Oct. 6 (UPI) — President Donald Trump told reporters Monday he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act to send National Guard troops into Portland, one day after a federal judge blocked the administration’s mobilization for a second time.
Trump planned to send 200 National Guard troops from California to Oregon to prevent protesters from confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the Oregon city, where he claimed there was a “criminal insurrection.”
“You look at what’s happening with Portland over the years, it’s a burning hell hole,” Trump told reporters, who had gathered in the Oval Office at the White House. “And then you have a judge that lost her way that tries to pretend that there’s no problem.”
“I’d do it if it was necessary. So far, it hasn’t been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump said. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. I mean, I want to make sure people aren’t killed.”
The Insurrection Act is a federal law, enacted in 1807, that allows the president to deploy the U.S. military to stop what the president considers to be a “criminal insurrection” against the United States.
On Sunday night, U.S. Judge Karin Immergut issued an order to block the administration from sending any National Guard troops to Portland, accusing the feds of circumventing her previous order.
Immergut wrote that the protests outside of Portland’s ICE facility did not pose a risk of rebellion, which made the deployment of federal troops illegal.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote. The U.S. Justice Department has appealed the judge’s earlier ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the Trump administration has been dealing with a “legal insurrection against the laws and Constitution of the United States.”
“We need to have district courts in this country that see themselves as being under the laws and Constitution and not being able to take for themselves powers that are reserved solely for the president,” Miller added.
Trump has used the National Guard to address what he deems to be uncontrolled crime in other cities, including in Washington, D.C., where a deployment in August reduced violent crime by 49% and carjackings by 83%, according to data from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
The White House is also targeting Chicago for troop deployment. The city and the state of Illinois sued the administration Monday, claiming deployment of the National Guard would “infringe on Illinois’ sovereignty and right to self-governance.”