The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked an order prohibiting federal agents from using crowd control munitions on protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon.
The 2-1 panel decision, issued on Wednesday, intervenes in two separate federal cases, with two Trump-appointed judges, Kenneth Lee and Eric Tung, granting the Trump administration administrative stays. Judge Ana De Alba dissented.
An administrative stay is intended to “minimize harm while an appellate court deliberates” and lasts “no longer than necessary to make an intelligent decision on the motion for stay pending appeal,” as stated in the order.
The decision comes just days before the nationwide “No Kings” protests, a coordinated left-wing event that led to the siege of the ICE facility twice last year: in June and again in October. Riots were declared at both of those events.
On March 9, US District Court Judge Michael Simon issued a preliminary injunction barring federal law enforcement officers from deploying less-lethal rounds on protesters, unless there is an “imminent threat” to officer safety. This includes chemical or projectile munitions, such as tear gas, pepper balls, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, pepper or oleoresin capsicum spray, and other less-lethal weapons. The ruling followed a three-day evidentiary hearing, in which Judge Simon sided with a group of Antifa-affiliated protesters in Dickinson v Trump.
The plaintiffs, led by Jack Dickinson, also known as the “Portland Chicken,” claimed that federal officers were violating their First Amendment rights through the “unlawful” use of crowd control measures, which were meant to have a “chilling” effect on demonstrators to discourage them from returning to the ICE facility to protest, thus violating their rights through “retaliatory animus.”
Hellbound and Down 