Portland is bracing for the deployment of 200 national guard troops as Donald Trump moves ahead with plans to bring the US military into another Democratic-run city.
Oregon filed a lawsuit to block the deployment, which the state has warned will escalate tensions and lead to unrest when there is “no need or legal justification” to bring federal troops into Portland.
Trump on Saturday claimed Portland is “war ravaged” and that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facilities there are under attack, but there is no evidence of that and protests outside Ice sites have been small.
It is the latest development in Trump’s years-long fixation on the Pacific north-west city of 635,000 that extended through the president’s first term in the White House. The president has frequently sought to paint the city as out of control and, as he described in September, like “living in hell”.