers may be tempted to view the panel’s decision as absurd.